In Iraq, a different kind of reality TV
Nada Bakri had an interesting article for the Washington Post yesterday on the latest popular TV shows among the denizens of Baghdad’s cafes:
It was time for “Dar Dour,” one of more than a dozen Iraqi TV shows that run only during Ramadan, the month when Muslims fast from dawn until sunset.
Ramadan shows — broadcast after iftar, the traditional meal that breaks the fast — are nothing new. . . . But this year, the most popular programs here break with the usual Ramadan fare of formulaic sitcoms and dramas. Instead, they seek humor in Iraq’s precarious — often traumatic — postwar life, with its endemic corruption and violence, rising prices and hours of electricity as short as traffic jams are long.
“I only watch Iraqi series,” Mohammad said as the power went off and the screen went black. “Only those shows know what we have to endure.”
“Dar Dour” is perhaps the most popular of these distinctly Iraqi dark comedies.
Produced by al-Sharqiya, an independent Iraqi satellite TV network based in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, it chronicles the days of Abu Wardeh, a helpless man who struggles to make ends meet. . . .
In almost every episode, a policeman stops Abu Wardeh, then arrests him. The charges are always ludicrous: polluting the air, riding his motorcycle without wearing a seat belt, making too much noise and distracting other drivers. And every charge leads to a dialogue with an official that soon turns into a monologue in which Abu Wardeh lists everything that is wrong with Baghdad today: congested traffic, pollution, poverty, unemployment, corruption, bombings, assassinations and the U.S. occupation.
“I’m innocent,” he declares at the end of each monologue.
. . . ”It is a reflection of everything that goes on in Iraq today,” Jalal Naji, a 27-year-old teacher, said as he waited with friends in another cafe for the next program to begin. “The plot, the problems, the events, the people — it is almost like real life.”
. . . Another Ramadan hit here is “Who Will Win the Oil?,” an Iraqi parody of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” The show, produced by al-Sharqiya, was filmed in Cairo but features only Iraqis. The seats and tables are in the shape of oil barrels. The prizes start with five liters — just over a gallon — of oil for the right answer to the first question. Blond women dance to the show’s opening song. “The oil of the people is not for the people,” they sing. “It’s for the thieves.”
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have nothing on these guys. Then again, I’m sure they’re grateful not to have the Iraqis’ wealth of bleak comedic material to work with.