My sister recorded the whole thing, and invited me over to view it. I would say it’s unwatchable—she agrees—but we did do our best, focusing on the main features of the opening that have caused controversy. This was in the wake of yesterday’s obviously PR-generated non-apology apology from Paris Olympics “organizer” Anne Descamps (whatever that’s supposed to mean):
“Clearly there was never an intention to show disrespect to any religious group. On the contrary, I think Thomas Jolly did try to intend to celebrate community tolerance. We believe this ambition was achieved, if people have taken any offense, we of course are really sorry.”
Should I add that to the Apology Scale as a perfect example of Apology #9? That’s “Deceitful apologies, in which the wording of the apology is crafted to appear apologetic when it is not (“if my words offended, I am sorry”). But I’m not even sure the statement appears apologetic. “Clearly there was never an intention”— that’s a lie, since clearly many, many people believe that was the intention. The “apology” begins by insulting those who were offended. Then again we have the risible “community intolerance” claim. If someone could show me how that mess possibly communicated anything coherent, much less “community tolerance,” I will be eternally grateful.
Then she says, essentially, ‘we did exactly what we intended to, it was great, and if anyone was too dim to appreciate it and took offense, we feel sorry for you.’ That obnoxious statement didn’t deserve all the headlines saying that the Olympics brass had apologized.
However, I must admit that the controversy had to be primed by photo stills of the controversial “Last Supper” segment and not the event itself as it unfolded, because in the NBC presentation, the scene arguably evoked “The Last Supper” for maybe five seconds. Then it became evident that there was no table, but a runway which quickly featured a fashion parade of some of the most ridiculous outfits I’ve ever seen.
I also don’t know how anyone concluded that the performers on either side of the obese woman with the halo were “drag queens.” They were costumed slightly less absurdly than the runway models walking past them, and it was impossible to tell what gender most of them were.
Or care.
From all this I conclude that the outrage over the alleged blasphemous nature of the ceremony was primarily expressed by people who never watched the thing, but who reacted to photos that emphasized what wasn’t emphasized, or perhaps even present, in the actual event.
That doesn’t seem fair.
Now, this does not mean that the Paris Olympic extravaganza wasn’t terrible: it was even worse than I had been led to believe. My sister said it looked like a Saturday Night Live or a Monty Python parody if either show had a bottomless budget, yet even that doesn’t express its special awfulness: silly, incoherent, epically pompous, chaotic. Who or what was that guy without a face in the white hood, and why was he or it wandering around and finally ending up with the Olympic torch? Who decided that the torch should be a giant candlepin bowling pin?
I was more offended that they juxtaposed a section of the musical “Les Miserables” with multiple Marie Antoinettes holding their singing severed heads: this just reinforces the almost unanimous misconception that the musical (and novel) is about the French Revolution. Are the French even confused about that? Then, “sailing” in front of the building with all the headless Marie’s in its windows was a fake orange galleon with a homely woman singing an aria from “Carmen” on the prow, but she wasn’t dressed like Carmen. What was she supposed to be? Was she a pirate? Meanwhile, mixed in with the holographic Maries were various rock musicians going bananas on drums and electric guitars while streamers that looked like blood rained down on them as flames exploded—I don’t know what the hell was going on. During it all, Kelly Clarkson was gushing from the studio, “This is so incredible!” Yeah, that’s one word for it.
Then they cut away to what looked like a rejected Cirque de Soleil act, people stuck on the tips of high flexible poles, swaying back and forth and appearing to writhe in agony. The first thing that leaped to mind was the way Vlad the Impaler tortured his victims. But Vlad was Romanian! Carmen was Spanish! I’m so confused.
Search as we might through the video, we never saw the blue fat guy in the orange beard who was the main evidence cited that the alleged “Last Supper” mockery was really an innocent Bacchanalian riff.
Upon re-examination, the primary ethics foul in this mess was not disrespect, but incompetence.
Ethics Alarms 
Post modern art is designed to disrespect the true, the good, and the beautiful and does so in such a way that it’s indistinguishable from incompetence.
There is 0 chance that the last supper sequence specifically named “the last supper” wasn’t meant to offend. Its brevity is all part of the ruse to pretend it isn’t what it is.
“[I]ts special awfulness: silly, incoherent, epically pompous, chaotic.” A perfect description of French post-modernism, which has been inflicted on the western academy.
