This really is a case of life imitating art -- so long as you're willing to permit the "art" classification to be applied to video games.
It seems that a rally against North Korea has been orchestrated to take place in San Francisco Wednesday by video-game company THQ, which this month is publishing a shooter game, Homefront, in which players assume the role of American guerrilla fighters challenging North Korean forces that have successfully occupied the United States.
The rally, which will begin with a march across the Golden Gate Bridge and
ends with a noon protest at Yerba Buena Gardens, doesn't seem to be
the sort of affair to which you should bring your AK-47. A statement from the company states that the event will draw attention to "North
Korea's human rights violations," and "will include speeches by global
experts, musical performances, and the launch of 10,000 balloons."
See? Nothing jingoistic about it.
A fun fact about Homefront: the game scenario was created by John Milius, the gun-lovin' Hollywood personality who wrote such films as Red Dawn (a gloriously preposterous precursor to Homefront in which the US is occupied by the USSR and Cuba), Jeremiah Johnson, and Apocalypse Now. (Milius is also supposed to be the inspiration for the Walter Sobchak character in The Big Lebowski.) Nobody in those films was launching any balloons; but hey, they didn't have video games to sell.
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