Reality shows have now made parody impossible, because absolutely nothing is too exploitive, voyeuristic, disgusting, degrading or wrong to form the basis of a series, as long as people will watch it, and there is profit to be made. Nevertheless, in my continuing effort to at least chronicle the decline of decency and civilization without being able to stop it, Ethics Alarms will continue to throw ethics flags at the worst of the worst.

This brings us to the topic of  “I Wanna Marry ‘Harry’,” the latest offal in this genre from Fox. You may recall “Joe Millionaire,” though if you do, I have less respect for you, an earlier Fox reality dump in which a non-rich actor tricked gold-digging women into competing to win his love as he posed as a young tycoon. After the winner had fallen for “Joe” hard, he revealed that he was just a lovable working stiff—well, worse, really…an actor—and the audience got to see how the woman reacted. So many healthy relationships arise out of fraud and lies, after all. Well, that wasn’t despicable enough fr Fox, so now we have this:

“‘Harry'” flew twelve attractive, hot, apparently brain-damaged women who will believe anything all the way to Great Britain, where they think they will be competing to become British royalty by marrying Prince Harry, who has, they have been told, agreed to leave his choice of a royal mate and potential consort to the King up to an American reality show. How dim does someone have to be to believe this set up? IQ 90, maybe?  80? 43? Admittedly, 90 might actually enhance the average mental acuity of the royal line, but still, the show should be titled “Laugh at the Greedy Bimbos.”  In truth, the contestants are  vying for the attentions of a Prince Harry look-a-like named Matthew Hicks, who completely debases himself by participating in this exercise in cruelty and tastelessness.

Oh, I can believe some of the women or even all of them know this is a stunt, in which case the whole thing is fake. If they aren’t really fooled, and the only ones being scammed are the Fox viewers, who richly deserves it for enabling what they hope is a miserable, dishonest trick being played on trusting, dumb as hammers young women with no self respect but delusions of grandeur, a bad combination. At the end of the series, the “winner” will discover that her idiocy and gullibility has been turned into amusement for the masses, and that she isn’t going to get to live the life of a princess. With any luck, she’ll snap right on the set and crush Hicks’ windpipe on live TV.

Think of the ratings!

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Pointer, Sources and Graphics: Mediaite