Depiction of India
The depiction of India caused controversy, with the film being not released in cinemas in the country, as the film received a temporary ban in India. The film was later released in the country when it came out on home video.[60][61] A small protest group of around 30 to 50 people in Seattle, Washington, appeared in the local newspapers when they protested against the film for depicting Indians as either helpless or evil.[62]
The depiction of Indian cuisine was heavily criticized, as dishes such as baby snakes, eyeball soup, beetles, and chilled monkey brains are not Indian foods. Professors such as Yvette Rosser have criticized the film for its portrayal of India, with Rosser writing "[it] seems to have been taken as a valid portrayal of India by many teachers, since a large number of students surveyed complained that teachers referred to the eating of monkey brains."[61][63] Another heavily criticized aspect was the film's white savior narrative, with Indiana being depicted as a great white hero upon landing in a remote Indian village, with the villagers unable to help themselves.[64]
Roshan Seth, who played Chattar Lal, mentioned that the banquet scene was a joke that went wrong, saying, "Steven intended it as a joke, the joke being that Indians were so smart that they knew all Westerners think that Indians eat cockroaches, so they served them what they expected. The joke was too subtle for that film."[30]
In his autobiography, Amrish Puri expressed the whole controversy around the film as "silly". He wrote that "it's based on an ancient cult that existed in India and was recreated like a fantasy. If you recall those imaginary places like Pankot Palace, starting with Shanghai, where the plane breaks down and the passengers use a raft to jump over it, slide down a hill and reach India, can this ever happen? But fantasies are fantasies, like our Panchatantra and folklore. I know we are sensitive about our cultural identity, but we do this to ourselves in our own films. It's only when some foreign directors do it that we start cribbing."[65]
PG rating
Many parents who took their children to see the film complained that some sequences in the film were too violent for its PG rating, particular sequences involving human sacrifice and children being flogged. Spielberg had initially defended the violence, stating "the picture is not called Temple of Roses, it is called Temple of Doom. There are parts of this film that are too intense for younger children, but this is a fantasy adventure. It is the kind of violence that does not really happen and cannot be perpetuated by people leaving the cinema and performing those tricks on their friends at home."[66]
In response to some of the more violent sequences in the film, and with similar complaints about Gremlins (which released two weeks later), Spielberg suggested that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) alter its rating system by introducing an intermediary between the PG and R ratings. The MPAA concurred, and a new PG-13 rating was introduced two months after the film's release.[4][a] In the UK, the film was heavily censored for a PG rating.[67] The United Kingdom followed suit five years later, with the BBFC introducing the 12 rating and Batman (1989) being the first film to receive it.[68] Temple of Doom was itself re-rated 12, uncut, in 2012.[69]
