Deepak Chopra’s claims aside, Mike Myers’ upcoming The Love Guru looks like a disgusting, unfunny attempt to josh on the Maharishi, which might have at least made sense if the film was made 40 years ago or if this racist caricature was originally meant as a whimsical side note in a fourth Austin Powers movie. Multiple songs from the soundtrack are up on the movie’s MySpace page, so we can all yuk it up at Bollywoodized covers of “The Joker” and “9 To 5″ (oh wow, sitars and funny accents!! Boing!!). Fans of The Apple should note that the composer of that film’s music, George S. Clinton, is responsible for the instrumental “Guru Vindaloo.” Justin Timberlake (seen above) doesn’t perform on the album, but Telma Hopkins of Dawn and Family Matters fame does.
1) Andrew Mendelson - Morning Meditation
2) Mike Myers - 9 To 5
3) Cornershop - Brimful Of Asha (Norman Cook Remix)
4) Mike Myers - Stop Hitting Yourself (dialog)
5) Mike Myers and Manu Narayan - More Than Words
6) Mike Myers - The Joker
7) Telma Hopkins and Toronto Children’s Concert Choir - Lead Me To Your Rock
8) B.A.S.K.O. - Big Boi
9) Robbie Nevil - C’est La Vie
10) Celine Dion - I Drove All Night
11) Mike Myers - My Name Is Guru Pitka (dialog)
12) Lata Mangeshkar and Mohd Rafi - Mere Mitwa Mere Meet Re
13) George S. Clinton - Guru Vindaloo
14) Danny Saber - Mathar
15) Mike Myers - Guru Lineage (dialog)
16) Guru Pitka’s Ashram Band - Guru Pitka Chant
Cornershop agreed to this? Where’s Panjabi MC?
Here’s a classic number from The Apple as a humble apology for bringing any of this to your attention.
The Love Guru Soundtrack [MySpace]
Love Guru - I Drove All Night [YouTube]
The Apple
“SPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!”
Apparently, the Love Guru character was intended to be a delightful racist side note to the third Austin Powers film. Shame it didn’t end up that way.
fans of The Apple should note that the composer of that film’s music, George S. Clinton, is responsible for the instrumental “Guru Vindaloo.”
Ooh, does that mean that Nigel Lythgoe does some choreography?
well, it has my favorite celine dion song. and robbie nevil’s always nice, although ‘just like you’ probably would have been a little bit funnier.
It seems like this is more Mike Myers scraping the bottom of the barrel than it is racist. You guys have pulled the racist card a couple of times in recent memory, so forgive me for being sceptical.
Yeah, I can see how you’d be skeptical about whether Mike Myers, playing a Hindu “love guru” and zooming around on a motorized pillow while sitars plunk “The Joker” is really racist or if we’re just “pulling the card” again. We sure love to pull that card, and I know it makes people uncomfortable to hear the word “racist” when comedians are merely making moronic caricature of another culture.
lol! yoga!
Well it should make people uncomfortable. Making accusations of racism based on a 2 minute montage clip and a couple of lame “lol India” songs stinks of intellectual laziness.
@Lax: But it’s a whole movie based around some “accent humor” that would have made for a dreadful five-minute SNL sketch. And the torrents of promotional material that have been thrown out over the past few months would make it seem that the flick doesn’t seem to have the sort of subtlety or deeper meaning that, say, The Simpsons has when it goes into similar territory.
Just as an example, a lot of the gags in the American Idol skit were basically warmed-over Wayne’s World jokes that had hilarious-accent powder sprinkled on top. Nothing aside from the accent made the jokes new (or even funny). Doesn’t that seem sorta dismissive?
Did anyone call Meyers racist when he did Austin Powers or songs poking fun of British culture? No.
Same shtick here, different culture. You people are crazy.
Can we all just agree that dude needs to write new jokes?
@Maura Johnston: But why is it dismissive? As unfunny as Mike Myers is, I can’t bring myself to believe that he’s making ignorant generalisations. I genuinely think he has no clue what is and isn’t funny anymore.
The way I see, he’s just trying way too hard to find humour in an area the Simpsons bled dry a decade ago. I could stretch as far as saying he’s washed up, but too call his jokes racist?
What about Fletcher Stevens when he did his “Ohhh Newton Crozhby, I am shtanding here beside myself” shtick in Short Circuit? Or Richard Libertini screaming, “Put Edwina back in bowl” in All Of Me? I think those characters were flat-out funny and not intentionally racist.
I mean, I haven’t thought Mike Meyers was funny since like…wait I need my calendar for this…but doubtful its either intentionally or accidentally racist.
But yeah, Mike Meyers needs to hang it up.
@ajamison: Did anyone call Meyers racist when he did Austin Powers or songs poking fun of British culture? No
Yeah I can see how that…huh?
If only Mickey Rooney were alive to play the Love Guru’s Japanese neighbor.
@Audif Jackson Winters III: Your dream can still come true.
I see the right wing commenters from the other Gawker sites have finally made their way over here.
@ajamison: No, primarily because ‘British’ isn’t a race.
4) Mike Myers - Stop Hitting Yourself (dialog)
THAT’S SOME DEEP SHIT RITE THAR
I think “racist” is probably the closest term we have for “exceedingly ethnocentric mockery of other cultures” which Austin Powers would fit into nicely.
@NeverEnough: plus it’s a bit of a giant strech to call Austin Powers a caricature of “british culture”, he’s a piss-take on a very definite cultural/historical moment of swinging 60’s London. Granted there’s a few generic britishie jokes thrown in there, but it takes a lot of work to view Powers as “generic british stereotype” in the way the Love Guru works as “generic indian stereotype”.
In his next movie, “Behind the Altar,” Meyers plays a priest. Wait till you see the part the midget gets to play.
Don’t confuse racism with bad comedy. “Racism” is a demonizing word that stupid people use when they can’t support their own argument. Or can’t make an argument in the first place.
cool he brought back ‘cest la vie’
I remember a few Scots were unhappy about Fat Bastard. But most were able to brush that kind of gentle stereotypical ribbing off. Here we are presuming that Indians will be more easily offended by the accent and culture stereotyping, why? Because they have a different skin colour?
just because someone doesn’t have the intention of being racist doesn’t remove the notion that their actions/comments/etc doesn’t come from a fundamentally culturally-ignorant place.
perhaps indians/asians would take greater exception, like blacks and latinos would in a similar place, because there’s an establihsed history of ridicule, derision and oppression in the media regarding their typically under-represented voices in most circumstances. i dont think the scots have had to contend with too much in that category.
if meyers was doing a similar schtick called “the love pimp” and affected “black culture” i think he’d be getting even more sh*t for this project.