Reason Magazine

Site Search

Choose Your Outrage, or, Nuns Get Boned on the Subcontinent

Look what I found while looking for a photo for Jesse Walker's Da Vinci Code story yesterday:

"2 films"? Isn't "Tickle my funny bone" something audiences should be demanding of the movie, rather than the other way around?

Mumbai's Catholic Secular Forum (a division of the Up Down Society) has been lobbying and petitioning to get Yogendra Konkar's film Tickle My Funny Bone banned, or failing that, to get it recut, or at least to get police action against posters for the movie, which depict a "vulgarly dressed nun with the church in the background." (That's the radiant Rinki Ali in the wimple, all you Hindi movie fans.)

It's not clear whether this campaign has borne any fruit. As always, the more news coverage I read about an issue in India, the less sense any of it makes. So while the Mumbai high court refused to take action against the film, it will also be censored. Go figure.

The Catholic Secular Forum is now going after Abhigyan Jha's film Sacred Evil, arguing that one of the group's members should have gotten a free screening and Milk Duds, and now they're pissed.

Anyway, who knew that The Da Vinci Code would be facing stiff competition not just from Over the Hedge but from Bollywood blasphemers?

Nunsploitation.net has the poster for Tickle My Funny Bone, along with some skin-tillating shots of Rinki Ali:

Pulpmovies.com has more coverage of this unfolding story.

Help Reason celebrate its next 40 years. Donate Now!
Send this article to:

« Non-Denial Denials | Main | Pat Roberts, Bedwetter »

Comments to "Choose Your Outrage, or, Nuns Get Boned on the Subcontinent":

VM | May 19, 2006, 10:52am | #

Nuns Get Boned on the Subcontinent

Paging Quagmire! Quagmire! Clean up in aisle six!

that means you, Mr. Threadkiller. :)

Pro Libertate | May 19, 2006, 11:04am | #

Ah. By close observation, the observant student will see indications that this subject is a member of class Mammalia. The more discerning among you may be able to determine its sex, as well.

Quagmire | May 19, 2006, 11:24am | #

Giggity giggity goo! Do any of you guys have a towel?

The Wine Commonsewer | May 19, 2006, 12:07pm | #

If that poster depicted Muslim women the subcontinent would be in flames. So, I guess it's all about degree of outrage.

Great headline.

Father Shecky | May 19, 2006, 12:15pm | #

I dated a nun for a while... she was a lot of fun after I got into the habit.

Thank you, thank you. I'll be at this confessional all week. Try the wine... and don't forget to tip the altar boys.

Jeff P | May 19, 2006, 12:17pm | #

Si I guess an adaptation of Tales From the Leather Nun would be right out...

http://sir.real.50megs.com/comix/catalog/screen/TalesFromTheLeatherNun.htm

Jeff P | May 19, 2006, 12:18pm | #

Oh, that's NSFW, by the way...

Stevo Darkly | May 19, 2006, 4:22pm | #

I dated a nun for a while... she was a lot of fun after I got into the habit.

I can't top that.

Akira MacKenzie | May 19, 2006, 7:19pm | #

...Catholic Secular Forum...

Isn't this a bit of an oxymoron?

Adriana | May 22, 2006, 10:31am | #

The fact that a porno movie about nuns gets exported to a society that has religious tensions and that not too long ago there was an attempt by the government to put curbs on Christian activity gives second thoughts about the need for censure.

Sure, in this society, nuns in leather are a running gag, and local catholics have learned to grin and bear it.

But put them in a society where such movies are taken as gospel truth, as an expose of the wickedness of the Catholic church, and they become explosive. Just go back to the nineteenth century with all those anti-Catholic tracts, showing the wickedness of Popery. They certainly featured more than one expose of the debauchery taking place in convents - just one big orgy after the other...

It also gives pause that for millions, the opinion they have of the US is based on trashy movies which are taken as the gospel truth about our society.