The first rule of any movie junket is don’t talk about the movie
junket — especially what the publicists instruct interviewers not to
talk
about. But perhaps because no extra expense was involved to meet Mike
Myers on his old home turf, Peter Howell of the Toronto Star let slip
that reporters were told not to ask about two subjects: the end of
Myers’ marriage, and religious criticism of The Love Guru.
Following three months of often ham-fisted attempts to humiliate Myers
for poking fun at Hinduism — based on the trailer, website and other
advance promotional materials for the spoof, which opens on Friday —
turns out Nevada chaplain Rajan Zed didn’t get his wish to pre-screen
the movie, after all.
Zed expressed his disappointment today on his “On Faith” weblog at
washingtonpost.com. Promised by Paramount Pictures in March that it was
their “full intention” to provide an advance look at the finished
print, Zed’s cranking up the opposition might have backfired, as the
studio declined to follow through.
While he’s not interested in addressing the subject now, last week
Myers earnestly explained his character Guru Pitka’s inspiration to
Entertainment Tonight Canada.
“This is a movie about a teaching called DRAMA: distract, aggress,
adjust, mature and to put it all into actions. It’s like the force,
it’s like a mythical belief, teaching system that was designed entirely
about loving yourself, and I spent a lot of time developing it to give
it its unique feel. It worked out as a mnemonic and all that stuff, and
it happens to be something I believe in.
“I believe that the only way out is in, and you are responsible for your own health and happiness.”
Similar explanations were offered to other reporters during the Los
Angeles junket. An interview published at About.com gets deeper into
how Myers first encountered Deepak Chopra as a guest on Oprah, leading Myers on a spiritual quest after the death of his father. The other
readings he cites as an influence are Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now
and Gary Zukav’s Seat of the Soul, along with the complete works of
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Then again, does anyone want to hear Mike Myers channeling his
self-penned DRAMA philosophy? Or, is he angling to develop the next
Scientology or Kabbalah? “You’re not a victim, which is a vicious and
insidious cognition,” he was quoted by About.com’s Rebecca Murray.
“That’s where I want to get to.”
Mindful of the fact that he was talking to ET Canada, though, Myers swerved into aging Gen Xer schtick to underline his point:
“It’s like Flintstones vitamins, you know? People are eating Barney and
Dino, they don’t need to know there are vitamins in it. That’s my
favourite delivery system of good ideas.”
The theory of Flintstones chewables — made as they are with aspartame,
artificial colours and calcium carbonate — extends to a feature
published this week at The Love Guru’s media partner, Beliefnet, where
Deepak Chopra is a featured contributor. Responses to reader questions
to Guru Pitka have been posted, offering a taste of what moviegoers can
expect to hear this weekend, if they dare.
“Training anything is very difficult. Trust me I know, I've got
ostriches, elephants and all kinds of other critters running around my
ashram like they freaking own the place. And they also refuse to turn
the lights off when they leave a room. Annoyyyyying! My electric bill
is higher than Guru Maltanto on Chibatar berries.”
That, of course, is just the first part of a response to a woman asking
how she can get her husband to put the toilet seat down.
This still isn’t a laughing matter to Sean Clarke of the Spiritual Science
Research Foundation, whose claim of being able to calculate the number
of demerit points one might receive in the afterlife for making, or
even watching, a film like The Love Guru gained some publicity in the
process.
But, reached in India, Clarke sounded entirely sincere about his intentions in jumping about the protest train.
“It goes beyond the fact that spirituality is not something to be joked
about,” he says. “The movie is being marketed to people in their teens
and twenties, and that’s a very influential age. Putting the wrong
message across will impact future generations, who will think it’s OK
to ridicule this very central pillar of spirituality.
“Gurus were dedicated to destroying the darkness — they weren’t men who wore chastity belts or walked around with erections.”
Clarke actually feels Rajan Zed and his supporters from across the religious spectrum were too passive with their petition.
“Paramount weren’t likely to take heed because they knew any negative
reaction from Hindus was going to be expressed peacefully and kindly
and legally,” he says. “They could take us to the cleaners because of
that. But I’d like to see how they would react if they were threatened
with violence.”
The tactic employed by Hindu Janajagruti Samti, an awareness group based
in Virginia, was writing to every government-sanctioned agency that was
somehow involved in the film business. While the British Film
Institute’s assurance that they wanted nothing to do with The Love Guru
was initially taken as a nod of support, the BFI had to clarify that it
was because they weren’t inclined to support screenings of lowbrow
commercial Canadian comedies — regardless of their content. The
National Film Board of Canada, meanwhile, didn’t even respond.
Bhavna Shinde of Hindu Janjagruti Samiti — who currently claims 5,000
signatures on an online petition — drove this effort over the cliff
last weekend, by issuing a press release announcing a request was filed
with the groups in charge of film rating classifications in the United
States. Shinde requested changing the designation of The Love Guru from
PG-13 to NC-17. This would put the movie in the Motion Picture
Association of America category reserved for “violence, sex,
aberrational behaviour, drug abuse or any other element that most
parents would consider too strong and therefore off-limits for viewing
by their children.”
And so, what might have been an opportunity to engage Mike Myers in a
compelling grown-up public conversation will be eclipsed by reports
next Monday about whether or not The Love Guru sold more popcorn than Get Smart.
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