Another day, another false “apology” for “any offense caused.” We’re used to them by now from public figures who refuse to take responsibility for something they did that they knew would provoke backlash.
This time it’s coming from the organizers of the 2024 Paris Olympics. Anne Descamps has issued the not-pology after brutal reaction to the games’ opening ceremony. The opening ceremonies were a spectacle like no one has seen before, and not in a positive way. Leaning into the very modern theme of transgenderism, libertinism, and mockery of the traditional, the organizers put on a show featuring drag queens, and a tasteless and headless Marie Antoinette.
Compared to the beautiful pageantry of the 2012 opening ceremonies in London, this year’s set piece appears designed to mock and offend anything traditional, and Christianity in particular. The most striking image from the presentation was what appeared to any reasonable person to be an “homage” to Da Vince’s The Last Supper. Despite fervent denials from the organizer, it is obvious to most observers that the strangely costumed performers seated at a long table was a visual reference to the famous Christian painting.
In keeping with the contemporary idea that there is no such thing as beauty or excellence, the performer playing the Greek God of pleasure, Dionysus, was a flabby man with blue-painted skin and a cone sticking out of his genital region.
The games’ organizers quickly realized they had a problem, and took down the video of the opening ceremonies within a day of the backlash. At a press conference to address the controversy, Paris 2025 spokeswoman Anne Descamps said there was no intent to offend. Instead, she claimed, the goal was to “celebrate community tolerance.”
In the typical style of not-pologies, Descamps put the blame on the audience, speaking of people having “taken offense.”
But some Christian clergy defended the performance, claiming it had no reference to the famous DaVinci painting. U.S. preacher Benjamin Cremer said the short play was a depiction of the Feast of Dionysus that represented “feasting and ritual and theater.”
Mainstream U.S. media is, predictably, defending the performance and attempting to make those who object to it sound unbalanced. In much the way the Democrat party has rolled out the word “weird” in the past few days as a talking point against Donald Trump and his VP pick, JD Vance, leftist pundits are calling any objections a “moral panic.”
In an opinion piece for MSNBC, Anthea Butler repeats the obvious fib that there was no reference to The Last Supper. She says anyone saying otherwise cannot see outside “the lens of their conservative religious convictions.”
National Public Radio (NPR) took a different tack to get to the same destination. Apparently unaware of the large portion of the public who took exception to what seemed more like a burlesque show than a tribute to athletic excellence, the network said the ceremony was “spectacular” and that it “wowed Parisians, fans, and most everyone.”
You can read a transcript of the NPR conversation here.