My niece’s mostly insufferable and extremely lefty husband had acquired a masters in English. Having been an English undergrad, I tried to chat him up about his studies as he entered a doctoral program in Washington State. He said he was deconstructing legal opinions. I will give him credit; he abandoned the program shortly thereafter saying he didn’t see much point in where his studies were going. He works for VRBO now.
I wish I had something really coherent to say about this, but it has me pondering. I agree with Curmie’s assessment that Christians have jumped onto the perpetually-offended, victimization bandwagon. Part of that is because Christians have faced far worse in other times and places (and are actively persecuted, tortured, and killed in other places in the world even today), and the indignation over this debacle of an Olympic opening seems small potatoes compared to real persecution. Frankly, this debauched scene is not particularly shocking, or offensive. It is just sad. If these people want to make a mockery of Western Civilization, let them. Let their actions stand for themselves, and if you don’t like to see it, turn off the television. If so many people are offended and/or disgusted at the display, the Olympic commission will feel it through loss of ad revenue. If so many people are fine with the display that it doesn’t impact bottom lines somewhere, then perhaps the problem is that the world really has gone so post-Christian that Christianity had better up its evangelical game.
Really, it should be something of a backhanded complement that these hedonists would attempt to make a perverse live-action scene of the Last Supper. It means that even they recognize the power that Christianity still possesses. If the Last Supper was truly outdated and unimportant, they wouldn’t bother trying to mock it.
Ryan, the Olympics used to be something people throughout the country could watch and enjoy feeling part of. This would be in the ’70s, when people still ate Wheaties and Bob Richards was probably still on Wheaties boxes, leading the way for others. Bruce Jenner was an iconic, mostly amateur, decathlete (men’s division). Dorothy Hammel was gliding around the ice with her bobbed hair. That’s all gone now. Snoop Dog? I like his beer commercials and his commercials with Martha Stewart, but a face of the Olympics? Why, is all I can say. I think people are justified in being angered by having something soiled, and they have every right to be.
I thought the Olympics were soiled when they allowed professional NBA players compete in what was supposed to amateur-only competitions. I also thought them soiled when they added X-game style events.
The question is: is the outrage for the sake of the Olympics, or is the outrage for the sake of the offended?
The woman who “apologized” and the director of the “ceremonies” have both stated the show was supposed to be about “inclusiveness.” Yuck. “You keep using that word.” What does that have to do with a track meet? which was my original question.
Whataya think the response would have been if there was this level of mockery and disrespect of Muhammad??
Have a nice day…🤠
It could also be a fair criticism of the direction of western civilization. We’re allowed a voice also. And intentional mockery of the very force that put 90% the good parts of Western Civilization into Western Civilization, is a fair criticism.
Oh ok.
No.
Sorry, we’re 100% in the right to complain about what we see as dire example of the dangers facing western moral decay.
Are we pointing out moral decadence, or are we point out how offended we are that someone could make a parody of the Last Supper? I liked the take from Suzi Weiss that OB posted. The opening was a sham that essentially says all the French have to contribute to the world is gay orgies. It is morally decadent, no doubt, and that should be the focus, not how upset we are that they mocked the Last Supper.
In consideration of what Jesus means by turning the other cheek, Bishop Barron notes that one would only strike with right hand, the left hand being considered unclean. To strike one on the right cheek would require a backhanded motion. To then strike on the left cheek, one would have the aggressor use his unclean hand, which would be shameful. The purpose here is not to flee from evil, and not to resort to fighting evil with evil, but to reflect the evil back to the aggressor. Complaining about being offended is essentially using the same trite, petty, and wicked means that our adversaries use. Better instead is to treat such actions as not even worth notice, because these people are cowardly bullies who will only keep wasting time on such activities if they think they can get a rise out of their targets.
Again, I find their attempts at mockery sad. The Last Supper begins a narrative of complete self-giving for the salvation of the world, whereas this mockery is inwardly, hedonistic, selfish, and so small-minded that it is below contempt. Their god is their belly, which is awful, because the belly will always end up unsatisfied, and the belly is so small a god that it cannot do anything for itself.
Suzie Weiss and her Brooklyn based cohort are a little too glib by half for my money, Ryan. (What does that even mean? Hah, “too something by half?)
To answer your question, I’m asking, “Why is someone parodying a painting of the Last Supper at the opening of a track meet?” My objection is along the lines of, “Can’t these people EVER give it a rest?”
