If you’re prone to feeling queasy or have just eaten a nice juicy slab of meat, look away now. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.
Cannibalism has been something of a hot topic this month, namely due to the release of Netflix’s true crime drama Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.
But back in 2017, CNN televised a series called Believers, and it featured real-life human gobbling.
Advert
In one episode, show host Reza Aslan visited a cannibalistic Hindu sect and was offered what was billed as a piece of human brain.
Watch the moment unfold below. Warning: Graphic content.
Not only did Aslan chow down on the meat, but he even wore a necklace made of human body parts and had his face smeared with cremated human ashes.
Advert
At one point in the episode, one of the members of the Aghori nomads Aslan was sitting with even threatened to ‘cut off his head if he keeps talking so much’.
Filming was swiftly wrapped as the Aghori ascetic started throwing his own excrement at Aslan and the rest of CNN’s crew, sending them scurrying away.
Ahead of the episode airing, Aslan wrote on Facebook: “Want to know what a dead guy’s brain tastes like? Charcoal. It was burnt to a crisp!”
At the time, Aslan’s show came under fire for sensationalising Hinduism - which is the world’s third largest religion.
Advert
Writing in the Huffington Post, Vamsee Juluri, a media studies professor at the University of San Francisco, said: “It is unbelievably callous and reckless of CNN to be pushing sensational and grotesque images of bearded brown men and their morbid and deathly religion at a time when the United States is living through a period of unprecedented concern and fear.”
Elsewhere, the US-India Political Action Committee said in a statement: “With multiple reports of hate-fuelled attacks against people of Indian origin from across the US, the show characterises Hinduism as cannibalistic, which is a bizarre way of looking at the third largest religion in the world.”
The organisation went on: “In a charged environment, a show like this can create a perception about Indian Americans which could make them more vulnerable to further attacks.”
Advert
Tulsi Gabbard, who was the first Hindu to be elected to the US congress, tweeted: “CNN is using its power and influence to increase people’s misunderstanding and fear of Hinduism.”
If you have a story you want to tell, send it to UNILAD via [email protected]
Topics: Film and TV, World News