Good morning! The opening ceremony of the Olympic Games drew a series of comments across the world – from enthusiasm to harsh criticism and accusations that it was an anti-Christian propaganda, offending the religious feelings of Christians around the world. What has hurt some Christians so much, including our prime minister, and what exactly is it about?
Was the opening of the Olympics a satanic ritual?
Here’s how my friend and colleague Ksenia Luchenko, in a post on Facebook, commented on the hysteria in the Russian-speaking global community:
“Since moralizers and guardians of traditional values started criticizing the opening of the Olympics, I decided to reflect on the parts of it. The same story again. Almost none of the critics understand the specificity of French irony, self-irony, humor and sarcasm. To some, even those who grew up in France, morality overshadows the mind.
And the chorus of Marie Antoinette’s severed heads, and the travesty of the Last Supper – all of this is absolutely in the tradition of classical French culture. So read Rabelais, and it can be supplemented with the obvious Bakhtin and carnival culture. It is very talented, cheerful and done without any malice. Very modern and very traditional – just what is needed for events like this.
There are not many classic stories in the world easily recognized by everyone, and the evangelical ones (as well as the history of the French Revolution) are undoubtedly part of that fund of recognizable allusions and forms, into which any content can be poured, but it’s not about blasphemy at all, but about a culture that’s so itself, so natural, that there is no hypocritical distance and painful hurt with her. I don’t know how to explain it, but God simply did not command us to be serious like terrorists. This is a celebration of life, not death.”
Translated simply: What you saw was the authentic French culture, created long before the woke trends, which really created a circus and exaggeration and harm the story of gender equality and freedom and the right to gender self-identification.
Travesty as an art form, which overlaps with burlesque and is intertwined with the fight for the right to gender self-expression, is nothing problematic, even if they were showing the Last Supper, which is not an icon but a work of art by Leonardo da Vinci. But they didn’t. This is where Ksenija made a mistake because it’s not about the Last Supper. The artists showed another painting – ‘Feast of the Gods’ by the Dutch master Jan van Bijlert, from 1635. For comparison, take a look at this tweet from the Dutch art historian Walter Schoenenberg. Schonenberg explains that it’s about this painting, not Da Vinci’s, which is obvious. The picture shows the gathering of the Olympian gods, and the plump DJ had nothing to do with Christ but represented Apollo. Around her were Diana, Neptune, Poseidon, etc. Therefore, if there is anyone whose religious convictions are violated, it’s the believers of the ancient Greek religion. If they even exist today.
As for the riders of the apocalypse, it’s an excellent artistic provocation/warning. Are we not aware of the moment we are in, with authoritarianisms gone wild, many of which are holding the trigger on weapons that can produce a chain reaction that would turn us all together on the planet into dust. Aren’t we heading towards the apocalypse with climate change?
Apart from spontaneous reactions, certain centers of power could hardly wait to attack the “rotten and decadent West” in a coordinated manner, which, according to them, has been rotting for the last two thousand years, and the process somehow still lasts. The deliberate and fierce disinformation campaign aims at further and deeper polarization in the societies of Western democracies, and it’s obvious from which center it’s being served. Given the Russian parodies of the opening of the Olympics, it’s more than clear that this distortion of reality fits into their anti-Western narratives.
Kind regards,
Ljubomir Filipovic, CdM observer and columnist
(The opinions and views of our columnists aren’t necessarily those of the CdM news team)
