Friday, July 25, 2003
Perhaps by now, many of us computer users have seen this kid's video - the overweight fellow who had a video of himself doing a sort of solo Jedi light-sabre act leaked to the web. Yet another person caught doing something hella embarrassing on the internet. Original video and spawned parodies here.
I'm posting that because he's now become very, very public anyway, and I doubt this will do him much harm, besides, I'm fairly sympathetic of the kid.
Well, now his folks are suing the kids who leaked the video.
The Sun Newspaper Online - Star Wars kid strikes back
A BOY known to internet users worldwide as Star Wars Kid is suing classmates for making him a laughing stock.
Tubby Ghyslain Raza, 15, made a film of himself prancing around with a mock up Star Wars light sabre.
But school pals got hold of the tape he made for a school project which shows him taking part in a pretend battle.
They released a two-minute clip on to the internet.
Millions of people downloaded it and doctored versions have appeared with special effects on a string of sites.
One shows geeky Ghyslain moving at fast-forward speed to the Benny Hill theme tune.
Ghyslain, of Trois-Rivires, Canada, claims he has been teased so much he has dropped out of school and needs psychiatric treatment.
He is claiming £140,000 damages from four schoolmates.
His family’s lawsuit states: “Ghyslain had to endure, and still endures harassment and derision from high school mates and the public.”
If I were writing the story, I would have my protagonist sink into the depths of humiliation and despair. He would disappear into his room and not be seen anywhere for months, the rumor being that his parents had actually sent him off to a boarding school in another county.
In fact, what actually was happening was that he was taking the whole incident as an opportunity to motivate himself. He'd go on a crash-diet and weight-lifting routine. He'd seek private lessons in Wushu and learn one kick-ass staff form.
Then, at a special, unexpected school assembly, with all the school looking on, the curtains would part, and there would be our hero - looking good - slim and trim. Then he'd punch out the most kick-ass, acrobatic Kung-Fu staff performance this side of a Chinese Opera at the conclusion of which the entire school, outside the four horses asses who had tormented him throughout the film, (who would be sitting in embarrassed humiliated silence) would stand and burst into thundering, cheering applause.
Then, George Lucas himself would walk out on stage and announce that he would be giving the kid a walk-on in the next Star Wars picture at which point even one of the "four jerks" would (the one who we made sure we had shown having second thoughts throughout) join in with the standing ovation.
Cue credits.
That's the fantasy. But I can't quite get past the image of this kid, who's probably got some social problems, being absolutely humiliated by what's going on. I imagine he's not anywhere near equipped to make the best of it (he certainly doesn't have athletics to teach him competitiveness), and here are his parents watching their boy, who they're already worried about, now coming home and locking himself in his room, and they want to do something, anything to feel like they're doing something, anything to help him.
Now, I don't know if a lawsuit is really the way to go, my knee jerk reaction is to scoff at it, and that's probably right, but the more I think about it, the less I care what happens. I dunno. It's certainly a new world where people can get humiliated on a massive scale and we'd all better start learning to cope with it. I know some of those spoofs were pretty funny, but some had some stuff in there that was pretty hurtful, and that made me wish a hearty "fuck you" to whoever made them.
Update: OK, I got carried away a bit at the end, but grrr...kids can be cruel.
