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June 20, 2008

I'm Boycotting "The Love Guru," but Who is Rajan Zed, and Why am I Getting So Many E-Mails, Maybe From Him?

By: The Dude on the Right
As I have fallen behind on a couple of things, well, the last thing I wanted to do was to waste a couple of hours at a movie that degrades a religion.  Yup, for the last bunch of months I've been getting e-mails from, well, I'm not really sure who, although there is an e-mail address yet I'm not really sure if it is valid or a spoof, mostly because I'm too lazy to actually reply to the e-mail and figure out exactly who is e-mailing me.  In any case, though, they have been promoting that Rajan Zed (maybe not so surprisingly the e-mail prefix is "rajanz"), who is a prominent Hindu leader (at least so says the e-mail), states that I should boycott the latest Mike Myers' film, "The Love Guru," because, at least with today's e-mail (it's the only one I didn't delete), "it lampoons Hinduism and Hindu concepts and uses Hindu terms frivolously."  With that line, especially since this e-mail was sent after Rajan supposedly saw the film, I knew it was my civic duty to skip the film and save two hours of my life.

The e-mail continues in its lambasting the movie, saying "the antics of Guru Pitka (Mike Myers' character in the movie) are a mockery of the esteemed institution of guru," also stating "This is pure and blatant ridiculing and Paramount and its parent Viacom should immediately issue a general public apology for denigration of Hinduism and Hindu concepts, utter disregard of the protesters, backtracking on promise to pre-screen the movie for Rajan Zed and other Hindu leaders, making no efforts to have an open civilized dialogue with protesters to arrive at an mutually acceptable solution, Zed said."

As the e-mail begins to wrap up, we get:  "Rajan Zed further said that comedy should make everybody smile and should not come at the expense of ridiculing others faith and spreading misinformation.  Hinduism is the oldest and third largest religion of the world with about one billion followers and a rich philosophical thought and it should not be taken lightly. No faith, larger or smaller, should be ridiculed at."

Hear, hear, Rajan, I'm down with you brother!  Oh, wait, don't most comedies ridicule others, if not their faith, and spread misinformation?  Never mind, hear, hear Rajan!

But do you want to know the most bizarre part of the e-mail, calling for my boycotting of "The Love Guru?"  Well, I'll tell you.  It's the last paragraph that states, not something like "This is why we are calling for a boycott of "The Love Guru," or "until Paramount and Viacom recognize the dignity of Hinduism...," we get this:  "'The Love Guru' (88 minutes), a comedy starring Mike Myers (of Austin Powers fame), opened today nationwide and will be released in different parts of the world in the near future.  Viacom's family of brands includes MTV, Paramount, DreamWorks, etc.  Paramount Pictures Corporation is a global producer and distributor of filmed entertainment."  What the hell kind of ending to an e-mail calling for a boycott is that?  No "So maybe you might want to boycott those entities as well," nor "You should also be boycotting "Kung Fu Panda," instead just a vague "legal" disclaimer about the movie, complete with the movies running time.

Suddenly, all this e-mail seems to scream is "I'm Rajan Zed.  How can I get loads of publicity?  I know, Spam!", or a viral campaign on the part of someone to make people go and watch "The Love Guru" to see if it actually "lampoons" Hinduism, because some news outlet are bound to reference the e-mail, or if this e-mail was really from Mr. Zed, maybe his press release should have been written in first person, starting out simply as "I am Rajan Zed, a Hindu leader, and after seeing 'The Love Guru' I urge you to boycott the movie, and here's why..."

Now that I think about it, I'm not boycotting "The Love Guru" because of this series of e-mails I received saying the movie makes fun of Hinduism, because, you know what, I'm all for making a mockery of all kinds of governments, ethnicities, freaks, geeks, jocks, horror movies, religion, and any other stuff that is open to be made fun of, especially if it's done in a funny way.  I'm boycotting "The Love Guru" because, from the trailers, it looks like a load of crap, and from the early reviews most of them say it is a load of crap, and you know what, I've got more important things to do right now than invest in a potential load of crap.  This movie will wait for Netflix, or cable, or a number of stints on the shitter, watching it in phases on my iPhone, unless, of course, Richard Roeper tells me to see it when I watch him over the weekend.

That's it for this one!  I'm The Dude on the Right!!  L8R!!!

Posted by Rightdude at 6:52 PM | Comments (0)