A new Iraqi television show, “Hurry Up, He’s Dead,” has been winning over the war-torn country over the past month with nightly parodies of the nation’s devastating political and security situation.
Wearing a giant Afro wig and star-shaped sunglasses, the show’s host, Saad Khalifa, pokes fun at nearly every party involved in the devastating situation faced by the country with a comedy broadcast of the day’s latest news throughout Iraq, according to the New York Times.
Those targeted in the new show, which last some 20 minutes every night, include nearly everyone on the political spectrum, including the American military, the Iraqi government, as well as Iraqi resistance fighters.
While most Iraqis face a grim reality of destruction and lack of basic services, such television shows have been extremely popular ever since the beginning of the current war and the fall of Saddam Hussein.
In one recent episode, Khalifa informed the audience that “Rums bin Feld” had revealed that US troops would be leaving Iraq, which they have occupied since 2003, on 1/1, or the first of January. A moment later, he realized that he had misread his report, and that the troops would in fact be leaving “one-by-one,” a rate which would end the current occupation some 600 years from now.
In another report, Khalifa announces that the Iraqi Ministry of Water and Sewage had decided to change its name to the ‘Ministry of Sewage’ instead, since it had completely given up on the water part.
Serious business
Despite the show’s humor, however, “Hurry Up, He’s Dead” has a serious message. “The purpose of the show is to fix Iraq,” said Khalifa, who taped the shows initially in Dubai for safety reasons.
“We want to fix the civil services. We want to fix the government officials. We want to fix the relationships between people. We want to fix the government and stop the corruption,” he added.
Meanwhile, both the serious underlying messages as well as the program’s humor are only gaining in popularity amongst Iraqis.
Speaking on the importance of such a program currently in Iraq, one 21 year-old resident of Baghdad who identified herself as Silvana told reporters, “We need fun in our lives because of our tragic circumstances.”
“Most of the channels focus on the violence, the bodies. But this program depicts our tragedies in a funny light,” Silvana added, pointing out that she and her family watch the show every night—so long as electricity is maintained in their neighborhood.
