"Last Supper" depiction at Olympics Opening Ceremony

I remember the tv shows Lost and Battle Star Galactica had promotional posters with their characters mimicking those on the last supper. I dont think either show was referencing the historic event just using a well know painting know in pop culture. BSG in particular had an actress in the Jesus pose. I guess this wouldn't fly now, people being more sensitive to being offended.

Yes, the triggerers have become the triggerees.

You’re making the association between the painting and Christianity, would be nice if you had even a remote smidgen of any evidence to support your claim. Like you’re obviously aware that Christianity existed for at least 1,500 years before the painting and many like it were commissioned at a time when being a patron of the Arts was of much greater significance and importance than it is today.

https://thoughtsonpapyrus.com/2019/09/19/5-the-last-supper-paintings/

The actual painting you’re referring to, has been reproduced many times and carries no great significance in Christianity. It’s the event depicted in the painting that is of any significance to Christianity, but as has been pointed out in the thread already - it’s been memed numerous times in popular culture. It was only because on this occasion it was done in drag that there were complaints from people claiming the performance was blasphemy! 🙄

Whatever about a 'painting' it's subject matter is that of an event 2 billion or so people believe took place, whether they are right or wrong in that belief is neither here nor there …..the last drag supper was a mockery of that event they believe in, just fking own that fact on move on from it

Christians though, aren’t making a big deal of this. A small handful of people, are making a big deal out of it simply because it was a drag performance and it didn’t sit well with their idealistic vision of what the Olympics are about.

There was no intent to mock Christianity, so the question of your false equivalence just doesn’t arise - mocking Islam stands on its own, and the reason we don’t hear much mockery or criticism of Islam is simply because it doesn’t have anything remotely like the influence that Christianity has had on the West. The primary reason there’s fcukall mockery of Islam is because the same people who want Islam to be mocked, are afraid nobody would laugh at their jokes. That’s why they don’t make any jokes about Islam, but they’ll happily join in if other people start. That’s not mockery, that’s cowardice.

Being religious or not doesn’t change the facts, and one would need to be very insecure in their own faith to complain that their religion is being mocked by people who that same religion has taught are somehow intrinsically disordered (because they don’t fit with the Christian master plan), or taught that women are to be subservient to men, or that anyone who disavows their religion is an apostate or criticises their religion is a heretic or committing blasphemy (thank goodness that was removed from Irish law*), and a whole other load of nonsense teachings which have long been discarded, discredited or just outright ignored since their inception.

*Only fairly recently too:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland

Now you're getting there, just develop that idea a little bit further and you'll see why some people might be a wee bit annoyed.…

I am indeed aware that the painting was done after Christianity began. I would be extremely surprised if it pre-dated the events displayed within it; that might make me reconsider my lack of belief.

Did you ever pick up a brush yourself? You might have an undiscovered talent, seeing the job you've done painting yourself into a corner here.

The less fuel added to this fire the better really.

The folks behind this were just looking for 'engagement' and managed to do it long after the ceremony was finished to the point it is likely to remain in the news or online for a long while after.

As for the 'mocking' of a religion, well no one should really car. The religions themselves and the activities of the people looked up to in these religions have done enough themselves to deserve a bit of mocking in fairness.

The issue really when you boil it down, should be tied back to sport and fairness. And while there's no issues with being representative in an opening ceremony or having a bit of fun, the issues with transgender women competing against biological women in physical sports is at the core of what should be exercising people's conversations.

So if someone portrayed Mohammed as an obese drag queen, nobody could reasonably say that Islam was being mocked?

Right?

FFS this is hilarious. I don’t give a hoot about them mocking Christianity, but it is blindingly obvious to me that that’s what it is: it’s a parody of Jesus and his disciples at the last supper, based on a world famous painting so we all get the reference easily . A parody AKA mockery.

Well based on where "Jesus" (inverted commas because I don't believe in religion) was born and raised he probably looked more like the person portraying him in the opening ceremony that the 6ft5' white ripped bodied figure in most Churches around Ireland.

Are we not causing offence by essentially changing his race in all of our art and depictions?

Reminds me of this.

Yes but we now know what he probably looked like if he ever existed and it certainly isn't what's on display in Churches and continues to be produced today in new statues and paintings.

Maybe the idea of a 5ft5' middle eastern looking Jesus wouldn't sit well with most religious types though.

FFS the press releases from the organisers in advance of the ceremony specifically referenced the Last Supper. I posted a screenshot of a (since deleted) description from France television saying so. They're busy trying to rewrite history now to avoid embarrassment, but that's what happened all the same.

(Taking a world-famous depiction of the Last Supper and showing Jesus as an obese trans woman DJ, and then putting Dionysis the god of wine as a centre piece on the table to make the LS into a Bacchanalian orgy is exactly why it is a mockery of the Last Supper. Don't you get how references work in the creative arts?)

