For several weeks during Ramadan, Nessma TV, a private television company, received a lot of criticism for its new hidden camera programme “Angelina-19”. The presenter is an Angelina Jolie lookalike, Lina Sands, and the subject is the coronavirus vaccination campaign.
The show is set in a busy vaccination room where Ms. Sands, pretending to be Ms. Jolie, who is also a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, announces she is offering vaccinations with the endorsement of the World Health Organization. Each week she invites a different Tunisian personality to set an example by agreeing to be vaccinated in front of those waiting. But “Angelina-19” is pretty heavy-handed with its guest:
According to NeonMag, the presenter “accompanied by a cardiologist, asks the personality if they will promote the vaccination campaign by being vaccinated on camera. Then someone in the room who has apparently just been vaccinated keels over as if dead. Then all the “newly vaccinated” people start complaining of severe side effects. Which of course panics the guest, who’s just been injected with the same “vaccine”. Until an actor, disguised as a character from La casa de papel, reveals it is all a hoax.”
But it’s a joke which doesn’t amuse Tunisian doctors, or the real World Health Organisation. Both warn about the programme’s potentially harmful effect on the vaccination campaign, in a country where people are already reticent about being vaccinated.
Tunisia’s WHO representative, Yves Souteyrand, has called for the programme to be suspended since it “seriously contravenes the image of UN organizations, by associating them with a counterproductive parody of vaccination”. He also denounces “the programme’s misuse of the WHO’s logo and flag.”
For more information on the audiovisual news in Tunisia, click here.
Sources: courrierinternational.com, businessnews.com.tn, businessnews.com.tn, huffingtonpost.fr , neongmag.fr
