What Madonna can teach us about the Paris opening ceremony, the manufactured controversy around it, and many liberals' silly attempts to pretend it wasn't exactly what it was
I didn’t watch the opening ceremonies but of course have seen images from the performance of The Last Supper and Lady Gaga, Céline Dion, the stunning singer who looked like Marianne come to life, the facade of beheaded Marie Antoinettes. The impression I have is of a joyful riot of artistic expression. Now, when I search for the video of the Last Supper performance, all I find are opinion videos about it. That’s a shame.
Trying to explain art is an attempt to co-opt it into someone else’s construct. Picasso is claimed to have said « People who try to explain pictures are usually barking up the wrong tree. » Why imagine that what an artist produces has anything to do with you? It also reminds me of the furor over Mapplethorpe. Maybe he wasn’t making it for you.
What I appreciated from the programme was that the French organisers gave artists freedom to go where they wanted. It wasn’t culturally didactic. They took their founding principles seriously and let it rip. Vive la France!
I'm not opposed to trying to interpret what other people intended with their art, mostly because I think it pretends away the role of the audience in that art, but I absolutely agree with the statement "Maybe he wasn't making it for you" as a general rule about art. People really struggle with this part of it. As for the freedom the producers afford Jolly and others, yes, it was impressive!
I was 10 years old when Madonna "danced with the devil and whatenot" and I found it empowering at my impressionable age.
Social media was full of screenshots of just the "last supper" set up. I didn't watch the opening ceremonies but honestly, I'd rather attend a hella gay dinner party, than the Jesus one portrayed in the bible. Once the whole picture was revealed which included the Greek god, the pearl clutchers looked more moronic if that's even possible.
There are far more sensible things to boycott the Olympics over, than watching the French celebrate the zest of life!
The "Like a Prayer" video is a seminal piece of art in my life, in that its disregard for norms was so intermixed with its clear passion for the religion that inspired those norms. Such a great piece of art.
Impassioned! And that's something I like about your Substack - and about Substack in general.
One thing I don't follow in your piece, however, is that you say art is supposed to cause a reaction, but then you appear to deem some reactions unacceptable.
Leaving aside those who want to monetise the feelings of others, offence will by some viewers of the event have been genuinely felt, while others may have been merely uncomfortable. More than that, some of those who were bothered by the show, or merely confused as to why they were being asked to watch something provocative (needlessly sexual, or over-politicised, in their view, for a televised family event) may, over time, find that feeling changing.
For such a viewer, it could, to use your term, take a while to 'celebrate' something that is radically new to their experience of the world. And, in time, the erstwhile outrage may evolve into something like appreciation. As a child might come to like olives, or Vegemite. Not everyone 'gets it' immediately - and that, I think, is as it should be with art that purports to be 'great'. (Another question which could be asked here is how great it was if even the author seems in two minds.) Truly affecting art can be a very slow burn.
So a barely contained disdain for those who are late to the party, as it were, might simply be the flip side of pearl clutching.
To be clear, I am not talking about those on either side in the media who knowingly deploy the event, and the reaction to it, to fuel a thousand crass articles that entrench what divides us yet further.
And I am writing in good faith: I genuinely don't know what to make of the whole thing, or the debate around it, or indeed your article. (And I think that's also fine.)
I never said reactions were unacceptable. I was commenting on the demented cultural schism that inspired the two contrary, equally silly reactions - albeit only one of them was derived from prejudice and hate. But I don't respect either reaction as expressions of critical thinking skills.
I'm not confident that was on the list of goals, though I expect they knew it would happen and were very okay with it. I think their primary goal was to create something beautiful that was a rebuttal of the kind of hate that has consumed many cultures for the past two years as politicians and a children's book author stirred it up. In that rebuttal, outrage was inevitable.
You make a good point. I will say, using outrage as a tool does not always have to be a negative thing. I can be a great tool for raising awareness or creating a call to action. This has been a tactic used by people fighting for social justice since the beginning.
