Are You Shot?
an Iraqi Reality Hit
ABC scores with controversial Middle East reality show
JUNIOR BACON
Contestants vie for prizes and medical attention on ABC’s newest reality show
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The most recent Nielsen ratings released Monday confirm the surprising success of ABC’s controversial new show, Are You Shot?, an unscripted reality program featuring former soap opera star Lorenzo Lamas and a panel of judges critiquing the injuries suffered by American GIs and civilians in post-war Iraq.
Critics and social commentators have savaged the program ever since it rose from the ashes of ABC’s ill-fated reality dud Are You Hot? The Search for America's Sexiest People, which was cancelled earlier this year due to lukewarm ratings and a lawsuit by radio shock jock Howard Stern. Despite claims that the new show (which features Lamas detailing puss-soaked head wounds and missing limbs with a laser pointer) is in appallingly bad taste and degrades the whole of humanity, U.S. viewers can’t get enough.
“I always want to keep up on what’s going on over there in Iraq, but it can be so tough,” explained avid viewer and bakery assistant Megan Herbert. “One minute we’re the bad guys, then the good guys, then the bad guys again, then a deli blows up. I like it better when there’s points and we can see who’s winning.”
Producers set up the show by dividing Iraq into twelve different “Hell Zones,” geographical regions from which contestants would be drawn. Each episode of the show focuses on contestants from a different zone, with viewers voting over the Internet on which challenger had been most severely fucked-up as a result of the ongoing U.S. occupation.
Early episodes of the show have scored Nielsen ratings as high as 26.3, besting such popular reality staples as Temptation Island and Oops, I Ate Your Dog. Such a surprising early success has ABC executives buzzing about possible record ratings for the planned season finale in the “Hell Zone” of the Sunni Triangle. Thus far, the Nielsen Media Research corporation has been unable to track accurate ratings for the show in Iraq itself, due to the small number of working televisions in the country which haven’t been either kicked in or bartered for food.
On top of suggesting that the show devalues human suffering and takes too long to get to the good gory parts, critics have also slammed Are You Shot? for extending the career of celebrity waste-of-space Lorenzo Lamas, who until recently was making ends meet lending his talents to a celebrity prank-calling service.
“Sure, some people may argue that the show is in poor taste,” admitted Lamas, while compulsively highlighting this reporter’s papercut with his laser pointer. “But America has always thrived on raising poor taste to the level of an art form. Without our example, the rest of the world would have no way of knowing when the bottom of the barrel has been scraped.”
“Hold on a second,” Lamas interrupted, glancing at his watch as he dialed a cell phone. “Hello, this is Lorenzo Lamas, from Falcon Crest. Do you have Prince Albert in a can? No, no, that’s Prince Harry. No, I don’t think he would actually fit in a can. Yes, he is quite adorable. Uh-huh, you’re right on that. Okay. Okay, thank you. Goodbye.”
the commune news has launched its own in-office reality show, Are You Shit?, which amounts to little more than an ongoing staff roast aided by Boris Utzov’s confiscated laser pointer, but it passes the time. commune foreign correspondent Ivan Nacutchacokov didn’t actually need to travel to Iraq to cover this story, but we thought it’d be funnier to tell him that when he got back.
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