A Hindu leader in the United States has objected to the comparison between a villain in the latest of the X-Men series – X-Men: Apocalypse – and Lord Krishna.
Rajan Zed, president of Universal Society of Hinduism, was referring to the trailer of the movie, where actor Oscar Isaac, who plays the villain, is heard saying: “I have been called many things over many lifetimes — Ra, Krishna, Yahweh.”
In a statement issued, Zed said: “Such trivialisation of Lord Krishna, who was highly revered in Hinduism, was quite inappropriate and disturbing to the devotees. Lord Krishna was meant to be worshipped in temples or home shrines and not for pushing movies for mercantile greed of filmmakers.”
Claiming that misrepresenting Hindu gods in films would confuse devotees, Zed urged director Bryan Singer to delete all references to Lord Krishna from the trailer as well as the final movie, except those that were true to the scriptures.
Zed even offered to provide training in religious and cultural sensitivity to Hollywood film directors, should they need any, so as to understand the sentiments of and feelings of their audience when they develop new products (films).
“Hindus are for free artistic expression and speech as much as anybody else if not more. But faith is something sacred and attempts at trivialising it hurt the followers,” Zed said, adding that insensitive handling of faith traditions sometimes resulted in pillaging serious spiritual doctrines and revered symbols.
X-Men: Apocalypse, which also stars James McAvoy and Jennifer Lawrence, is due for release in May 2016.
Source : Indian Express
