Now, I get that there's an unhealthy rivalry between these schools, and Ivy Leaguers are going to talk shit. But the Harvard spoof deals some ugly low blows, including a line -- played for the laughs -- in the first scene about Yale grad student Annie Le, who was murdered on campus last September: News' View: Taking the rivalry too far.
Yale students and Harvard students can go pissing on each other for all eternity. And those craaazy Harvard kids are within their right to make all the videos they want -- call them mean-spirited, or all-in-good-fun, or whatever.
But in the first scene of that video, those Harvardians crossed a line: an eager prospective "Yalie" asks an admissions officer, "What happened to that girl who got murdered and stuffed in a wall?" before the officer quickly brushes her question aside and moves on.
By making light of one of the most horrific tragedies to strike our campus in recent memory, the murder of Annie Le GRD '13 last September, the video’s authors exhibited a gross insensitivity that they may not have intended, but elicited a response that they should have expected. For Yalies to ridicule Mark Zuckerberg, or for Cantabs to lampoon George W. Bush ’68 is one thing - but to poke fun at real suffering is inexcusable.
And for many in our community, last year’s sorrow is still fresh. Whether they were Annie’s friends and family, her co-workers, her fellow students or the countless others who mourned her, even though they didn’t know her, her death lingers in our campus’ collective consciousness. The fact that the video’s makers used this tragedy as part of an effort to boost Harvard pride before Saturday’s Game makes the reference all the more insensitive.
But anyone with just a little bit of common sense and an ounce of tact would get why joking about Annie Le is tasteless and disrespectful to her memory. And her family. But I'm guessing it's not even worth trying to explain that to the people who made this video. More here: Nguyen: Low blows and deep wounds.
