The opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics featured a controversial display involving drag queens, which many critics have interpreted as a mockery of the Last Supper. The backlash against the performance has been met with both outrage and defense, with some arguing that it is disrespectful to Christianity, while others maintain that it is merely a work of art.
The opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics has sparked both outrage and defense over a controversial display involving drag queens. The scene, which featured a group of drag queens lined up along one side of a long table, has been interpreted by many as a mockery of Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting "The Last Supper." The brief moment has caused widespread outrage among Christians and conservatives, who see it as a disrespectful portrayal of a central event from the New Testament.
Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony: Drag Queen Display Sparks Outrage and Division
Prominent figures such as Elon Musk and Catholic Bishop Robert Barron have condemned the display. Musk posted to X, stating, "This was extremely disrespectful to Christians." Barron, the bishop for the Winona-Rochester diocese, added in a video posted to the platform, "What do I see but this gross mockery of the Last Supper."
However, the ceremony's artistic director, Thomas Jolly, and the media have rushed to discredit such criticism. Jolly insisted that the display was not of "The Last Supper," but of another classical work. Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins echoed this argument, writing, "That drag queen sequence was meant to refer, like Delville, to Greek pagan celebrations — not, as some Christian leaders insist, to mock Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper."
Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony: Drag Queen Display Sparks Outrage and Division
Jenkins went on to argue that the criticism of the performance is fueled by religious hostility to "experimental art." She wrote, "Why some church leaders are so often hostile to experimental art and treat it as anti-faith is an unanswerable question. But it’s certainly not a modern phenomenon."
Jenkins concluded by accusing critics of the display of paying attention "to all the wrong things." She added, "Those flogging the Opening Ceremonies over one fleeting pagan tableau in a spellbinding four-hour ceremony belong to the same dry line of self-appointed judges left in the dust of history who misjudged works in their own day for not being properly venerating."
Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony: Drag Queen Display Sparks Outrage and Division
The controversy over the drag queen display has highlighted the ongoing tension between artistic expression and religious sensibilities. While some argue that the performance was disrespectful and offensive, others maintain that it is a work of art that should be interpreted without reference to its religious context. The debate is likely to continue in the lead-up to the 2024 Paris Olympics.