And that’s part of the sad thing. No, they can’t give it a rest. They are first of all a minority of a minority, so if they stop trumpeting about themselves they risk being forgotten altogether. And they desperately need the rest of the world to approve of their activities, so they seek that affirmation at every opportunity. It is narcissistic, because they have to make everything about themselves. Is there a specific “queer” sport in the Olympics? (If there is, let me know…) If there isn’t, what does all this queer playacting do, other than distract? They are pitiful in their seeking, and getting offended over them just validates them in their own mind.
“Are we pointing out moral decadence, or are we point out how offended we are that someone could make a parody of the Last Supper?”
Is there a difference?
Yes. Anyone can complain about being offended. That’s the subjective stance which our culture seems unable to counter. But to point out the concrete fact of moral decadence is to be rooted in objective observation.
I think “to be offended” means to recognize the “offensive” conduct misaligns with a value set.
So by definition being offended is pointing out a “value set” or “moral” misalignment.
So I don’t think the two are separate.
Maybe you’re concern is people who only focus on the initial emotional alert to offense and seem to only build that versus people who can clearly articulate the exact values that are misaligned with the exact possible consequences of that misalignment.
But that’s merely a matter of degree of eloquence. Not that offense is different from acknowledging moral failing.
I think I’m getting spammed again. Randomly.
Yup. I have no idea why that one comment was repeatedly spammed and then got through. Sorry I didn’t catch it sooner.
I think the problem we have with people who are offended or the-perpetually-offended is not with the *idea* of offense, but with several trends we’ve observed:
1) that some people seem so ready to be offended that they either have an incredibly legalistic value set in which just about everything is wrong according to them and there is no room for good faith assumptions of good will or grace.
2) that some people have no idea what their self-proclaimed values are that they can’t make sense of when they are offended or not.
3) that some people aren’t consistent with regards to their proclaimed value set and are offended at times and not at other seemingly similar times.
4) that we fundamentally disagree with the value set of the offended, but instead of articulating what’s wrong with the value set we get mad at the people for being offended.
Among others.
Frankly, we encounter #1 ALOT with “the woke” and we get tired of it, so we default to #4 and just quit trying to explain the values (when often they are also suffering from #2). And because of this we just short circuit all dialogue (and in fairness dialogue has proven pretty futile in most cases) and just get angry at displays of offense.
Now, we’ve so focused on the displays of offense, we’ve elevated “being offended” to an offense itself, and now we’re mad at people on our side who may be rightly offended for merely being offended.
I don’t think that’s useful and it surrenders the fair acknowledgement that something, in this case, the disgusting display of the opening ceremonies, misaligns with a good value set.
All I can say is that we are now supposed to believe Trump and Vance are “weird”.
My opinion on such things is that I don’t get offended, I ignore it until it actually has some impact on me. Being offended actually gives the perpetrator unnecessary attention and provides the media an opportunity to exploit conflict to sell more of their propaganda.
Yes. Shouldn’t Vance be praised to the heavens for having a trans friend? The Clintons are brilliant because they went to Yale Law School, along with Lanny Davis (hah!), but Vance is an idiot. Go figure.
They’re attacking Vance with such energy because they’re losing against Trump. This election will magically be about how Kamala will be better as a president than Vance will be as a vice president.
And they’re attacking Vance because he’s not a Democrat! It’s what they do. If you’re not a Democrat, you’re awful. They want single party rule. People act as if once Trump is out of the picture, things will go back to normal. That’s not going to happen.
I’ve seen the word “weird” in the past 2 days now more than the rest of my life combined because the DNC propaganda drones, I mean the mainstream media and journalist brigade have gotten the new talking points.
Somewhere, some progressive focus group polled that the word “weird” was an effective slur, now that “racist” is worn out.
Only they wore out “weird” in 24 hours.
Probably doesn’t help that they spent the better part of two decades in pop culture making “weird” the equivalent of “good”.
Our student minister chimed in on this controversy yesterday when speaking to our Middle School kids. He explained that da Vinci’s “Last Supper” scene harkened back to how the Greeks portrayed their deities in art, laying around tables, eating and drinking. In any event, there were no chairs in Jesus’ time; they would have all reclined on the floor with their feet behind them with the food on low tables.
But I digress.
His point was that we, as Christians, have got to stop freaking out over every cultural representation we don’t like. It doesn’t show love, it doesn’t show grace. It just turns us all into a group of religious Karens. The Olympics weren’t taken from us. They were never ours to begin with.
