Hindu groups in US close ears and open mouths to Eyes Wide Shut

Part of the background music (scored by Jocelyn Pook) during the orgy is a passage from the Gita. The quotation Parithranaya Saadhunam Vinashayacha Dushkrithaam Dharmasamsthabanarthaya Sambhavami Yuge Yuge… is an oft-quoted verse in which Krishna tells Arjuna that whenever there is a decline of justice on earth, he incarnates from time to time forprotecting the good, for transforming the wicked, and for establishing order.

Community activists say the passage from the Gita has no particular relevance to the scene in the movie and is “utterly tasteless and insensitive.”

“The music director has either fallen into the trap of the trite robotic temptation of using some eastern Indian music for an exotic/erotic scene or has been depravingly insensitive in knowingly using it for a scene of a cult-like gathering with sexually hedonistic excess… either way it is a shame,” an organisation calling itself the American Hindus for Anti-Defamation said in a form letter addressed to Time magazine being distributed over the Internet.

The 65-second ritualised orgy scene in the movie was quite controversial as it is, since Kubrick — who died just before the film was released — had to digitally censor it to earn an R-rating for the movie to allow a wider viewing audience. (An R-rating requires an accompanying parent or adult guardian forunder-17s).

Although the movie has been variously trashed by most critics as pedestrian and painstaking — one reviewer though called it a “stunning epiphany for the summer of the dirty joke” — the advance hype made it the top grossing film last week. Thanks to the explicit and sustained nudity, it is unlikely to be ever shown in India.

The protests over Eyes Wide Shut comes on the heels of similar complaints by increasingly sensitive and assertive US-based Hindu religious groups which say their symbols are being routinely trivialised.

In recent times, activist groups protested the screening of an episode of the TV serial Xena: The Warrior Princess showing Hindu deities Lord Krishna and Hanuman aiding Xena in her escape from a demon king and helping her reunite with her sidekick on the series, Gabrielle.

Hindu groups argued that the episode made viewing audience think Lord Krishna and other Hindu deities and the Vedic literature are fictional, and “it makes Hindus themselves looksuperstitious and foolish.”

“The episode treats Lord Krishna and Hanuman as fictional characters by putting words in their mouths that they never spoke and having them engage in activities that they never engaged in,” the California-based World Vaishnava Association and the American Hindus Against Defamation organisation said.

Following the protests, Studios USA and Renaissance Pictures agreed to pull out the episode out of worldwide circulation. “It has become evident that the advice we received was not in line with Hindu beliefs. We are genuinely sorry if we have offended members of the Hindu ommunity and have no plans to produce any future episodes involving Hindu deities or personas,” Renaissance said at that time.

Soon after, another controversy erupted over a Vanity Fair spoof in which actor Mike Myers tried to satirise pop culture by wearing the garb and hair-do of a swami and painted himself with religious symbols. The photographer who took the picture later apologised saying “thephotographs were meant as a humorous take on the trend of appropriating religious imagery as a fashion statement.”

“It’s the horror of having a cellphone go off in the middle of yoga class,” he explained.