The painting is OUTRAGED
Day 1, selective outrage; day 2, selective apologies.
The organisers of the Paris Olympics have apologised after a drag queen parody of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper featured in the opening ceremony.
What, did it get there because someone opened the wrong box? Was it supposed to be Vermeer’s Milkmaid or Van Gogh’s Sunflowers?
The tableau, which recreated the biblical scene of Christ and his apostles, included drag artists and a naked singer. It was heavily criticised by politicians and members of the Catholic Church.
Hang on. What does that mean? How does one “recreate” a biblical scene of anything? Paintings that illustrate bible stories are just that – illustrations. They’re not photographic records of historical events, they’re imaginative illustrations of imaginative stories.
Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, who heads the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life expressed his disgust in the right-wing daily, Il Giornale, on Sunday.
The archbishop spoke of the importance of the Olympics and sporting values in promoting fraternity and equality before saying: “This high ideal has been besmirched by a blasphemous mockery of one of Christianity’s holiest moments.”
Dude. Get a grip. The painting is just one guy’s idea of what a purported “last supper” might have looked like. That’s all. It’s not a historical record of the event itself. The parody is not the painting itself.
The taunting of women, of course, goes unmentioned. The archbishop approves of fraternity but sorority apparently not so much.
What a crock of shit. It wasn’t parodying the last supper, it was supposed to be an interpretation of the ancient Greek myth of the Feast of the Gods.
Bloody Christians, thinking their mythology is the only mythology!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/articles/cw4yqvegkexo.amp
Wait you mean there’s more than one bunch of people sitting at a table??????? How is this possible???????
What was created in words is created again in oil on canvas. It is recreated. Seems a reasonable use to me.
In a reasonable context, yes, but in this context it’s being used to underpin the claims of blasphemy. It’s being literalized in a stupid bullying way that’s just absurd, as if Leonardo had been Officially Appointed Recreator By Mister God.
It also is hardly the first parody of that painting (though as AoS says it may not even be that painting). Also, since when have the French cared what the Church says? Laicite is how you do there…
I call bullshit. A parade of drag queens wasn’t intended to be subversive or shocking? And I’m the Queen of Sheba.
This dance gets tiresome. They willfully transgress boundaries then claim to be poor, unfortunate souls just misunderstood with such predictable regularity it puts my grandfather clock to shame.
It gets curiouser. This WaPo article about the apology over the sketch says the sketch was supposed to be the Last Supper interrupted by Dionysus. Other sources comparing the tableau to the DaVinci painting show that it matches fairly well. Based on this, I think there is good reason to think this sketch actually is, in part, a Last Supper reference. WaPo may have got it wrong, but their account is compelling.
The linked article also refers to a “woman with a halo-like crown in the role of Jesus as well as drag queens and gay icons as disciples”. All the players are garishly made-up and costumed, but I am not convinced that Jesus actor is a woman. And I don’t quite know what they mean here by “gay icons”; notable people in the gay movement? Notable people who are gay? Gay men pretending to be religious icons? Gay men who don’t seem to be trying to look like women?
Well, I for one, choose to believe that Jesus and co all sat on the same side of the table at the last supper like some sort of overextended sitcom family.
The problem with the various interpretations here is that they’re all kind of true (and false) given that the thing itself was so unapologetically intellectually low rent that ascribing any intentions to it whatsoever is an exercise in staring at clouds. I’m almost surprised that Superman and Mickey Mouse didn’t put in an appearance. (Don’t the French love their Micky?)
Now I’m tempted to do a Dogs Playing Poker version of the last supper…would that be mockery? Sorry, guys, but in a free world, we have a right to mock Christianity. If we don’t have that right, it is not a free world.
Already done.
I don’t think the right to mock is at issue, though. It seems more of a time and place thing.
Well the singer in question is known to make reasonably controversial performances (to French standards), for the sake of being ‘light’ and silly. Nobody should have really bothered at all, it was just meant to be a singularly uninspired show, and the fact it triggered people really means the state of the world is in bad shape. That was only silliness, it’s meant to be silly (and boring), and maybe allowing performers to check a weird line in their lifetime todo list.
The whole opening was clearly hinting at trying to be innovative and missing its very goal from start by not being at the ambition level it was aiming, first because of the rain, save it really mixed up things (at least that was successful) and as a result people have mixed feelings. What a surprise!
Sort of done…and quite amusing. I sort of thought about substituting all the apostle’s faces for dogs…with a great big pit bull for Jesus. Or do you think a French poodle?
If I did cats, I could do a calico, which could get them all up in arms because calico cats are almost all female.
I like the idea of something “scary looking” like a pittie or Doberman (especially since they’re great dogs). Alternatively, you could go with a sighthound like an Afghan or borzoi, which could really fit a stuffy aesthetic.
Alternatively alternatively, just be silly and make Jesus a pug.