"Last Supper" depiction at Olympics Opening Ceremony

So, not only are drag queens offensive to women, but sure the poor little.silly women don't even.understand that.

That women's roles were played by men back.centuries.ago, is more to do with society's views on women at that time. Those highly sexualized drag queens are not mocking women in anyway, they like to feel like.sexual women, it's an act. It's a much more.recent thing anyway, the drag acts I remember from my childhood were usually all stressed as older middle aged fat women (think Mrs Brown) were they offensive to women because they depicted them that way?

it's really reaching for something to be offended about.

What was it then? What was the intention or motivation behind incorporating it?

The desired effect was clearly the irreverence of placing people dressed in flamboyant costume in juxtaposition with the soberness of the important and serious religious imagery. It's fairly light mocking I will say, and as I've said, it's nothing to get worked up about it, but what's ridiculous is similar light mockery would have heads rolling across the media world if it was muslims in the scene.

- their argument is so stupid it’s not even worth entertaining.

The intention behind incorporating it was to reflect the cultural diversity of French society in a way that everyone felt included by being represented and could recognise themselves in it. Paintings of the Last Supper have always had far more cultural and historical significance than they ever had any religious significance. Claiming that portrayals of the Last Supper have any religious significance is reaching, and anyone claiming it is an offence to Christianity doesn’t know Christianity very well. At best all they have is a surface level understanding.

Anyone, whether they’re Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Hare Krishna, Baha’i, etc, could have interpreted any part of the opening ceremony as being a mockery of their religion. Their claims would be just as unreasonable given the fact that the opening ceremony or any part of it had nothing whatsoever to do with any religion. France is a secular country, has been for the last 200 years, it just wouldn’t occur to them to mock any religion because they simply don’t pay any religion any respect in the first place.

The fact that they didn’t include any aspect of Islam isn’t surprising given that Muslims only make up less than 4% of the population of France in the first place, Islam just doesn’t have the cultural influence or history in the West that Christianity has had to the effect that even if one were completely unfamiliar with Christianity, they would still get the meme of the Last Supper, because it has been portrayed in numerous other aspects of Western culture including but not limited to paintings, movies and television.

It could only be hypocrisy of the left if there were evidence that their intent was to mock any idea. There’s no evidence of that, nor is there any evidence of the occasion being used to further any political agenda. There would be evidence of an attempt to further a political agenda if they had included an attempt to mock Islam, but they didn’t even include an attempt to mock Christianity, so the whole argument about hypocrisy just doesn’t stand. The fact that one of the main performers received death threats and rape threats says plenty on its own, and those threats aren’t coming from Muslims, or the people you’re claiming would have heads rolling across the media.

You bring up an interesting point. If it was muslims claiming offence there's 0% chance you'd be here writing reams about how they are ill informed about their own religion and shouldn't be offended

And as for diversity of france nowadays WTF. There was like 5 drag queens in the lineup, that's modern france is it? You're right 1 in 25 are muslim and yet they weren't reflected in this modern depiction of france, that's crazy. Wonder why they didn't involve them. And you're the one saying I'm reaching? Lord above

If Muslims were claiming offence in your hypothetical strawman scenario the secular French and most posters here would rightly laugh and then tell the lot to bugger back to any number of Islamic theocratic hellholes that would have them.

A strawman, it's called a comparison luv. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/10/30/as-anger-rises-thousands-of-muslims-protest-french-cartoons

They'd be burning down paris as we speak if it had been related to islam.

If it was muslims claiming offence there's 0% chance you'd be here writing reams about how they are ill informed about their own religion and shouldn't be offended.

I would if they insisted on claiming that anything was intended to be offensive to their religion in the same manner as people here are claiming it was offensive for all sorts of reasons. I’m equally as comfortable pointing out bullshìt regardless of the ideological motivation behind it.

For example I know volchista’s argument against drag is rooted in Feminist ideology - women’s liberation from Patriarchal oppression, all that good stuff, rooted in Leftist politics. That’s why even though I understand it, I don’t care for the argument because I’m neither Left leaning politically, nor am I a Feminist - volchista has a point, it’s just not one I’d be interested in or willing to entertain.

