an editorial
The Desk found itself in the unusual position of defending the French Sunday. It comes down to a famous line from philosophy that we'll come back to at the end.
The occasion was that a friend of the Desk had said that he could no longer watch the Olympics or support the athletes competing in it because of the "Last Supper Tableau" during the so called fashion show that occurred during the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics.
In the vast majority of cases, the 'pre game show' in a host city has been something of an historical review of the city and the country. A 'greatest hits' type presentation of the art and culture of the nation. Sometimes there is a sporting perspective, perhaps a presentation of a legendary sports star or two, and a remembrance of a former Olympic champion from the country who has recently passed on.
Somebody, somewhere in the bowels of the Paris Organizing Committee decided that they needed to do a recreation of a Jewish meal that happened in Israel two thousand years ago and had been painted by one of the most famous artists in history, who was from Italy, and is shown in a convent in Milan. Which had and has NOTHING to do with either Paris or France as a whole.
And not only do a recreation of the Last Supper, to do it with flamboyant cross dressers of every description, including at the center of the table an obese tattooed feminine representation of the Statue of Liberty. With the word "FESTIVITE" across the screen during their posing, which lasted for about a minute. And then later in the scene the main course appeared to be a nude man who had been painted blue.
An argument has been made that this wasn't the DaVinci they were sending up, but instead a recreation of a painting of the gods of ancient Greece sharing a meal before the Olympics there and then. Or perhaps some other period piece. If so, they picked something that most people would never have seen before, whereas everybody knows the DaVinci painting. And, honestly, that's what it looked like they were trying to do.
No. This was an intentional act by both the producer of the show and those starring in it, the vast majority of whom were professional actors and models of various sorts, to parody the iconic painting, and the religious event it depicted.
While Paris may be more famous for the female showgirls of the Moulin Rouge, the Bohemian aspect of female impersonators, known in US media as "drag queens", is well known in the city and has been since the 1920s.
Now. As to why they would do this.
Let's step back from the table for a moment and look at the overall culture of satire in France as a whole.
In 2006, and in 2010, and following the left-wing satirical magazine "Charlie Hebdo" ran several cartoons of Prophet Muhammad and other unfavorable depictions of followers of Islam.
Under most variations of Sharia, such depictions are forbidden, and showing disrespect for the Prophet or the religion as a whole is a crime which is often punished by death.
After a similar series of cartoons in 2006, the magazine was sued by the Paris Mosque, while the president of France warned the publisher about "intentionally inflaming passions" while defending their right to publish.
In 2007 the magazine was acquitted citing that the images were not an attack on Islam.
In 2011 the magazine ran another series of cartoons of this type, and was later firebombed.
In 2015 members of Al Qaeda in Arabia attacked the Paris offices of the magazine, and killed twelve employees and wounded eleven others. Later a French terrorist associated with the attack took hostages in a supermarket and killed four Jews. Several months later a larger group of terrorists unleashed mass shootings and suicide bombs that killed 130 and injured hundreds more all across Paris. The attacks were claimed by Al Qaeda as reprisal for the magazine, and France's, insults to Islam.
There was an international response to the 2015 and 16 attacks with shouts of "Je suis Charlie" (I am Charlie) from all those that refuse to bow to terrorism and support the freedoms of speech and the press.
Interestingly, while France is a Catholic country, there is no official blasphemy law. Anything and everything is open to satire. And the "Charlie Weekly" magazine spares no-one, except their own core supporters on the political left. They have targeted everybody from the Catholic hierarchy, to political conservatives, industrialists, and even the occasional artist and musician who doesn't embrace the editorial staff's agenda.
However, the Archbishop has never openly declared a fatwa against the editors, which is essentially granting religious permission for murder.
But this time the target of French satire wasn't directly Islamic. Although they too could be offended and we'll explain why in a moment.
In Russia, and a handful of other countries, the promotion of homosexuality and related ideas is prohibited. In countries like Belarus and Romania, while it isn't illegal, it is discouraged and there is no legal statute prohibiting open discrimination against those in said lifestyle.
In China, while it isn't illegal to be a homosexual and said relationships have some rights, discrimination is still widely practiced and legal avenues for relief are virtually nonexistent.
In Aftica you have everything from the death penalty if one is caught in a homosexual encounter (Uganda, law passed in 2023), to the practice being illegal in over two dozen countries, all the way up to South Africa that recognizes gay marriage.
As for the Middle East, we'll have Iran stand up for the region. In 2007 Iranian President Ahmadinejab said there were no homosexuals in Iran. It's a good thing there aren't, if discovered they face prison or even execution.
While it is possible that the performers on the bridge in Paris were 'straight', it is more than probable that a vast majority of them prefer something else as a recreational activity on a long weekend and wouldn't be comfortable setting up housekeeping in Uganda or Iran.
Or in Russia.
During the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, Russian leader Vladimir Putin signed laws that forced anybody preferring any unapproved sexual activity to toe the line, or face the consequences. The laws against "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations" were touted as protecting children, but the intent was clear given the overall flavor of Putin's anti-gay tirades. While he maintained that Russia was open and enlightened, everybody knew better. The community in Sochi folded up their rainbow flags and put them in their sock drawer.
It got to the point that some members of various Olympic teams decided to stay home instead of take the chance of upsetting Vlad.
Since then, the man who has envisioned himself the leader of a rebuilt USSR has taken political action to reabsorb Belarus and some other former republics, and initiated a full scale military campaign against Ukraine.
The French satire industry was given an international stage to slap Vlad across the face with the biggest promotion of "nontraditional sex" they could come up with.
They took it.
Unfortunately. The minute it became clear what was going on, Russian state TV probably cut to reruns of "Masha and the Bear".
It is possible that the producer and organizers never thought what it would look like to Christians while they were all laughing and telling each other how edgy and progressive it was.
But. Somebody. HAD. to have told them that this would "enflame the passions" of Christians.
And for that matter, it could upset Muslims because Christ is seen as a prophet in Islam just like Elijah and Moses.
They chose to ignore the warning.
The all too late, halfhearted, and carefully worded apology from the Paris Olympic Committee was obviously an attempt to try to deflect some of the outrage and get people to focus on the games. It didn't work. The opening ceremony shenanigans had been too carefully orchestrated for anybody to believe it hadn't been intentional.
And they are right.
Now as for NBC. We're certain that the ranking brass of the rainbow peacock network thought it was wonderful as it was right in step with the parade of diversity and inclusion in almost every show they run in prime time.
As for their owners at Comcast, well, maybe not.
The network has on their side that most of this coverage was on an international feed from the French and they only had control of their individual camera crews with the reporters who were on the boat interviewing athletes or somewhere along the riverbank watching the parade.
So as much as we hate to think about it, NBC may have been an innocent bystander in it as well.
And as for the nation whose young think it is a marvelous sport to go out and urinate on the graves of American World War Two dead. France. Overall, they probably got the joke.
This is Hanlon's Razor. And it most certainly may be all the explanation we need for what happened:
TheMediaDesk.comNOTE: This is an editorial examination of a recent controversial event. This is wholly and solely the Desk's conclusions and opinions. Other opinions are equally valid. You are welcome to do your own research and come to your own conclusions.