Matthew Bunson analyzes the controversial drag performance that shocked viewers during the Paris Olympics opening ceremony. Explore the historical and cultural context of the event, including the rise of secularism in France and the potential backlash against this provocative display. Discover how this incident reflects broader societal tensions and the ongoing struggle for traditional values.
Transcript:
Darin said, “Look at this clip before you go on the air with Dr. Bunsen.” So all I have done is look at the clip. Could you please tell me what I’m looking at? Well, what you’re looking at, apparently. Now, the footage is always delayed. So what we’re talking about, for those that may not be following this on social media, and I would encourage you to do so, is the Olympics in Paris have begun. They had the opening ceremony this evening, and it will be broadcast, it’s broadcast now, internationally. It will be broadcast to the US audience starting probably just about half an hour or so.
And part of the opening ceremonies include, apparently, a depiction of the beheaded Marie Antoinette establishing immediately the anti-monarchist tendencies of the French Republic. But what everyone’s really talking about is, apparently, a drag queen depiction of the Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, followed then by a variety of additional drag queens who are parading through the streets of Paris.
As you can imagine, the response has been predictable. I think there’s a lot we can talk about in this regard. The immediate reaction, of course, has been what we’d imagine it would be. It isn’t just, to use the phrase, pearl clutching, I think people are genuinely horrified at what they’re seeing, including many French who have been, I’ve been following it on X, what used to be Twitter, expressing their outrage and embarrassment that this type of a performance would be undertaken, certainly to open something as universal as the Olympic Games. Yeah, I mean, there is kind of, I mean, Olympic Games are at root a pagan thing. I mean, not that pagan stuff is bad. I’m not saying that that makes it evil or something, but I wasn’t thinking until just a few moments ago that what the world needed was a drag queen depiction of the Last Supper. That wasn’t on my list of artistic achievements we were lacking previously. Yeah, somebody said on Twitter that I didn’t have that on my bingo card for tonight.
That is a- But here’s the thing, and I think this is one of the keys to stress here. Millions and millions of euros have been spent in the preparations for these games. Yeah. The city of Paris has been under construction, under renovation. The Cathedral of Notre Dame has been under reconstruction for years with the goal of having it ready for the Olympic Games. Millions and millions more euros have been spent preparing for the opening ceremonies. Now, in fairness, opening ceremonies have always been historically something of a really mixed bag of imagery and music. Part of the oddity of the opening of Olympic Games is trying to understand the imagery, what exactly we’re watching. What am I seeing? Yes. What am I seeing? That’s especially true with the winter games because you’re even more circumscribed by the weather. In this case, we have to come to grips with the fact that this was long in preparation. This is highly choreographed. It was prepared. They knew exactly what they were doing. So any idea that this is somehow a surprise to people, that they were blindsided by a sudden performance of a drag queen rendition of The Last Supper simply won’t fly. So what we can immediately deduce is that I’m sure we’ll get more details about this over the next few days, and I look forward to that. But this was deliberate. This was choreographed. It was rehearsed. It was planned and has been planned for months.
So, yeah. What we’ve heard, and maybe you know something about this. I don’t know that there’s a kind of very small scale, but real resurgence of Catholic faith in France, that people are kind of recovering some of their Catholicity. This is true. Yeah. We saw just this last Easter, significant upticks in the numbers of conversions among French Catholics into the church. We have seen as well a number of conversions from Islam to Catholicism. We had a very impressive procession of chartres with the banners and everything that you’d expect. It was a beautiful pilgrimage. So you’re right. There has been in the last few years something of a resurgence. Also, the traditional Latin Mass has some of its strongest bastions anywhere in the church in France. Now we’ll see if there might be new restrictions coming, that that’s the rumor. But it’s an indicator, I think, of a definite response to two things. I think the massive cultural upheaval that we’re seeing in France as a result of mass migration, but also just the sheer progress, relentless march of relativism and secularism. Now that’s in many ways built into the DNA of the French Republic from the time of the French Revolution. In the 20th century we’ve seen, and into the 21st, we’ve seen the continuation of the long-standing French policy called laicite, which is this idea of the French state owning everything and being highly, highly secular. This takes it to a new level.
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