That being said, it doesn’t mean we can’t have standards and we should certainly call out religious bigotry when its evident, but – like endless accusations of racism, sexism and homophobia on the part of others – sometimes we have to accept that not everything is about us.
AM, I’m not a Christian (I’m much worse, I’m a lapsed Catholic. Hah!) so I don’t have a dog in this fight. But I don’t buy the stand down from your minister. He can if he wants, but to my way of thinking, things like awful Olympic opening “ceremonies” and the obvious and willful arrogance of their producers, need to be called out.
You know there was a book written by a minister about 20 years or so ago – at my age, everything was 20 years ago – about how Christians should be the last people to accept maudlin, poorly-constructed art.
Most certainly the so-called apology was pulled from every meaningless non-apology ever written. I’m not sure people should accept it.
A good take from Suzi Weiss, another non-Christian: Was the Opening Ceremony Demonic, or Just Cringe? | The Free Press (thefp.com)
AM, I’ll just close by saying people are tired of having crap shoved down their respective throats and they shouldn’t be quiet about it. If a Christian minister thinks his flock should be meek, sheep-like martyrs like in Roman times, fine.
No doubt people are indeed sick and tired of it. So am I. This is more of a Choose Your Battles kind of thing.
No, Christians have every right to call out people mocking them in a public, government-sanctioned event. If we don’t, this scene will be the standard way the United Methodist Church celebrates Easter in 5 years.
Oh, the woman in the middle with the ‘halo’ tweeted the image with an image of the Last Supper with the commentary “The new Gay Testament”.
Yeah, I’ve already seen several of my extra smug liberal contacts on facebook, each posting wildly different images of the painting “Dinner of the Gods” or whatever. Each of them posting how ignorant we Christians are to not know that the Olympic scene was clearly of *this* painting, with some of them insinuating they indeed knew it was clearly of the “Dinner of the Gods”.
Only, I know these people. Not one single one of them was aware of a “Dinner of the Gods”, let alone many paintings of Dionysian feasts / bacchanalias until someone somewhere did their best to pretend the mockery was what it wasn’t.
Never mind all the open declarations that it was what is was by the creator and participants.
In other words, the intended mockery of the Last Supper has now metastasized into further intentional offensive conduct.
The Olympics have taken the video of the opening ceremonies off the official website. Would it do that if it was just a few wacko Christian determined to be offended who felt that banquet scene was, to some extent, deliberately disrespectful? Or is the Olympic committee just made up of weenies who won’t stand up for their own “art”?
They did it because more than a few people rightfully called them on what they intentionally did. AND they are weenies. Both can be true.
But at least it forced them to acknowledge they were wrong.
I’m surprised they pulled it though. Usually when people outside the approved narrative are offended, the cultural powers that be tend to just ignore them. So I am surprised that they pulled it. So someone or several someone’s somewhere else with actual influence must’ve said it’s problematic.
Could there have been enough athletes who quietly complained? Maybe the companies buy ad space felt enough people wouldn’t watch the Olympics because of it so they quietly complained…?
We were having dinner with a progressive friend last night who kept blathering about how dumb Christians were to be offended by the opening. She knows were Christian but also gay & so I think she thought we’d be on the “those wacky Christians” horse. Instead of taking the bait, we changed the subject.
Like so many I wonder why the so-called artists who produce the opening ceremonies believe it is appropriate to deliver their political and social commentary in a fashion that is, indeed, spectacle, but not entertaining or even interesting. Christians and Muslims were potentially offended by this tactless, obnoxious, self-indulgent display, and to what end? These people claim the banner of inclusivity while alienating over 4 billion?
I suppose I have become a cliche …. an old lady thinking the world is going to hell in a hand basket.
And OB – lapsed or not, Catholics are the Original Christians!
Frankly, I could do without all of the Opening Ceremony hoopla. When I still watched the Olympics, my favorite things were the parade of nations and the lighting of the torch. To me there is nothing more engaging at the Olympics than seeing the torch come into the stadium, carried around the track, then elevated to light the big torch. That’s all I need. No song, no dance, no dog and pony show, no stupid tableaux (sp?). Although I did love Gloria Estefan singing at the 1996 closing ceremony:
Reach – Gloria Estefan @ Atlanta 1996 Closing Ceremony | Music Monday (youtube.com)
No faceless robot french thing arriving on a mechanical water-crossing horse to light the torch??????????????