Equal Rights for MukMuk

With all the excitement that these olympic games have brought, not everyone is a supporter and they have protested against them declaring the history of the games to be rooted in racism and a money-making machine that benefits greedy corporate giants leaving the city to foot the bill. According to protesters, the games displace the homeless and erode our civil liberties with the money spent to strengthen security for the event.

Before the games started, it was reported how the events were made more riskier and dangerous by making the slide the fastest in the world, the ski courses slicker for speed and the half pipe much higher for bigger jumps to attract viewers. Flirting with danger cost the life of an athlete right before the games even began. It’s hard to discount that these efforts to inject more risk to the events are driven by sponsors that only see dollar signs.

And although great strides have been made in gender equality with women competing in ice hockey and in almost every sport except for ski jumping, you have to ask why can’t women compete in ski jumping? The argument that the sport is not at a mature and competitive level for women is a weak one. Perhaps a better answer is that it isn’t popular enough to attract big-money sponsors. No money, no luck. Is that the fault of the olympic committee? Not entirely. Hey, nothing’s free in life, right? Not enough support from the fans and there’s little interest from sponsors. I’m not saying it’s our fault either. It is what it is.

There will always be protesters to the olympics and some may be labeled extreme in the way they draw attention to their message, but to protest for the inclusion of MukMuk as an official mascot to the games is a bit bordering insanity. First of all, why does it even matter? MukMuk apparently is just a sidekick to the official mascots—Sumi, Miga and Quatchi—and exist only in cyberspace. Mascots have sidekicks? Who knew. Second, mascot or sidekick, they’re made up characters whose purpose besides cheering on the athletes is to generate income by being sellable. They don’t really exist! Third, surely there must be something better to protest against that’s worth all the effort and attention.

Well, the protesters certainly succeeded in drawing attention to their cause because it made it on the news. You can read it here and here and here. No joke. A Facebook fan page has even been created for MukMuk. Talk about passionate supporters for a cause. Is it a worthy one or are these people wasting their time? I’ll leave that for you to decide.