Western interpretation of Buddhism is seeing monks dressed in very elegant robes, being tranquil, as if nothing can bother them, and the most sincere people in the world. While I agree with this, there is more insight to the whole situation, there are two sides to everything. Our limited view of Buddhism, and for the most part, other religions is the stereotypes that we see in the media. Buddhists being poor yet enlightened and have the whole idea of reality under their belt, Muslims being enemies of the state, Indians sole focus on cows and extra extremities, and so on, the looking glass in what we allow to see closes our perception of the world.
In “Anger Management” there is a scene in where David encounters his childhood bully, but now his enemy is a Buddhist monk. The scene shows Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson hesitant to instigate anything, even though they do, based on the fact that he is a monk, so he forgave and forgot, he is calm, he does not care about anything else but enlightenment. The scene escalates into a full out brawl because of name calling and hilarity ensues, and that is where the stereotype kicks in. The reason the scene is funny because the last thing a viewer would expect is for a monk to engage into a fight because it is not in the nature. Even though that is the truth, the positive stereotype of Buddhist monks by Westerners makes the viewer see the ugly side of good.
The comparison of analysis to the book, Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate, shows even more insight of what Westerners see about Buddhism. On page 27 it states that it is silly to think that one can reach enlightenment instantly, as in the movie, the monk did not grow out of his old ways. The book also states that some things can never change, and back to example, is true. In the rest of the chapter it states that one can not reach enlightenment overnight, and in US society, achieving enlightenment is damn near impossible. The way Americans are hard wired in the go, go, go lifestyle, conning a person to achieve enlightenment before lunch, as stated in the book, is easy, but for all intents and purposes, the movie clip shown can best describe a stereotypical outlook on Buddhism mixed with the American attitude of never gonna happen.
