UnNews:US cable network green-lights Despots Palace Wives
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| US cable network green-lights Despots Palace Wives | 
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16 February 2011
LOS ANGELES, California -- U.S. cable TV network Starz Entertainment has confirmed it intends to film a new, topical television series Despots Palace Wives. Set in a gold-plated gated community in Saudi Arabia, the show will feature money, sex, adultery, stoning and amputations, as the wives of deposed dictators and presidents adjust to their new circumstances.
Loosely inspired by Desperate Housewives, the show will be narrated from the perspective of the dead despot, the disrespected Elena Ceausescu who was shot by the Romanian army in the 1989 revolution. Her neighbours include Imelda Marcos living in a shoe shaped chateau, Tunisia's former First Lady Leila Ben Ali in a mansion made of gold brick and the Bunga-bunga villa stuffed full of young women ready to fly back to Italy to see their 'daddy' Silvio Berlusconi. Guest stars slated to appear in the show are Michelle Obama, Cherie Blair, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the CIA, MI6, Kleptomaniacs Not Anonymous and many others who will want to pay Starz not to be seen in this series under any guise.
We have a fantastic cast and don't need to hire expensive writers to fill in much with this TV series, said John 'Spartacus' Sie, President of Starz Entertainment. It is set in Saudia Arabia but of course to get all the gory/sex stuff filmed, we had to shoot it in the National Hobbit Theme Park in New Zealand. Whereas that other show (Desperate Housewives) was full of tease and no delivery, this will be full of money shots as the despots have sex on beds of gold coins with their lovers. It will also feature plenty of slow-motion blood letting as some of the more unwise wives try to return to their home countries to pick up any loose change they have left behind.
In the double-length first episode, Suzanne Muburak is seen climbing over the fence with 97 pieces of Egyptian-flagged luggage. With her is Asama Assad (wife of the Syrian dictator Bashar 'Mr Beanpole' al-Assad) and Queen Rania of Jordan (an example of 'forward thinking' according to the press release) as they try and find an empty palace to hide in on the compound. Leading the local committee to get them thrown is Grace Mugabe, wife of Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe.
The idea behind the show has already earned us a lot of money, said Sie. We are expecting this show will be very popular worldwide, and will have a strong political message: Dictatorships and credit cards go together but only long as you remain a friend of the USA.
Sources[edit]
- Brian Palmer "Bunga-bunga". Slate, February 16, 2011
- Nesrine Malik "Queens of the Middle East". The Guardian, February 15, 2011