The Paris Olympics opening ceremony. So much noise about whether this is Christian intolerance. The French organizers retroactively claim Greek or something. And it really doesn’t matter. The depiction was close enough that millions of Christians around the world IMMEDIATELY and INDEPENDENTLY perceived the opening gig failure as a slight against Christianity. What they saw was a mockery of The Last Supper depicted by Leonardo da Vinci.
The parallel optics were universally recognizable to both religious and secular observers. Obfuscating something so obvious would be like the United States opening the Olympics with a depiction of two mushroom clouds over the Japanese home islands and then claiming “What’s the problem? We just really like giant cauliflower in our Japanese food.”
My belief is the universe is not lazy enough for coincidence. Retrograde spin that contradicts earlier statements proves this point. It was intentional. And the internet is forever.
All that aside, this clip from the non-apology is what’s truly at issue:
“There was clearly never an intention to show disrespect to any religious group,” Paris 2024 spokesperson Anne Descamps told a news conference on Sunday.
“On the contrary, I think we tried to celebrate community, tolerance. We believe this ambition was achieved. If people have taken any offense, we’re of course really sorry.”
Irrespective of purposeful ill intent, the “ambition” was woke LGBT messaging. It’s bringing woke virtue signaling into an event of INTERNATIONAL inclusion. So perhaps this woke wink wink resonates with progressive France, but how about the delegations from West Asia? Their offense is less about The Last Supper and more about the whole LGBT woke messaging. “Tolerance” for LGBT propaganda in West Asia is effectively zero. There’s a reason Disney creates two versions of movies, one for propaganda in the western world and one excising the propaganda for markets like West Asia.
This aspect of cultural competency is a known variable. Beyond any mockery of important Christian events (again, this was purposeful, the internet is forever), using the Olympic stage for cultural imperialism is poor form and just bad manners. And all claim of “tolerance” is insincere and simply a lie.
There’s huge international backlash now. And any “aw, les shucks, we didn’t know” whiffle is clutzy obfuscation. The French Olympic organizers knew full well what they were doing (the internet is forever) and they decided instead to insult international cultures brought together at an international peace event.
Like the USSR in 1984, just consider this an Olympic boycott.
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