The Paris Olympics kicked off last Friday with an unforgettable opening ceremony, though it’s since received backlash from Christian conservatives online.
There was a moment during the opening ceremonies where drag queens took center stage. Stars from Drag Race France were clad in colorful attire, arranged around and on the table in a way a lot of viewers felt were similar to the famous “Last Supper” painting by Da Vinci.
Thomas Jolly, the artistic director of the 2024 Olympics opening ceremony, has denied the Last Supper was his inspiration for the scene. Rather, he says, the inspiration comes from the Olympic Games’ Greek roots.
“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’,” explained Jolly. “He is also the god of wine, which is also one of the jewels of France, and the father of Séquana, the goddess of the river Seine … The idea was to depict a big pagan celebration, linked to the gods of Olympus, and thus the Olympics.”
However, the true origins of the drag depiction were lost for most Christian conservatives on social media. NFL player Harrison Butker, who came under fire earlier this year for controversial remarks he had at a graduation ceremony, claimed the tableau was mocking God. The U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson took to X (formerly Twitter) to say the cast of queens, including Nicky Doll, was “shocking and insulting.”
In a press conference on Saturday, Jolly said it wasn’t his intention to have others use his work to divide. Rather, he hoped it would bring unity and inspire other countries to follow in France’s footsteps.
“My will is to say we are an immense ‘we’,” Jolly said, adding: “In France, we have the right to love each other, as we want, with whoever we want, in France we have the right to believe and not to believe.”