A Hindu leader based in the United States said on Tuesday a comparison between the villain in the latest X-Men movie and Lord Krishna offended the religion and its followers.
Film fans got their first glimpse of the similarly blue-coloured baddie when the official trailer dropped on Friday, showing Apocalypse – played by Oscar Isaac – saying: “I have been called many things over many lifetimes – Ra, Krishna, Yahweh.”
Hindu leader Rajan Zed issued a statement on the reference in the movie: “Such trivialisation of Lord Krishna, who is highly revered in Hinduism, is quite inappropriate and disturbing to the devotees.”
Comparing #Krishna to villain #Apocalypse in #XMenApocalypse trailer was inappropriate. Delete references to Krishna unless scripture based.
— Rajan Zed (@rajanzed) December 15, 2015
“Hindus are upset over comparison of blue-colored villain Apocalypse with their deity Lord Krishna in the recently released official trailer of ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’… Lord Krishna was meant to be worshipped in temples or home shrines, not for pushing movies for the mercantile greed of filmmakers,” the statement added.
Zed has also called upon director Bryan Singer to remove all references to Lord Krishna from both the X-Men: Apocalypse trailer and the film in case they confuse non-Hindus about the religion.
“I suggest that Hollywood executives take some form of training in religious and cultural sensitivity so that they have an understanding of the feelings of audiences and communities when creating new products. We would gladly provide the resources.”
Zed, who describes himself as a “religious statesman who has taken up Hindu, interfaith, religion, environment, European Roma (Gypsies) and other causes all over the world”, said after watching the trailer: “This is another example of the poor use of Hinduism culture in Hollywood.”
Hinduism is the third largest religion in the world, and one of the oldest, with around a billion followers. Lord Krishna, often depicted as blue, is the eighth incarnation of Lord Vishnu and the subject of several major scriptures.
X-Men: Apocalypse, also starring James McAvoy and Jennifer Lawrence, is due for UK release on 19 May 2016.