ETA: Oh wait:

Maybe it was a lot more fun than we've been led to believe.

You do get it really. And yet somehow, you still don't. A refusal to join the dots. I'm seeing religious levels of blind faith here, like back when I was a child and adults believed in holy medals and miracles and that bread became the actual flesh of christ. Or else kept quiet when they didn't.

They're busy trying to rewrite history now to avoid embarrassment

Like every good Christian 😏

The Ricky Gervais quote "Just because you offended, it doesn't mean it was offensive" comes to mind. There was a hell of a lot of Christians in Ireland watching that opening ceremony and a tiny minority seem to be expressing offense on the art piece.

The last supper has been used in advertising, promotion plenty of times in terms that could be seen as sacrilegious. The sopranos had a poster where Tony Soprano sits in as Jesus, the movie Watchmen had a pregnant lady who was the subject of a S assault in the movie sitting in as Jesus. If people want to be offended by depictions of the last supper painting then they plenty of other pieces to be offended about. But most Christians will not care.

You're wrong, I think they do care. I'm old enough to remember when christians were seriously offended by things like the Life of Brian and the Meaning of Life and tried very hard to get them banned - but they were (quite rightly) told where to get off, so now they've stopped objecting.

Turns out that if only they'd murdered a few dozen people, and sent some others into permanent hiding, we would all have known to be far more respectful of christianity. Stupid christians, eh?

So you are not Christian , not offended, but you talk on behalf of offended Christians? I think if so many Christians were offended there would be a tidal wave of criticism that would have resulted in the firing of a number of the event organisers. ireland is a majority Christian yet its only a few posters here that are criticising the act.

Sure. What's your point? The OP here said this:

OK, it will offend some but I don't have an issue with it except one thing…

Why is it OK to do this to Christians and not Jews or Muslims?

If they don't want that question asked why go near it at all?

Seems one religious cult is fair game and others are not.

IOW that if anyone had done something similar wrt Islam, their lives would have been at risk. I think that's not only self evidently true, but that this thread also shows that apparently some people are prepared to push self censorship so far that they are happy to pretend to themselves that it isn't true and that they could do something similar in Islam if they only wanted to, but that mysteriously, nobody ever wants to do that.

Or alternatively, but barely more credibly, there is no issue in the first place because it is not offensive to anyone anyway.

but that’s their problem.

That's a tad disingenuous, as the Charlie Hebdo people would no doubt tell you, only they're dead. Or a certain Yorkshire schoolteacher, who is still alive, but hard to get hold of, being in permanent hiding along with his whole family.

Butch isn’t trans. But even if she was, she wouldn’t be a drag queen. Drag queens and trans women are different things. Several of the disciples were drag queens, but I’ve no idea if they were trans.
Sure - I realise that.

The world is a far more complicated place than you seem to realise. It’s better not to get offended every time you don’t understand something though.
LOL. I'm not offended, as I've said before, and I really don't think I need you to talk down to me to explain the world to me. I'd be willing to bet I have a lot more experience of it than you. I don't know you, so maybe not, but how many languages do you speak and how many countries in the world have you lived/worked in? It would have to be a certain number if you're going to claim to have more experience of different cultures than me.

A group of people put on a performance that used some elements of the Last Supper painting as inspiration. That’s it. That is all that happened

I know. That's not in dispute.

But well done for a classic of mansplaining there. Nice one. 😀

But to say it was a mockery of Christianity like that's a given fact but only a minority of the believers of that faith seem to be claiming that. I think if the majority of a religion doesn't believes its a mockery then you are wrong in claiming its a mockery. I think Christians themselves can decide what is or is not a mockery.

I mean, the organisers implied this themselves, when they said they were free not to be worshippers/believers. They expected (wanted) believers to be annoyed by it. Why are you so determined to pretend otherwise?

Is this still being debated?

Its old news at this stage.

Well, you're the one who told me that I didn't understand the complicated world, so, you know. Talking down or what?

Anyway. The point is, it's disingenuous to say "I’m sure some Muslim lads wouldn’t agree, but that’s their problem" because if it leads them to try to kill you, I'd say it's your problem too. And that needs to be said over and over, so that people don't start to find it normal. Because it's not normal.

My "beef" is that I'm seeing our society turn back into a self censoring terrified place that no longer has freedom of speech to debate things and I think this is why instead we're getting gangs of violent men smashing stuff up. In Ireland in particular we only had about a decade of freedom from ideology, and now we're heading back into a new era of self censorship where, because open debate is frowned upon, physical violence is starting to be seen as the best way to be heard.

I think that's disastrous. And I think the answer is to have more freedom of speech, not less. Sadly a lot of people, including the government, think the answer is more control over speech instead.