15 June 2010

Baywatch

Fantasy lifeguards look hot in the sun

 

The cast of Baywatch hangs out on a lifeguard tower and truck.

The cast of Baywatch hangs out on a lifeguard tower and truck.

By Chester Pach

This essay is excerpted from Pop Culture versus Real America, published by the Bureau of International Information Programs. A profile of real lifeguards appears here.

As a youth, President Ronald Reagan was a lifeguard who saved 77 people from drowning at Lowell Park in Dixon, Illinois. Yet Reagan achieved far less fame for his heroics than Mitch Buchannon and C.J. Parker, members of the Baywatch crew at Malibu Beach in California. Baywatch became the most popular television show in history. During the mid-1990s, it aired in 140 countries and attracted more than 1 billion viewers. Millions of people still watch reruns of the program.

Why has Baywatch been so popular? Perhaps it’s because of the bravery of C.J., Mitch and the other lifeguards. Often ignoring their own safety, they rescued swimmers from riptides, sharks and other perils, using their own strength and speed in the water, as well as speedboats and helicopters, to save lives.

Maybe it’s because the Baywatch crew made fearless efforts to protect the gorgeous waters off the California coast for swimming and surfing. In one episode, Mitch was poisoned when he swam in contaminated waters. C.J. and her friends traced the chemical to a seedy business engaged in illegal offshore dumping. She saved Mitch’s life and put the polluters out of business. The “green” values of the Baywatch lifeguards may explain their popularity.

Or perhaps so many people enjoy Baywatch because of the fitness of the lifeguards. Mitch, C.J. and their co-workers made strenuous efforts to keep in shape. Many episodes showed slow-motion scenes of them exercising or running on the beach. Often they wore tight, brief swimsuits that revealed muscled thighs, ripped abdominals or impressive chests. C.J. and her friends were in such extraordinary condition that their appearance could fool beachgoers.

Once when two of the women in the Baywatch crew asked a photographer to move down the beach to a safer area, he looked at them and declared, “These are models.”

“No,” they replied. “We’re lifeguards.”

Chester Pach teaches history at Ohio University, where he holds the title of Outstanding Graduate Faculty Member. He is the author of three books on U.S. politics and foreign policy. His next book, which will soon be published by the University Press of Kansas, is The Presidency of Ronald Reagan.

(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://www.america.gov)