Megaman vs Polish immigrant
I want to talk today about new ways of expressing opinions and reaching to people using example of a tragic accident which happened last year in Canada.
On October 14, 2007, Robert Dziekanski, 40 years old Polish immigrant who arrived at the Vancouver International Airport has died shortly after being tesered and subdued by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) after waiting 10 hours at the airport and becaming visibly agitated. According to police Dziekanski “continued to throw things around and yell and scream”, after the arrival of the police officers, which was later revealed to be false in the video. RCMP was heavily criticized for providing a false version of events prior to the public release of the video. It was very unfamous incident which triggered big debate concerning police use of tasers and about the way how RCMP handled the situation. Just to mention that Dziekanski has been teasered second time after failling to the ground which completely doesn’t make any sence to me. Some eyewitnesses claim that he has been tesered as many as four times.
Couple of days ago this case came back to the headlines again. This time because of a video which appeared on YouTube that “parodies” the incident. The video, created by Vancouver resident Mike Greenway, titled Megaman vs. Polish Immigrant shows the 1980s video game character Megaman tasering an opponent (Mr. Dziekanski) after choosing option “Taser Mercilessly”.
As we could expect the reaction to the video was mixed. Media in Canada and Poland has been indignant at the video calling it more than offensive. Similarly a spokesman for the RCMP said he found the video offensive blaming the online culture for emerging such thing on the Internet: “Any right-thinking person who would look at the video would be offended by that. A gentlemen lost his life and it is in extremely poor taste” said sgt. John Ward. Lost his life? Hmmm… Rather you took it. On the other hand there are opinions that the video in the form of parody is really a statement on police taser use, not a cheap entertainment for crowds. The author Mike Greenway said that “The video that I made is a tongue-in-cheek parody about the incompetence of everyone involved, not police brutality.”
Why then that video has been so controversial? Because it’s been intended to be. Someone could say that Greenway crossed a border of a good taste when he has chosen the infantile form of an old game to make a comment on that event. But to make a point we have to reach sometimes for such tools to trigger discussion, to be controversial in sake of reaching bigger audience. I am really happy to live in current times when everyone via forums, blogs, videos, twitts etc. has a chance of forming independent thoughts and independent conversations. A spokeswoman for the Polish Embassy in Canada, Marta Grywalska said: “The public was disturbed by the event. This is how the subculture reacted to it”. Well said. But it is not a subculture anymore. We have own voice. We are the mainstream now.
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