Featured Image Credit: Universal Pictures.
Topics: News, Film and TV, Oppenheimer
Keryn Donnelly
Oppenheimer is an undisputed box office hit.
The film, which is directed by Christopher Nolan, follows the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer (played by Cillian Murphy), the man who created the first atomic bomb.
The movie also explores Oppenheimer's relationships with his wife Kitty (Emily Blunt) and his troubled lover Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh).
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It has already made $80 million at the US box office and $174 million globally.
But, there is one line in the film that is causing controversy.
The real-life Oppenheimer was fascinated with the Hindu religion and at one point in his life he even translated the Bhagavad Gita from Sanskrit into English.
In 1965, he quoted the scripture during an NBC News documentary while talking about his reaction to the first successful detonation of a nuclear weapon.
“I am become Death, destroyer of worlds,” he said at the time.
However, in the movie, Cillian Murphy's character says the iconic line during a sex scene.
The scene has been met with criticism from people in some parts of India.
An Indian journalist named Uday Mahurkar, who is also the founder of the Save Culture Save India (SCSI) Foundation, has posted an open letter to Nolan on Twitter.
“It has come to our notice that the movie Oppenheimer contains a scene which make a scathing attack on Hinduism,” he writes in the letter.
"As per social media reports, a scene in the movie shows a woman makes a man read Bhagwad Geeta aloud while getting over him and doing sexual intercourse.
"She is holding Bhagwad Geeta in one hand, and the other hands seems to be adjusting the position of their reproductive organs."
Mahurkar then asks Nolan to remove the scene from the movie.
"You have great admiration in India for your art of filmmaking," he said.
"We believe that if you remove this scene and do the needful to win hearts of Hindus, it will go a long way to establish your credentials as a sensitised human being and gift you friendship of billions of nice people.
"We urge, on behalf of billion Hindus and timeless tradition of lives being transformed by revered Geeta, to do all that is needed to uphold dignity of their revered book and remove this scene from your film across world."
The hashtags #BoycottOppenheimer and #RespectHinduCulture have also been trending on Twitter as a result of the scene.
Nolan has not responded to the controversy at the time of publishing.