Fans and organizers of Friday’s opening ceremonies at the Paris Olympics waxed poetic about a show many viewers found blatantly blasphemous.
“Revolution ran like a high-voltage wire through the wacky, wonderful and rule-breaking Olympic opening ceremony,” veteran reporter John Leicester wrote in an effusive piece for The Associated Press.
Leicester described the event as the “most flamboyant, diversity-celebrating, LGBTQ+ visible of opening ceremonies” — a sentiment echoed by everyone from the official Olympics X account to French President Emmanuel Macron.
When it comes to explaining how the spectacle related to the internationally-televised, family-friendly sporting event it was supposed to represent, however — supporters struggled to get their stories straight.
One scene featured a parody of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” a painting depicting Jesus and the disciples eating the Passover meal before His crucifixion.
The Olympics’ recreation substituted drag queens for The Apostles and Barbara Butch, a DJ and LGBT activist, for Jesus.
Courtesy of @Olympics on X
Following widespread outrage and confusion, Jolly denied referencing Da Vinci at all, claiming the scene portrayed the feast of Dionysus — the Greek god of “wine and ecstasy,” according to Britannica.
But several of Jolly’s producers told The Wrap a different story. They admitted the artistic director modeled the controversial scene after “The Last Supper,” but argued such references are common practice.
“Clearly, there was never an intention to show disrespect toward any religious group or belief,” they claim. “[Jolly] is not the first artist to make reference to what is a world-famous work of art. From Andy Warhol to ‘The Simpsons,’ many have done it before him.”
The producers’ explanation seems more likely than Jolly’s, given some of the details he included in the tableau. Consider the crystal-encrusted halo crown adorning Butch, the ceremony’s stand-in for Jesus.
Halos, rings of light around a subject’s head, originated in Greek and Roman art to signal divinity. They became associated with depictions of Jesus and the Lamb of God in the 4th century, and with Church saints in the 6th century.
Given the centrality of halos in art history, there are only two reasons Jolly would have included one in this part of the ceremony: Either he was referencing “The Last Supper”, or he wasn’t qualified to direct such an artistic endeavor in the first place.
Regardless of Jolly’s intentions, some seemed to revel in believers’ outrage. A drag queen who performed in the ceremony posted a side-by-side comparison of “The Last Supper” and the Olympics’ parody on a since expired Instagram story.
“Period,” he commented in apparent support of the Olympics’ version.
Jolly claims he did not intend “to be subversive,” “mock” or “shock” — but his statements following the performance suggest he purposefully designed an anti-Christian opening ceremony.
At a press conference Saturday, Jolly initially described his performance as a non-specific celebration of freedom.
He couldn’t maintain this narrative for long. In the very next sentence, Jolly admits he did have a message in mind:
It’s important to notice Jolly’s focus on sexual and religious freedoms of all the freedoms offered to French people. Critics of Christianity commonly, if simplistically, criticize the Bible’s guidance on sexuality and worship as restrictive.
In retrospect, Jolly’s ceremony seems clearly designed to show that France is free from these perceived restrictions.
Jolly’s desire to send an ideological message might explain why he chose a pagan ceremony — the Feast of Dionysus — as inspiration. “The idea was to depict a big pagan celebration, linked to the gods of Olympus, and thus the Olympics,” he told a French television network on Sunday.
An art director focused on celebrating an international sporting event in a historic location probably wouldn’t spotlight the celebration of a notoriously sexual pagan deity.
An art director interested in offending Christians probably would.
Jolly’s interpretation of Dionysus looks like this:
Courtesy of @Olympics on X
He turned cartwheels on French TV to connect the Feast of Dionysus to France and the Olympics:
The Olympics didn’t include any of these connections on their official X account. Instead, they posted this tweet about the blue Dionysus, played by singer Phillipe Katerine, supposedly representing peace:
The interpretation of the Greek God Dionysus makes us aware of the absurdity of violence between human beings. #Paris2024 #OpeningCeremony pic.twitter.com/FBlQNNUmvV
— The Olympic Games (@Olympics) July 26, 2024
Unfortunately for Jolly and his compatriots, Dionysus was far from a peaceful god. His legendary followers, the maenad, were named for the Greek word maenades meaning “mad” or “demented.”
Prior to feasting, Dionysus was said to possess the maenad, who would use their supernatural strength to rip apart men who refused to participate in the celebration.
According to Britannica, it was the Romans, not the Greeks, who eventually “misunderstood [Dionysus’ nature], simplistically [portraying] him as the jolly Bacchus who is invoked at drinking parties.”
All in all, an odd myth to represent peace in the Olympic ceremonies.
Legacy media has been working overtime to rationalize the ceremony, going out of their way to trivialize believers’ concerns.
Don’t be fooled by the bluster. The organizers weren’t interested in representing the Olympics.
Even a cursory look at the ceremony’s details suggests one of two things about organizers: Either they are improbably ignorant and negligent, or they intended to mock Christianity — and any religion with an objective moral code.
Either way, it’s unacceptable.
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