A guru is a highly revered
spiritual teacher in Hinduism, who helps remove the seeker’s
ignorance and leads one from darkness to light. The guru-shishya
(teacher-disciple) relationship lies at the heart of traditional
Hinduism. The guru is often allied with the divine and bestows spiritual
knowledge, free from selfish objectives. In his MySpace profile,
Mike Myers’s character Guru Pitka’s occupation is listed
as “Guru/life guide/Bikini inspector,” and this profile
links directly to the movie’s official website.
Yoga is one of the six orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy. The Love Guru ridicules yoga in a repugnant way and names some of the
yoga poses as “no shoes, no shirt, no nirvana” and “ass,
gas and grass” on the movie’s website.
The movie’s tagline is “His Karma is
huge.” Karma is a very serious term at the core of Hinduism
and is not to be used frivolously in double-meaning taglines. Karma
was reportedly first spelled out in the Satpatha Brahmana
around 600 BCE and forms one of the fundamental components of the
Hindu system of philosophy. It is implanted in the idea of rita
(universal order), which is the root of dharma. It forms part of
the celestial/cosmic law enacted by the gods, and provides earnest
testimony of the causation law. The philosophy of Ajivikas was based
on this thesis. It is mentioned in the Bhagavad-Gita, one
of the ancient scriptures of Hinduism, and because of the significance
attached to karmic law, the action is meticulously examined in Hindu
philosophy.
Along with all of the buffoonery of “His Holiness Guru Pitka”
on the official movie site, the image of Lord Ganesh, God of wisdom,
remover of obstacles and one of the most widely worshipped deities
in Hinduism, was also displayed.
Guru Pitka in The Love Guru instigates
a bar fight, repeatedly narrates penis jokes, mocks yoga, wears
female jewelry, mocks the concept of the third eye, makes disciples
drink tea passed through his nose, orders alligator soup, induces
elephant copulation in front of a crowd, introduces himself as “His
Holiness,” lives in a lavish ashram staffed with scantily
clad maids and his goal in life seems to be appearing on the Oprah
Winfrey Show.
Comedy should make everybody smile and should not come at the expense
of others’ faith. Hinduism is the oldest and third largest
religion of the world with about one billion followers and a rich
philosophy, and it should not be taken lightly. No faith, larger
or smaller, should be ridiculed. Moreover, cinema is a forceful
medium and can create stereotypes in the minds of some audience
members. Thus, the film industry should handle faith-related subjects
very carefully.
Judging by the subject matter and scenes from the
movie, here are my questions: When did Hindu gurus become available
“for hire”? When and who started rating them? When did
shishyas (disciples) start joining ashrams for the sole
purpose of making girls like them? Which Hindu ashram organizes
fights between disciples with mops soaked in their guru’s
urine? Which guru urinates in the midst of disciples?
This is pure and blatant ridicule, and Paramount and its parent
company, Viacom, should immediately issue a general public apology
for the denigration of Hinduism and Hindu concepts, utter disregard
for protesters, backtracking on its promise to pre-screen the movie
for myself and other Hindu leaders and making no efforts to have
an open and civilized dialogue with protesters to arrive at a mutually
acceptable solution.
I have spearheaded protests against this movie
and have received considerable support from the community. The broader
aim of these protests is to protect the interests of various minorities
and ethnicities of the world and save them from future ridicule.
Everyone is a minority in some place and in some sense in this world,
and we all deserve to be respected. As fellow humans, is it not
every body’s duty to stand for the rights of minorities and
speak for them when attempts are made at ridiculing them? Somebody
has to make sacrifices so that others can live honorably.
A signature campaign launched by Hindu groups against
The Love Guru crossed the 6,400 mark on June 24. In addition, the
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has declared
The Love Guru “morally offensive” with its highest rating
“O.” In his review of The Love Guru, Harry Forbes, Director
of the USCCB Office of Film and Broadcasting, responsible for reviewing
and rating theatrical motion pictures, said “Unabashedly vulgar
and tasteless, the film … wallows in endless penis jokes and
fairly yucky potty humor.” “O” is the worst of
the five classifications granted by the USCCB.
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| How our Protest Began
It began in March of 2008. I started the campaign alone saying,
“From the information available about the movie, it
appears to be lampooning Hinduism and Hindus and using Hindu
terms frivolously.” To find more information, I urged
its presenter, Paramount Pictures, to prescreen the movie
for us, which they promised to do in March. They responded,
“It is our full intention to screen the film for Rajan
Zed and other Hindu leaders in the U.S. once we have a finished
print."
More people joined me along the way. Besides Hindu leaders
and organizations, various Catholic, Presbyterian, Jewish,
Native American, Methodist, Buddhist, youth, film, spiritual/religious,
music, yoga and civil rights leaders came out with statements
in support of this cause. A prominent Jewish Rabbi even called
for a boycott of The Love Guru claiming it “lampoons
Hinduism [and] mocks Ashram life and Hindu philosophy”
and asking, “Who laughs at religious practices?”
As the movie approached completion, Paramount
became more elusive about the promised prescreening. Several
attempts to reach Paramount's executives were unsuccessful.
Dismayed at Paramount’s backtracking on their promise,
Catholic, Presbyterian, Jewish, Hindu and Buddhist religious
leaders came out in support of “Hindu brothers.”
The leaders joined together to sign an appeal titled “Clergy’s
Appeal to Paramount Pictures” which said, “Going
back on [a] promise is un-Christian, un-Hindu, un-Buddhist,
un-Jewish, etc., besides being unethical.”
Despite a great deal of support and encouragement,
we faced some criticism as well: “Religion trying to
censor free speech”; “Hinduism is not so weak
that a small movie can damage it”; “Why can’t
Hindus take a joke?”; “Why are you protesting
when you have not even seen the movie?”; “Preemptive
attack”; “This movie is not about Hinduism and
Hindus but is a mythical and completely made-up system of
teachings”; “Who made you the representative of
Hindus that you can speak for them?” and so on.
Hindus believe in free speech as much as anybody else, if
not more. Hindu tradition encourages peaceful debates won
on their intellectual merit. But faith is something sacred,
and attempts at belittling it hurts devotees. Filmmakers should
be more sensitive while handling faith-related subjects, as
cinema is a very powerful medium.
I am very active in interfaith dialogue. Some time ago, the
Nevada Clergy Association even honored me for my interfaith
work. I can feel the pain of the devotees of various religions
and denominations—not only Hindus—when their faiths
are mocked.
My stance throughout the protest has been,
“From the information available about the movie, it
appears to be lampooning Hinduism and Hindus and using Hindu
terms frivolously”—and the only thing I asked
for was a prescreening of the movie so we could have a civilized
dialogue. Whatever information we received from trailers and
the website clearly gave the appearance of mockery. Repeated
attempts to seek more information about the movie from Paramount
failed. Instead of participating in a mutual dialogue to arrive
at an acceptable solution, Paramount just closed the doors
like a pigeon that shuts its eyes and feels content that the
cat has disappeared.
What could have been a small public relations
exercise blew out of proportion because of Paramount’s
stubbornness, the incompetence of their public relations team
or some other unknown factor. From the information available,
the movie seemed repugnant, and we informed Paramount of our
feelings. Besides the initial promise of prescreening (which
they did not fulfill), Paramount made no efforts to convince
us otherwise.
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