Kobe in Call of Duty: Black Ops commercial

amaru · Nov 5, 2010

Lol Kobe w/ the noob tube

dantonv08 · Nov 19, 2010

Can't believe they're making a big deal out of this..

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/commentary/news/story?page=keown/101116

Todd Walker was working in the mortuary Monday, preparing the

body of a 14-year-old boy, a kid he'd coached in youth football for five years,

for a funeral later this week. Larry Malik Grayson was shot in the head two

days after his last freshman football game at Berkeley (Calif.) High School. It

happened at a friend's house. Somehow a gun appeared and Malik died. The

shooting may have been accidental. The details seem unimportant, but the

senselessness isn't and neither is the frequency. Too many lives are being lost

or changed because of guns. Too many kids -- good kids, kids who play

football or baseball or basketball, kids who go to school and try to do right --

are dying on the streets of places like Berkeley and Oakland. [+] Enlarge

Ethan Miller/Getty Images The seventh installment of the video game hit the

market last week. One of Walker's nephews, a 13-year-old, was shot in

Oakland earlier this year when someone fired into his house. He survived, but

is now blind. Walker prepared the body of another of his former Berkeley Junior

Bears football players last month, a 15-year-old. There was a 13-year-old

track star shot and killed as he just walked down the street less than a week

before he was to start at Skyline High School. Walker's heart breaks and his

anger rises. As a youth football coach and funeral-home worker, he fights the

gun culture and the death culture. He fights the pervasiveness that threatens

to turn youth gun violence into just another annoyance of modern life, along

the lines of a dropped phone call or a pothole. He tries to use sports to create

a positive alternative. And then last week, he went home and was watching a

game when a new commercial for "Call of Duty: Black Ops" came on his

television. Seen through Walker's eyes, the content was bad enough. A

woman in high heels, a hotel concierge, a guy in a fast-food worker's outfit --

they're all shooting automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades in an

urban warfare setting. He was already disgusted, but about halfway through

the spot, Walker did a double take: Wait! Wasn't that Kobe Bryant? Seriously,

is that really Kobe Bryant carrying an assault weapon with the word "MAMBA"

on the barrel? Did Kobe Bryant, the highest-paid player in the NBA, take

money not only to advertise a shooting game but actually shoot -- or simulate

shooting -- an automatic weapon while doing it? None of his people, not his

wife or his agent or someone in the NBA offices, advised him against this? "I

couldn't believe it was him," Walker says. "What's wrong with him?" Tim

Keown/ESPN.com Todd Walker uses his mortuary job to scare his youth

football players straight. Kobe's presence in the ad isn't helping. Walker gives

funeral-home tours to every team he coaches. He tries to hammer home the

reality of death by putting kids in cardboard cremation boxes. He shows them

the tools he uses to drain bodily fluids and the chemicals he uses to prepare

bodies. It probably wouldn't play in the suburbs, but Walker's trying to fight a

culture that glamorizes death with tattoos, airbrushed T-shirts and roadside

memorials. He's fighting a culture that has desensitized death to the point

where fantasy has overtaken reality. In the process, the permanence of

death -- "That person is gone," Walker tells the kids when he closes someone

inside the box -- is often lost. Those responses might be coping mechanisms

or a natural defense against the reality of a situation that some deem

hopeless, but Walker fights anyway. The glamorization troubles him. The lack

of shock troubles him. He thinks people who don't value death are less likely

to value life. And then he sees Kobe shooting an assault weapon on TV, along

with Jimmy Kimmel and those other "ordinary" people, including an overweight

girl wearing glasses and a revenge-is-mine smile as she fires into a building.

(She's apparently in the throes of a self-esteem bump, but it doesn't take

much of a leap to see her as a geek settling things with a gun.) At the end of

the spot, the tag line -- "There's a soldier in all of us" -- manages to diminish

and trivialize the work of real soldiers while sending one of the most

irresponsible messages in the history of advertising. (The ad campaign is

everywhere, including on ESPN's family of networks and this website.) "This is

exactly what we're trying to fight," Walker says. "I'm looking at a 14-year-old

boy right now who got shot in the head, and then I see Kobe get on TV

looking like a damned fool, holding an assault weapon and wearing the same

stuff the kids are wearing when they kill somebody. The look on his face -- all

smiling and happy. This is the attitude we're trying to get away from. It's OK

for him, though, because he's never had to worry about going home to the

ghetto. That ain't his world." The NBA has a dress code. Break it and get

fined. The NBA has a code of conduct. Break it and get fined or suspended.

The NBA made an example out of Gilbert Arenas when he brought a gun to

work. Walker asks, "Where's the NBA on this one? What the hell is this guy

doing? He needs to explain his reasons for that." The Lakers, through their

public relations people, say they haven't dealt with any backlash from the

spot. "Not a Laker issue," says VP John Black, who referred me to Bryant's

agents, who had no public comment. [+] Enlarge Ethan Miller/Getty Images

One of the attractions at a launch event for the game in north Las Vegas last

week was an Airsoft SAW machine gun. It's well known that Bryant is involved

in military charities and feels a kinship with American soldiers. He reportedly

trained with actual black ops soldiers to prepare for the commercial. At the

game's launch, Bryant helped present a check for $1 million to the Call of Duty

Endowment for returning soldiers. Robert Kotick, the CEO of Activision, which

makes "Call of Duty," considers his game a tribute to the military. It's a claim

that's undercut by a commercial that makes its "heroes" appear to be regular

people using their lunch break to take down a helicopter and fire a few rounds

into a building. For all his basketball talent, Kobe has always tried to develop

the street cred that doesn't fit his background. Walker says, "If he's looking

for street cred, he should do a commercial where he's throwing that assault

weapon into an incinerator. We're trying to send a message that guns aren't

the answer, and we've got an NBA player on television shooting that big-ass

gun with a stupid-ass look on his face. We can't win." Walker has an idea he

knows will never happen. He wants to give Kobe the same tour he gives his

young football players. "I'd like him to come in here and see what I see,"

Walker says. "The bodies, the tools, the chemicals -- he needs to see it and

smell it. He damned sure needs to see it." Walker had to get off the phone. He

had to go back to work. The Lakers come to Oakland to play the Warriors on

Jan. 12. The offer stands.
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RoxSqaud · Nov 19, 2010

^

Qball · Nov 19, 2010

dantonv08 said:

Can't believe they're making a big deal out of this..
Click to expand...

Wow, un-story of the year. WTF is wrong with these people?

"This qualifies as the all-time 'What Were You Thinking' moment".....are you kidding me? That guy in the debate on the right is a pure d-bag.

RoxSqaud · Nov 19, 2010

I'm sorry....but that's just ****ing r****ded.

Mr. Space City · Nov 19, 2010

ole sensitive ass politically correct babies

The Situation · Nov 19, 2010

Lmao at them making a big deal out if it, what about all the gang movies they make? Come on man!

ryano2009 · Nov 19, 2010

The Commercial is sweet, but the game is just disappointment.

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Kobe in Call of Duty: Black Ops commercial

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