There’s a lot to digest in the three-hour runtime of Oppenheimer, which blew up the weekend box office alongside Barbie, grossing about $80.5 million domestic and $93.7 million internationally. The film includes a poison apple, the recurring presence of Albert Einstein, and the first sex scene ever lensed by filmmaker Christopher Nolan.
While the intimate encounter between Cillian Murphy’s J. Robert Oppenheimer and his real life love Jean Tatlock, played by Florence Pugh ,has generated plenty of buzz, it’s causing outrage among some in India—not so much for the sex scene itself, but due to the memorable quote uttered during the act: “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
During Oppenheimer and Tatlock’s tryst in the film, Jean stops their romp to pick up a copy of the Bhagavad Gita, which she makes Oppenheimer read aloud during sex. While there’s no evidence to support that this actually happened, the physicist did have an affinity for Sanskrit. Murphy even read the sacred text to prepare for his role.
But despite its rooting in (semi) reality, a character reading a sacred text during sexual activity has sparked controversy among India’s Hindu nationalists and politicians within its right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Over the weekend, India’s Information Commissioner, Uday Mahurkar, shared a statement on Twitter that called the sex scene “a scathing attack on Hinduism.” Mahurkar took offense that Pugh’s character “is holding Bhagwad Geeta in one hand, and the other hand seems to be adjusting the position of their reproductive organs” in the scene, which he also labeled “ a direct assault on religious beliefs” and a way of “waging a war on the Hindu community.”
As noted by CNN, Oppenheimer currently holds a U/A rating in India, which deems it appropriate to be watched by children under 12 with parental guidance. Not only has the film not been banned, but it grossed more than $3 million in its opening weekend in the country—beating out Barbie, which has also sparked controversy overseas.
Mahurkar concluded his message with a call for the filmmakers to erase the sex scene from Oppenheimer. “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 sensitized human being and gift you friendship of billions of nice people,” he wrote, adding, “Should you choose to ignore this appeal it would be deemed as a deliberate assault on Indian civilisation.” (Vanity Fair has reached out to Universal for comment.)