Not good enough, Jim Carrey!

Even being an Indian, living in independent India, I have never agreed with Mahatma Gandhi's principles.  It is one thing to be non-violent, quite another to be inactive, and I am beginning to know the difference, but for some reason, in the perception of India and its values and beliefs, the line between the two begins to blur.

Even for someone not vested in the either the nation state concept or the concept of religion, it is sometimes irritating.

An actor by the name of Jim Carrey has angered a lot of Hindus by his portrayal of Lord Ganesh in a sexual act on NBC's Saturday Night Live.  http://www.indianexpress.com/news/hindus-upset-with-jim-carrey-nbc-for-mocking-lord-ganesh/738479/

Apparently, NBC is a fairly popular and wide television network, reaching a sizable audience.  Whether this means it is a responsible broadcaster, I do not know.  However, it would seem incumbent upon any large corporation to take some care before broadcasting any content that is clearly not in good taste.

Lord Ganesh, the revered elephant God, is invoked by his believers, at all auspicious occasions, whether it is a festival, or the opening of a school.  He is loved by children, worshipped by billions, and is a lot more than a deity with the head of an elephant.  He is wisdom, he is patience, he is the remover of obstacles, and an adored non-controversial, ever present, celebrated child in every altar he finds a place in.

To a huge number of people all over the world - Ganesh brings peace and calm.  He is adorable and beautiful.  And he is the child of Shiva and Parvati, no less.  So, this is no vagabond sculpture that started a cult following either!  And Ganesh isn't going to lose his immense calmness because some fool tried to mock him.  He won't mind that.  But he will be disappointed that so little of his wisdom percolated down to an actor who took it upon him to impersonate him!

NBC does not need to know any of this.  Nor does this fellow Jim Carrey.  But what they should know in these tough economic times, is to not piss off a billion plus people.  There is going to be no fatwa.  No Hindu is going to make up his mind to kill Jim Carrey, but what will happen is this - Indian film distributors will come to know that this guy Jim Carrey is not good news.  A couple of Hindu organizations will call the Distributors Council and tell them they won't allow this idiot's films to be released anywhere in India.  So, they won't buy any of his films.  Let Hollywood decide if Carrey's market value goes up or down because of this achievement.

It is not as if India is dying without Hollywood product.  Hollywood films collect less than 5% of India's box office revenues.  But it is a billion plus market.  Ask the accounts department if that can be ignored.

Nobody in NBC may lose a job over this incident.  Hollywood may not really care if a Jim Carrey movie tanks at the box office.  The industry should however, really think about what Jittu Krishnamurthy, whom actress Janeane Garofalo has read a lot of, said - "In lieu of creativity, there is sexuality".

>>In a skit on NBC’s SNL (January eight) titled “The Wrath of Ganesh”, Jim Carrey (as erotic shaman Lee Licious) and Kenan Thomson (as Grady Wilson) demonstrate a sexual technique, mocking Lord Ganesh and his trunk in the process. Grady has traveled the world to find new sexual techniques to spice up the bedroom, the tagline of the episode (1587) “Grady Wilson's Tantric N'Tasty” says. <<

What?  You Americans mastered the Kamasutra in just 200 years?  Now you want new challenges?  Maybe the elephant is closer to your body shape these days that the Kamasutra is no longer a practical guide?

It was not that long ago that Hillary Clinton said of Mahatma Gandhi - "He ran a gas station down in St. Louis.".  No matter how she corrected herself, after a few morons in St. Louis thought it was funny, it shows some kind of residual stupidity in even grown up Americans.  If she had said Ahmedinajad's dad was a barber in Kansas City, the Muslim world would have issued a fatwa and she would have invited all sorts of condemnation, not for being a moron with a poor sense of humour, but for putting American lives at risk!

The USA almost has the patent on irreverence.  Reverence itself may be overrated, but many beautiful things come out of it.  One of them might be a unified Asian currency.  I can't wait for that to be unleashed upon the world, and I can't wait for oil to be pegged against it, instead of the US Dollar or the Euro.  The biggest consumer rules, doesn't he?

Dear "Americans", your idiots can mock other countries, religions, cultures, icons, and things they don't understand all they want, but for all the trumpet blowing about even your greatest achievement, democracy, think about this - At the end of the last parliamentary elections in India, an Italian Roman Catholic Christian lady headed the winning coalition, and she nominated a Sikh Prime Minister who took his oath before a Muslim president, in a country that is 83% Hindu.

Really, USA, you need to get over your puberty some time.  The world is fast losing its patience.  Your place in it is no longer a matter of what you can get away with.  It is clearly a challenge now, of what you can come up with.

Since some of you are probably so curious about this sort of thing -



Why watch Jim Carrey?