South East Asian Buddhists were not amused to see an image of the Buddha placed on the crotch and breast of a Victoria’s Secret bikini, and they are now most definitely displeased to see a poster of an actor sitting astride the Buddha’s head.  

Sri Lanka, a largely Buddhist nation, protested the now infamous Buddha bikini, and now Thailand, another predominantly Buddhist nation, is apoplectic with rage and deeply insulted by what it perceives to be the insensitivity of the poster for the new film Hollywood Buddha. In a film that ostensibly portrays a new spin on the “Hollywood hustle,” Philippe Caland, the film’s writer, producer, director, and lead actor all rolled into one, plays an unsuccessful filmmaker whose luck improves subsequent to his prayers to the Buddha. The poster in question depicts Caland sitting astride the head of a statue of the Buddha and gazing, perhaps contemplatively, off into the distance. The Thais, who believe that the head — not to mention the head of the Buddha — is almost sacred, find the image to be particularly abrasive.

Caland has obliged his insulted critics and has consented to withdraw the poster, but he may have already inflicted some lasting damage; hoping to curb cultural faux pas, the Thai government is now writing a book, directed at culturally insensitive foreigners, that outlines Thai etiquette. There are even unrealistic but furious calls that “malicious” foreigners be banned from entering the nation.    

Mimi Hanaoka