THE LOVE GURU

“GET OVER IT” says Deepak Chopa (best selling author and Mike Myers friend for 15yeats)
VS.
'Nobody wants to see a dumb movie that also offends people, whereas you can defend a smart movie that offends people.'—Charles Keil, director of the Cinema Studies Institute at the University of Toronto

Mike Myer’s comedy flick The Love Guru might be banned in India. This comedy is set to hit the theaters on June 20th 2008; however it is causing massive controversy with many Hindus.
The movie includes Justin Timberlake, Jessica Alba, Verne Troyer and Mike Myers as Guru Pitka. Hindu groups around India requested that the India’s Central Board of Film Certification ban screening of the movie. Majority of India’s population is Hindu, and they believe that the movie makes fun of their religion and beliefs. Rajan Zed, the president of Universal Society of Hinduism says “the film appears to be lampooning Hinduism." The Hindus feel that this movie shows a negative roll of Hindus. A representative of the Mumbai-based Hindu organization named Bhavna Shinde says “stop distributing or screening the movie till Paramount has made necessary changes ... so that it will not hurt the feelings of the worldwide spiritual and Hindu community.”

The movie is about an American named Pitka(Mike Myer) who’s raised outside of his country by gurus. He returns to America in order to break into the self-help business. He has one challenge, which is to settle the romantic troubles of a Toronto Maple Leaf’s hockey player who’s wife left him for a rival athlete.

Hmm…well there are many movies that are Indian American. For example Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle is a 2004 comedy film. It sure had contents of Indians. Kumar! Is an Indian name, and in the movie he was going to go to med school however smoked marijuana. Shouldn’t that issue have been made big? The movie could have portrayed that “Young Indian men smoke marijuana, and are forced to go to med school despite the fact that they don’t want to”. Directors and producers make movies that will be accepted in the modern society. Also the movie BORAT had the same situations, a racial matter. Borat’s choice of locale was Kazakhstan. It did not have a real international voice and is a country that no one really knew about before the movie was released. The movie has such a critical success.

Mike Myers spent some quality time with Deepak Chopra the best selling author. They have been friends for 15 years now. Myers spent time with him to find out and learn a little more about the Indian Culture. Deepak Chopra says “Get over it”. He said this about the controversy people are creating over a movie.

One Hindu leader in Canada is also demanding to edit the film before realized in Canada. Kanayalal Raina, "It should not be released in Canada without editing. There are only some portions that are offensive, not all, so it doesn't mean that we should completely ban the picture, but it should not be released until it's edited properly". Paramount Pictures is kind of nervous about the controversy and have decided to screen the movie for Hindu leaders before release.

Personally I don’t think that it should be a big deal. Like, it is a comedy movie? If everyone started to take things offensively then there would be no comedy. I mean most movies now have a cultural sensitivity, and the directors I’m sure don’t mean to offend people, it’s just a movie. The audience watching the movie should make the decision either to take it offensive or not.

Movie Trailer