Their main goal may have been to create a piece of art meant as a rebuttal towards the hate LGBTQ+ people but I’m inclined to think they also intended it to spark a conversation and get people talking, and they did very well at that.
I could very well be wrong though. This is just my view of it.
I think in the end, it doesn't really matter, right? The result is the same. Art is both the intent of the artist and the unexpected way the viewer reacts to it when it's released into the wild for all to see. We're living through the latter and now get to try to understand it...which is fun.
I can agree with that. I actually thought it was pretty cool when I saw it. The one thing we all know for sure is that it will be remembered, and that in itself is an accomplishment on the artist’s part.
I saw it on TV. There were models on a catwalk in front of the drag queens. The focus, for me, was mostly on the fashion show. I’m pretty sure Jesus wasn’t at Fashion Week.
HOW DO YOU KNOW HE WASN'T, DENISE?! I was raised with people telling me he was hovering somewhere in the ether around me, so I'm sure they're busy imagining him there, shaking his head disapprovingly.
Christians who embrace The Last Supper as ‘theirs’- do they know that Leonardo was gay AF? They shouldn’t assume he’d be appalled with the drag interpretation.
That photograph so obviously portrays this as a tableaux from The Last Supper that I really can’t see the point of denying it.
As a fourteen year old I loved the Like A Prayer video because it felt daring and subversive but looking back on it now I can feel real power in the way it combined religious iconography with images of racial bigotry and I feel like it had something important to say about attitudes towards race and sex.
I didn’t see the opening ceremony but the photos you have shared make it seem like a lot of fun. I personally see a message of joy which should be celebrated. I also find objections on religious grounds a little absurd. This is a work of art depicting a bible story, not a religious artefact. In general terms, I completely agree that reactions on both sides are a little absurd.
I take issue with the repeated use of the word "mock" by the press, too. As if they don't understand that using iconography is not the same as mocking it. It's all clickbait and both conservatives and liberals get sucked into this faux-outrage vortex of nonsense. It's not that I, who is very, very Left, don't fall prey to this to. It's hard not to in the 21st century, since we swim in it. But this event feels especially silly and egregious.
Hi there, as I lay out in my article, this performance piece was absolutely intended to evoke 'The Last Supper', the event producers have even said as much. Others involved, too. The French President recently applauded the controversial piece for this reason. But it's obviously more complicated than that, as I also discuss in the piece.
One of the recurring themes in the writings of one of my role models, the late Harold Bloom, was a lament about how contemporary American scholars were limiting the universal knowledge and appeal of Greco-Roman culture. In particular, he felt that knowing this culture helps us to understand all of the culture that has come after it, since it is so important as a taproot for how it would evolve. Unfortunately, things like this kind of prove his point: those criticizing the opening ceremonies came at it from a warped Christian perspective that has little knowledge, tolerance or patience for any other viewpoint, particularly the paganism at the heart of Greco-Roman life. Otherwise, if they were better informed, they could just say "Ah, there's Dionysus/Bacchus leading his revels", and got on with their lives.
I'm not sure if you read the essay, which argues this position you're taking isn't the one that the artist or the organizers intended...? 'The Last Supper' was absolutely the intent and the Bacchanalia was just a cover.
Lord help us, even the Pope had something to say about this. Hasn’t he got a whole load of work cleaning up the mess from centuries of abusing children?
Everything is NOT about Christianity. If they didn’t keep making themselves victims, I would hardly notice them at all these days. The fact they are trying to topple the Constitution so they can re-install the Inquisition is abhorrent, but I was not about to start a Holy War. They are.
I didn’t watch the opening ceremonies but of course have seen images from the performance of The Last Supper and Lady Gaga, Céline Dion, the stunning singer who looked like Marianne come to life, the facade of beheaded Marie Antoinettes. The impression I have is of a joyful riot of artistic expression. Now, when I search for the video of the Last Supper performance, all I find are opinion videos about it. That’s a shame.
