Miami Beach, FL, has for a long time been associated with heavily-oiled narcissists, and today was certainly no exception. The beach was thrown into chaos as, during the filming of a promotional piece for the new film, the entire cast of Baywatch were doused in crude oil leaking from a stricken tanker.
The day had, prior to this, largely been progressing without incident. A gaggle of fans had gathered around the cordoned off section of beach where the stars were filming. A team of well-drilled security guards were controlling the fray, moving any of the more explicitly lecherous or seedy fans to a dedicated quarantine zone where a team of counsellors were trying to gently highlight the profound tragedy of actually travelling to a beach in the hope of ogling some scantily clad celebrities; that is after all surely robbing the Daily Mail website of its only raison d’etre.
Yet, as the day progressed toward completion of the final scene, and the cameras pointed towards Dwayne Johnson, majestically bursting forth from the waves, torso glistening, like some sort of burly dolphin- with an extensive background in professional wrestling- disaster struck. A large tanker anchored near the beach, suddenly listed and capsized, thick black oil leaking from the tear in its hull. Panic quickly spread, but the oil spread quicker through the frenzied waves, and it was not long before the entire cast, frantically swimming to shore, were coated in the viscous gloop.
Helicopters soon arrived and a tiered, emergency evacuation was put in place whereby the cast would, in order of net worth, and thus importance, be air-lifted from the site of the disaster to hospital.
David Hasselhoff, despite not being involved in the filming or the incident, upon hearing of it, hitch-hiked straight to the decontamination centres in the hopes of receiving a free wash.
“It was amazing!” said Barney Guthbie, an incredibly oily extra, “As he was getting out of the water, Dwayne Johnson, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, actually spat in my face. He spat crude oil in my face. Wait ’til my wife hear’s about this! Now we’ll see whose decision to become an actor has been ‘remarkably mis-guided and shows no signs of ever leading to a viable career’!”
At this point an announcement was made that no more of the remaining cast and crew- mostly extras and show-runners by this stage- would be air-lifted to hospital as Dwayne Johnson’s production company would no longer be footing the bill for the helicopters. They would all thus have to arrange their own transportation to hospital. “Wow,” muttered Barney Guthbie, as he began dragging himself toward a bus stop, “Dwayne Johnson, an announcement from Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson”.
Information has since come to light that the disaster may not have been accidental. A lone radicalised life-guard, Eugene Purvis, has claimed responsibility for sinking the tanker. Purvis, a naturally beefy man, stated that this was merely the beginning of a project to disrupt the eroticisation of life-guards in the media, which would be enacted through a series of similarly massive ecological disasters.
“The kind of unreasonable body-images that Baywatch has been promoting for members of my profession has simply got to end.” Began Purvis in a statement released to the press. “I am sick of seeing the look of disappointment on the faces of the drowning as I swim up to them and they realise they’re not being saved by Pamela Anderson or Zac Efron but instead by someone who, yes, has a slightly above-average BMI, but who is nonetheless equally qualified to save lives in the sea. Unless Baywatch, and society in general, normalise their expectations for what a life-guard realistically looks like, I will strike again. Also I fucking hate most seabirds, so taking some of them out with this, has been an added bonus.”