Have you or your kids played Angry Birds yet?
In the video game, pigs have taken eggs from a bird’s nest.
You use a slingshot to hurl birds in a suicide mission to try to take out the
pigs.
With a reported 300 million downloads, Angry Birds has
become so mainstream culturally that you can buy stuffed animals bearing the
likeness of these cartoon birds and pigs made famous by a game that originally
was available only on smartphones.
Earlier this year, a new video game in the style of Angry
Birds and similar phone applications was launched. Smuggle Truck, which is set in the desert, puts
the game player in the role of a pickup truck driver crossing a “fictional
border” though desert wasteland and through tunnels without losing the
immigrants in the back of the bouncing vehicle. Along the way, the immigrants
fall out and are apparently killed.
“Oh, they’re all dead,” a grown man whines while playing the
game in a video posted on the Smuggle Truck website.
At the risk of sounding preachy, I have to wonder what this
game says about us as a society. What does it take to entertain us? Are we
supposed to laugh with our kids about a cartoon immigrant falling out of a
truck and dying?
The game’s makers have characterized the game as being a
social commentary on our current immigration situation. They explain that after
watching a friend’s immigration attempts, they figured it would be easier to be
smuggled into the U.S.
This prompted the game. Somehow, I just don’t find smuggling
humans amusing enough to be quality entertainment.
Apparently neither did Apple. The game was rejected by Apple
when submitted for approval to be sold for the iPhones and iPads. Now if only
other operating system providers such as Android will do the same.
Smuggling is so prevalent that Texas has mounted its Texas
Hold ‘Em campaign to warn American drivers. Groups such as Truckers Against Trafficking
have highlighted good things truckers have done to combat trafficking and
smuggling of prostitutes, many of whom are under 18.
I’m sure no one laughed when reading real-life stories about
smuggling. Click here, here
and here
to read about three such stories.
In May, Mexican authorities stopped
trucks carrying 513 illegal immigrants headed to the U.S. from as far away
as Guatemala, Central America and Asia.
I won’t be downloading Smuggle Trucks.
