Photo by Anthony DELANOIX on Unsplash
July 2024.
As part of the program Regional Initiative for combating disinformation “Western Balkans Combatting disinformation Center: Exposing malicious influences through fact-checking and Analytical Journalism“, we present you a new analysis of fake news and disinformation narratives.
And now, put the children away: This scandalous event is hard to read about, let alone watch
The official opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris was organized on July 26. The 33rd Summer Olympics began with a several-hour-long spectacle on the streets of the French capital. For the first time in history, the ceremony was held outside the Olympic stadium, in the open air—along the banks of the Seine River, near the major landmarks of Paris.
The spectacular opening of the Olympics, attended by hundreds of thousands of people, drew enormous attention from global media, becoming the most-watched Olympic event since 2012. However, reactions in the media and on social media have been mixed, suggesting that certain elements of the ceremony have sparked controversy.
Numerous conservative and politically (radically) right-leaning commentators have criticized certain parts or the entire opening ceremony, accusing it of “parodying” and “belittling” the heritage of European and Christian civilization. Among the many such articles, which also appeared in domestic media, an illustrative example is an article published on the domestic service of the Russian state-owned Sputnik under the title “And now, put the children away: This scandalous event is hard to read about, let alone watch.”
It is emphasized, first of all, that “the Serbian, French and even the global public was horrified by the performance that paraded through Paris in transvestite underwear and with a quasi-rebellious disparagement of Christian and human civilization.” The author for Sputnik Serbia emphasizes that anyone “who had the desire to follow the Olympic Games, despite the absence of Russia and the presence of Israel and Kosovo, was prevented by the audio, visual, thought and ideological freak of the “woke” ideology.” Additionally, a personal critical attitude is expressed that “the Olympic Games will be remembered as a great shame,” as well as the belief that this will be “the last Olympic Games made by such people and in such a manner.”
In addition to the presence of people of different sexual orientations and lifestyles, as well as extravagant choreography, the alleged reconstruction of the Last Supper—a famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci—was particularly criticized in these media, due to its supposed “anti-Christian” narrative at the opening of the Olympic Games. Sputnik Serbia writes that “The Last Supper in the reconstruction by these freaks…is a detail of the abominable tapestry displayed before people all over the planet.” It was stated that the Christian tradition is disgraced by this act. “Thomas Jolly, the queer artistic director hired by the Committee…he’s just sick, though not as terminally as the civilization that chose him,” the author claims about the director of the opening ceremony and the organizers. It was concluded that the participants of the Olympic Games, several thousand athletes, were also disgraced. “They looked like a flea circus, a cheap fairground party where fleas jump over each other while an artist conducts them.”
The opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics indeed elicited divided reactions, with some harsh criticism from conservative right-wing commentators. While the Olympic Games Organizing committee issued an official apology to part of the public, emphasizing that the “controversial” part of the program was intended to celebrate and showcase gastronomy, unacceptable outpourings of hate speech, intolerance, and threats against the ceremony’s participants, including the director, followed.
The text in question, which presents similar criticisms, insists it was a “deliberate” reinterpretation of Da Vinci’s Last Supper that “insults” Christian heritage. However, numerous experts and art historians have authoritatively suggested that it is a French depiction of the “Bacchanalia” from ancient Greece, the birthplace of the Olympic Games, with the figure of the god of wine and revelry in the foreground.
Author: Igor Mirosavljević