2020

Was there a thread here about that back then, I want to see how many were laughing at this lot

Aye, in my school days there were plenty of lads who were gay (all boys school, CBS), that when one of my mates was telling me all about her new boyfriend and how he was a great kisser, without thinking I replied enthusiastically “I know!” She looked at me like “what do YOU mean?”

My brain was just like “Find your own way back out of that one!” 😂

Overall and with the benefit of hindsight it was a difficult w@nk

They reference the painting, not Christianity - a small but fairly important distinction between the two. A recreation of the Last Supper is not mocking Christianity, not even remotely coming close to it.

Recreating the most iconic image of Christian art with people behaving utterly at odds with Christian values is deliberate mockery.

Its a painting of a bible story. It's not sacred Christian anything!

IIts not a Christian anything at all then. It's a painting by a renaissance artist

Honestly, if you want to believe the creative director is lying, go right ahead.

But somehow, the inclusion of Dionysus and Sequana doesn't fit in with a depiction of the Last Supper.

It does, however, fit in with the Artistic Director's explanation of a Greek feast.

Greece being the birthplace of the Olympic Games, and this being an opening ceremony, for the Olympic Games, and all.

It's not sacred or the object of worship.

But it's a painting by a Christian, of a story central to Christianity, inside a monastery. It's the most iconic piece of Christian art that I can think of. It is emblematic of Christianity in the culture at large.

Falling over your keyboard to claim 'it's not a Christian anything' makes you look totally ridiculous.

He also was able to turn water into wine and was a childless and catless person

That is the height of pedanticism.It was created for worshippers of the religion, and holds high importance to them. Calling it anything but a highly important piece of religious symbolism within christianity is quite ridiculous. You could make the same case for the station of the crosses seeing as they are relatively subjective artistic impressions that vary within every church, it doesn't take away from their importance though. And you could make the same ridiculous argument for numerous objects artefacts and artwork which were gradually incorporated into religious cultures around the world.

It was created for worshippers of the religion, and holds high importance to them.

It wasn’t, and it doesn’t.

After that you can make whatever ridiculous arguments you like.

I don’t need to google, rather I’d simply encourage you to go back and read what I said, more carefully this time rather than jumping over your keyboard to scrawl out a useless retort. I said it was up there with many examples of art from the Renaissance period. There are many examples of paintings from that period which are equally famous as the Last Supper, some with more meaning to some people than others.

The Last Supper isn’t the second most famous painting there is, though I wouldn’t quarrel with you over whether or not it is the second most famous painting in European Art history. Of the 2 billion Christians there are in the world, most won’t be remotely familiar with the painting.

Don’t get me wrong - it stands to reason that you would want to imagine that your idea of Christianity is the definitive version of Christianity that all Christians must share, and believe me when I say I take no pleasure in disabusing you of such ridiculous notions, it just doesn’t feel right, but, even among Catholics, the Universal Ministry of the Church takes precedence over depictions of Christ in Art, and every culture imagines Christ in their own image. The Church has long been ok with it, and the portrayal of the Last Supper at the Olympics is not the exception, it’s the rule:

https://catholicexchange.com/why-its-okay-to-portray-jesus-as-europeanor-any-other-race/

It was commissioned by an Italian nobleman in what was intended to be used as a mausoleum. I don’t know about you, but mausoleums aren’t places where worshippers tend to hang out, they’re ornate buildings for people with more money than sense to be buried when they’re dead, so there wasn’t many worshippers going to be looking at it in any case, much like the way as I posted earlier in the thread - a reproduction of the painting hung in my living room throughout my childhood. There wasn’t much worshipping done in the living room, apart from a few chairs around once a week for a few decades of the rosary, but the last supper was just a nice painting with no greater significance attached to it. Could’ve just as easily hung in the bathroom.

I think you'll find worshippers do hang out in mausoleums, often for a very long time. Hence the care taken to adorn them with art of religious significance.

Still waiting for the image of Christian art that's more iconic than the Last Supper. Even one will do. Your link didn't have any.

He has a point that we can make - and get - jokes about our own foibles more easily than those of others, because we're all familiar with the references, but OTOH most people don't know much about Judaism, and yet there are loads of jokes about Jews. Maybe we just need more Muslim comedians to start poking fun at their own religion? Shazia Mirza comes to mind.