[Commentary]: The real problem behind the ‘Last Supper’ drag performance at the Olympics’ opening ceremony

By: Gelene Peñalosa - 1 month ago

The 2024 Summer Olympics (or Paris 2024) is currently well underway with (as of writing) 4 countries already sweeping in the gold medals, and, well, it is most definitely not complete without its plethora of quirks and controversies.

Of course, the internet is abuzz with the current events in the Olympics, actively cheering for their country’s athletes, as well as keeping up with the on-the-ground coverage of the actual sports events.

The internet is also quite taken with the many problematic things with the games (cough Israel participating) and the like.

But the thing that stuck out the most these days was not what had happened before (the Seine swimming incident), but what had happened during the Opening Ceremony of the Paris Olympics.

Well, yes, the iconic Céline Dion did take center stage and some French historical figures reappeared (and died again) for the occasion.

But there was one specific performance that stood out among the rest—for the deeply religious, especially, which made them very, very unhappy.

The Opening Ceremony of the Paris Olympics included a tableau scene depicting Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous painting, “The Last Supper,” which featured drag queens and French actor and singer Philippe Katerine, who was revealed later to depict the Greek god Dionysus.

Reactions on the Internet were overwhelmingly negative, with people condemning the blatant mockery of the Last Supper, especially with how the 12 apostles were depicted with drag queens, queer personalities, and…a child?

However, there were some that also praised the performance as it had depicted the “campiness” of the French and their willingness to commit to their French-ness through theatrics.
People also did explainer threads on the matter, especially since Philippe Katherine was later on revealed to represent the Greek god of wine and ecstasy, Dionysus.

Others, well, went the other way and immediately mocked those offended with the tablaeu by giving them a taste of their own medicine—pointing out the times that mainstream media has depicted “The Last Supper”.

Until well, the painting reference was corrected.

Thomas Jolly, the Olympics’ Opening Ceremony Director, in an interview with news channel BFMTV, denied the connection of the performance with da Vinci’s masterpiece, saying:

“It’s not my inspiration and that should be pretty obvious. There’s Dionysus arriving on a table. Why is he there? First and foremost because he is the god of celebration in Greek mythology and the tableau is called ‘Festivity.”

He later on explained that Dionysus was part because he was the god of wine, which “is also one of the jewels of France,” and that he was the father of Séquana, the Seine river’s goddess. “The idea was to depict a big pagan celebration, linked to the gods of Olympus, and thus, the Olympics.”

Thomas Jolly then said that he did not want to “mock or denigrate” anybody, and that he “just wanted to create something that reaffirmed the French values of “Libebrty, Equality, and Fraternity.”

Which is, if you didn’t know, France’s motto.

The Olympic Games’ official account later posted photos of the performance with the caption, “The interpretation of the Greek God Dionysus makes us aware of the absurdity of violence between human beings.”

Organizers of the Paris Olympics did apologize to those that were offended, and insisted that the Opening Ceremony did not portray “The Last Supper.”
People then started pointing out that the tableau greatly resembled the 17th Century Dutch painting, “The Feast of the Gods” by Jan Hermansz van Biljert.

https://twitter.com/masonmennenga/status/1817982161355718777

Why were people (specifically Christians) so quick to throw words such as “satanic” and “barbaric” when their religion is “mocked”, but are also the ones that would make fun of other religions?

And, paired with the fact that they only do this when the people involved are…the LGBTQIA+ community? Or in their eyes, the sinners?

Just look at the amount of homophobic comments that were made after the video of the Opening Ceremony went viral. Quite sad, actually, but not at all surprising, given the kind of world we’re living in.

Even us Filipinos are the same—despite being one of the “gayest” people out there, most of the society still holds deeply homophobic ideas which are connected to their religious faith. Don’t even try denying it; it’s disgusting.

There are, some good people who are intelligent enough to connect the dots on their own and are respectful enough to see both sides of the coin, such as actress Rica Peralejo.

She did say it best in the first part of her Threads post, “…because hello: OLYMPICS. OLYMPIA, GREECE…” and then continued on to say, “and here are the Christians being so outraged and honestly, this makes the Christian faith talaga look unthinking and unreasonable more than ever! 😂 if true talaga this, time na for the Christians to think talaga of how people can believe in us when we keep representing the faith as reactonary.”

And she was absolutely right for that.

If Christians (and/or Catholics) keep presenting themselves as unreasonable, who react at every single thing that isn’t supposed to be about them, then do they actually think? Is their understanding of the world quite limited to what faith and beliefs they believe in?

Does that mean then, that their beliefs are harmful to others because of how they act and react to different situations, and to an extent, to people different from them?

That right there, is a big problem. The real problem behind the “problematic” Olympic Opening Ceremony tableau is not the fact that they represented a painting with queer people, or because they offended religious groups.

It’s the fact that people still can’t distinguish different things without associating it with their beliefs.

Not everything in this world should be that way.

 

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