Thursday, May 29, 2008
No love for `The Love Guru’
Just about every day when I sit down at my desk, there’s an email from Rajan Zed, a self-proclaimed “acclaimed Hindu leader” who is perhaps best known for his one-man crusade to offer Hindu prayers in state legislatures around the country. I’ve talked with him a few times, and he’s a nice guy, but can sometimes appear a little overly ambitious on hitting the “Send” button on his email.
But I digress.
Lately, Zed has been on a tear against ”The Love Guru,” an upcoming Mike Myers film that also stars Jessica Alba and Justin Timberlake. With little effect, he’s petitioned various film boards and federal agencies in the U.S. and Europe to put the brakes on the film, which he says is offensive to Hindus. It may well be, but I now know more about “The Love Guru” than I did before—all thanks to Zed’s campaign to kill the film. And for what it’s worth, Zed seems to be mostly alone on this one; when we checked, the much more established Hindu American Foundation seemed unconcerned, or at least reluctant to raise a ruckus about it.
Zed’s latest target is Beliefnet, particularly its deal with Paramount to promote the film. There’s an ”Ask the Guru” feature, a ”Meet the Guru” primer, numerous e-cards, banner ads and enough material to form the basis of an MBA class in cross-marketing. Zed says the partnership violates Beliefnet’s mission statement to ”help people like you find, and walk, a spiritual path that will bring comfort, hope, clarity, strength, and happiness." Beliefnet posted this disclaimer on its website: “The features on this page were created as part of a collaboration between Beliefnet and Paramount Pictures. Beliefnet editors and Paramount officials jointly determined the design and content of this page.”
Zed’s colleague, Bhavna Shinde, asked Beliefnet to “stop promoting ‘The Love Guru’ movie, till Paramount has made necessary changes to the movie, so that it will not hurt the feelings of the worldwide spiritual and Hindu community. This will also ensure continued respect from the Hindu and spiritual for Beliefnet as a truly spiritual website...”
In case you want to check it out yourself (the film opens June 20), here’s the trailer:
Posted by Kevin Eckstrom at 10:51 am
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