Trying to explain art is an attempt to co-opt it into someone else’s construct. Picasso is claimed to have said « People who try to explain pictures are usually barking up the wrong tree. » Why imagine that what an artist produces has anything to do with you? It also reminds me of the furor over Mapplethorpe. Maybe he wasn’t making it for you.
What I appreciated from the programme was that the French organisers gave artists freedom to go where they wanted. It wasn’t culturally didactic. They took their founding principles seriously and let it rip. Vive la France!
I'm not opposed to trying to interpret what other people intended with their art, mostly because I think it pretends away the role of the audience in that art, but I absolutely agree with the statement "Maybe he wasn't making it for you" as a general rule about art. People really struggle with this part of it. As for the freedom the producers afford Jolly and others, yes, it was impressive!
I was 10 years old when Madonna "danced with the devil and whatenot" and I found it empowering at my impressionable age.
Social media was full of screenshots of just the "last supper" set up. I didn't watch the opening ceremonies but honestly, I'd rather attend a hella gay dinner party, than the Jesus one portrayed in the bible. Once the whole picture was revealed which included the Greek god, the pearl clutchers looked more moronic if that's even possible.
There are far more sensible things to boycott the Olympics over, than watching the French celebrate the zest of life!
The "Like a Prayer" video is a seminal piece of art in my life, in that its disregard for norms was so intermixed with its clear passion for the religion that inspired those norms. Such a great piece of art.
Brilliant wedding photo.
Thanks!
Impassioned! And that's something I like about your Substack - and about Substack in general.
One thing I don't follow in your piece, however, is that you say art is supposed to cause a reaction, but then you appear to deem some reactions unacceptable.
Leaving aside those who want to monetise the feelings of others, offence will by some viewers of the event have been genuinely felt, while others may have been merely uncomfortable. More than that, some of those who were bothered by the show, or merely confused as to why they were being asked to watch something provocative (needlessly sexual, or over-politicised, in their view, for a televised family event) may, over time, find that feeling changing.
For such a viewer, it could, to use your term, take a while to 'celebrate' something that is radically new to their experience of the world. And, in time, the erstwhile outrage may evolve into something like appreciation. As a child might come to like olives, or Vegemite. Not everyone 'gets it' immediately - and that, I think, is as it should be with art that purports to be 'great'. (Another question which could be asked here is how great it was if even the author seems in two minds.) Truly affecting art can be a very slow burn.
So a barely contained disdain for those who are late to the party, as it were, might simply be the flip side of pearl clutching.
To be clear, I am not talking about those on either side in the media who knowingly deploy the event, and the reaction to it, to fuel a thousand crass articles that entrench what divides us yet further.
And I am writing in good faith: I genuinely don't know what to make of the whole thing, or the debate around it, or indeed your article. (And I think that's also fine.)
I never said reactions were unacceptable. I was commenting on the demented cultural schism that inspired the two contrary, equally silly reactions - albeit only one of them was derived from prejudice and hate. But I don't respect either reaction as expressions of critical thinking skills.
I guess provocative art can provoke silly reactions as well as better ones.
It's the point, to reveal how broken people and society are, I think.
Best. Wedding. Photo. Ever.
Thanks, Tess - we had fun!
And I wasn’t invited🥲
I’m not Christian or Queer so I don’t have much of a horse in this race.
I will say that I believe the people who put this together were trying to piss people off and spark outrage and boy, did they succeed.
I'm not confident that was on the list of goals, though I expect they knew it would happen and were very okay with it. I think their primary goal was to create something beautiful that was a rebuttal of the kind of hate that has consumed many cultures for the past two years as politicians and a children's book author stirred it up. In that rebuttal, outrage was inevitable.
You make a good point. I will say, using outrage as a tool does not always have to be a negative thing. I can be a great tool for raising awareness or creating a call to action. This has been a tactic used by people fighting for social justice since the beginning.
Their main goal may have been to create a piece of art meant as a rebuttal towards the hate LGBTQ+ people but I’m inclined to think they also intended it to spark a conversation and get people talking, and they did very well at that.
