Happy new week! I hope everyone is tanned, rested, and ready for this latest hellweek.
The Olympics Committee says you didn't see what you just saw. Must be another one of those "cheap fakes" the media keeps telling me to BOLO for.
The organizers behind the Paris Olympics apologized to anyone who was offended by a tableau that evoked Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper" during Friday's opening ceremony and provoked outrage by religious conservatives around the world. The organizers, however, defended the concept behind it.
Da Vinci's painting depicts the moment when Jesus Christ declared that an apostle would betray him. The scene during Friday's ceremony on the Debilly Bridge featured DJ and producer Barbara Butch -- an LGBTQ+ icon who calls herself a "love activist." Butch was wearing a silver headdress that looked like a halo as she got the party going on a footbridge across the Seine. Drag artists, dancers and others flanked Butch on both sides.
As CBS News correspondent Elaine Cobbe reports, the specific part of the ceremony that caused the offense was, in fact, a scene depicting Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. It was reportedly based on The Feast of the Gods, a 17th century painting by Dutch artist Jan Harmensz van Biljert that hangs in the Magnin Museum, in Dijon, eastern France. The painting depicts an assembly of Greek gods on Mount Olympus for a banquet to celebrate the marriage of Thetis and Peleus. The figure seated at the table in the center has a halo of light behind his head.
Except that this Barbara Butch pyrsyn gave the game away by admitting the tableau was intended as a "Gay New Testament." Then xe deleted that admission, and pushed the Official Regime Party Line that this was meant to be about the Greek Gods.
See below the fold for that deleted tweet.
Thomas Jolly, the opening ceremony director, insisted in an interview with France's BFMTV that "The Last Supper" was not the inspiration behind the scene, explaining that "Dionysus arrives at the table because he is the Greek God of celebration," adding that the particular sequence was entitled "festivity."
"The idea was to create a big pagan party in link with the God of Mount Olympus -- and you will never find in me, or in my work, any desire of mocking anyone," Jolly said.
...
But religious conservatives from around the world decried the segment, with the French Catholic Church's conference of bishops deploring "scenes of derision" that they said made a mockery of Christianity -- a sentiment echoed by Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova. The Anglican Communion in Egypt expressed its "deep regret" Sunday, saying the ceremony could cause the IOC to "lose its distinctive sporting identity and its humanitarian message."
Prominent French far-right politician Marion Maréchal denounced the performance on social media.
"To all the Christians of the world who are watching the Paris 2024 ceremony and felt insulted by this drag queen parody of the Last Supper, know that it is not France that is speaking but a left-wing minority ready for any provocation," she posted on the social platform X, a sentiment that was echoed by religious conservatives internationally.
The Drag Queen who took the Olympic torch says he's not sorry and you Christian #H8rz will just have to go f*** yourselves.
A drag queen who was one of the many torchbearers for the Paris Olympics had a message for the critics amid uproar over the opening ceremony which appeared to mock the Last Supper.
Nicky Doll was among the drag queens to carry the torch of the Olympic flame but also performed during one segment of the ceremony. Doll reposted an image on his Instagram Stories, claiming the image depicted was not of the Last Supper but the feast of Dionysius.
"The opening ceremony did ruffle some feathers... and I LOVE it," Doll wrote on his Instagram Stories on Monday morning. "You know why? Because the Olympics are the biggest stage in the world and us queer people have always been the audience of other people's life and achievement and it is time that we are welcome in the space."
"It was my absolute honor to perform in front of billions of people around the world, and celebrate our Olympians," Doll's post continued.
"And remember, to the ones that had their feathers ruffled seeing queerness on their screen: WE AIN'T GOING NOWHERE."
"Woke dupicity," says Bishop Barron.
From Ed Morrissey:
Barron took special aim at the sneering attitude still present in Descamps' statement, and not just in her absurd claim to have wanted "tolerance" and "inclusivity." They mocked the faith of 2.6 billion people, Barron reminds us, but the idea that Christians should not have taken offense is even more absurd. "Christians were offended because it was offensive," Barron declares, "and it was intended to be offensive. Please don't patronize us," Barron continued, "with this condescending remark that 'well, if you had any bad feelings, we're awfully sorry about it'."
They might have added a nod here and there to Greek pagan gods to give them plausible deniability about the obvious, blatant parody of the Last Supper.