Hindus are disturbed over the portrayal of Lord Ganesh as a sex act on NBC’s Saturday Night Live and want apologies from all those responsible for it, including actor Jim Carrey and NBC.
Rajan Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, in a statement in Nevada, said that Lord Ganesh was highly revered in Hinduism and was meant to worshipped in temples or home shrines and not to be thrown around loosely in reimagined versions for dramatic effects in TV series for mercantile greed. Such absurd depiction of Lord Ganesh with no scriptural backing was hurtful to the devotees, he said.
In a skit on Saturday Night Live on January 8 titled “The Wrath of Ganesh”, Jim Carrey (as erotic shaman Lee Licious) and Kenan Thomson (as Grady Wilson) demonstrate a sexual technique, mocking elephant-headed Lord Ganesh and his trunk in the process.
Grady has travelled 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.
Such trivialisation of Lord Ganesh was disturbing and offensive to the one billion Hindus world over, Zed, said and requested NBC to immediately remove it from all its websites and other links. Zed also asked Golden Globe winner actor-comedian Jim Carrey, actor-comedian Kenan Thomson, NBC Universal president and CEO Jeff Zucker, and Saturday Night Live executive producer Lorne Michaels to tender a public apology for it and urged them not to inappropriately drag Hindu deities to advance the commercial or other agenda in the future.
Hindus welcomed Hollywood and other entertainment industries to immerse in Hinduism, but taking it seriously and respectfully, and not just for indecorous showing of Hindu symbols and concepts to advance their selfish agenda, Zed said.