I could very well be wrong though. This is just my view of it.
I think in the end, it doesn't really matter, right? The result is the same. Art is both the intent of the artist and the unexpected way the viewer reacts to it when it's released into the wild for all to see. We're living through the latter and now get to try to understand it...which is fun.
I can agree with that. I actually thought it was pretty cool when I saw it. The one thing we all know for sure is that it will be remembered, and that in itself is an accomplishment on the artist’s part.
I saw it on TV. There were models on a catwalk in front of the drag queens. The focus, for me, was mostly on the fashion show. I’m pretty sure Jesus wasn’t at Fashion Week.
HOW DO YOU KNOW HE WASN'T, DENISE?! I was raised with people telling me he was hovering somewhere in the ether around me, so I'm sure they're busy imagining him there, shaking his head disapprovingly.
Fantastic and eloquent.
Thank you for reading, Beth.
Christians who embrace The Last Supper as ‘theirs’- do they know that Leonardo was gay AF? They shouldn’t assume he’d be appalled with the drag interpretation.
Excellent article!
That photograph so obviously portrays this as a tableaux from The Last Supper that I really can’t see the point of denying it.
As a fourteen year old I loved the Like A Prayer video because it felt daring and subversive but looking back on it now I can feel real power in the way it combined religious iconography with images of racial bigotry and I feel like it had something important to say about attitudes towards race and sex.
I didn’t see the opening ceremony but the photos you have shared make it seem like a lot of fun. I personally see a message of joy which should be celebrated. I also find objections on religious grounds a little absurd. This is a work of art depicting a bible story, not a religious artefact. In general terms, I completely agree that reactions on both sides are a little absurd.
I take issue with the repeated use of the word "mock" by the press, too. As if they don't understand that using iconography is not the same as mocking it. It's all clickbait and both conservatives and liberals get sucked into this faux-outrage vortex of nonsense. It's not that I, who is very, very Left, don't fall prey to this to. It's hard not to in the 21st century, since we swim in it. But this event feels especially silly and egregious.
I have a lot of issues with press reporting of these olympics if I’m honest. Interpretation and mockery are two different things for sure
“Faux-outrage vortex of nonsense” is a great way of summing up much of what is going on in the media at the moment!
Are the ChristoFascists saying Jesus was Blue before he suddenly became a White blond, Blue Eyed American? I am confused.
Hi there, as I lay out in my article, this performance piece was absolutely intended to evoke 'The Last Supper', the event producers have even said as much. Others involved, too. The French President recently applauded the controversial piece for this reason. But it's obviously more complicated than that, as I also discuss in the piece.
We should all realize that life is just a rainbow 🌈
One of the recurring themes in the writings of one of my role models, the late Harold Bloom, was a lament about how contemporary American scholars were limiting the universal knowledge and appeal of Greco-Roman culture. In particular, he felt that knowing this culture helps us to understand all of the culture that has come after it, since it is so important as a taproot for how it would evolve. Unfortunately, things like this kind of prove his point: those criticizing the opening ceremonies came at it from a warped Christian perspective that has little knowledge, tolerance or patience for any other viewpoint, particularly the paganism at the heart of Greco-Roman life. Otherwise, if they were better informed, they could just say "Ah, there's Dionysus/Bacchus leading his revels", and got on with their lives.
I'm not sure if you read the essay, which argues this position you're taking isn't the one that the artist or the organizers intended...? 'The Last Supper' was absolutely the intent and the Bacchanalia was just a cover.
Lord help us, even the Pope had something to say about this. Hasn’t he got a whole load of work cleaning up the mess from centuries of abusing children?
Everything is NOT about Christianity. If they didn’t keep making themselves victims, I would hardly notice them at all these days. The fact they are trying to topple the Constitution so they can re-install the Inquisition is abhorrent, but I was not about to start a Holy War. They are.
Please leave the rest of us alone.
The Pagan Events shown pre-date Christianity.