Paris Olympics - opening ceremony

[puffyisgood]

I hardly need to say which demographic was pushed to the forefront of this, right? I don't think I've ever seen the view that 'cross-dressing men are the very best of us [and most obviously of all better than the boring old type of woman]' being pushed quite so hard?

@Snowypeaks tbh, a lot of overseas viewers were equally mystified by the 2012 opening ceremony “what’s with all the dancing nurses? And why is Abraham Lincoln there he’s not even British?”

Yes, the pointless queering, obviously.

But I was thinking about the other bits, which were beautifully done, and why they didn't land with people.

But I remember full explanations in the commentary, setting the scene before the sequence happened.

The degree of explanation is going to be dependent on the broadcaster though. My French relatives and American colleagues were mystified as there was no explanation. I think the same has happened with the 2024 ceremony, although at least the BBC tried.

As far as this goes, it would be interesting to know how far in advance they set the vision for these events. It may well be that when they came up with the ideas for this, they were right on trend.

Possibly a lesson that being on trend might not be the most important thing with this kind of event.

Wardrobe malfunction or entirely deliberate? Who knows with men ...

With regards to "was it the last supper or not?" I think a lot of people across multiple threads are conflating two different moments.

If you look here there are two different pictures. One is when the sky is still dark blue and is sans Papa Smurf; in the ceremony it was just a very quick tableau. This is The Last Supper. Then the first part of the catwalk happened. The second picture is after it has gone totally dark and has a blue, naked man on a platter - which is The Feast of Dionysus - and then he started to sing.

It was two different moments in the ceremony, parodying two different paintings... Both using drag queens.

The organisers who came out and said it was The Feast of Dionysus and not The Last Supper were trying to gaslight the world. It was both.

In fairness to the creators, I think Catholic humanism has been so totally secularised in the minds of most French people that they would consider the Last Supper tableau a parody of a pinnacle of human achievemnt (the painting itself), not of one of the holiest events in Christian history.
(Thank goodness I caught and edited in time, wrong word makes original nonsensical!!)

Quite disturbing he was stood next to a young child.

Yes, that is true, I don’t think they meant harm. But the painting has become like a relic in its own right, a Divinely inspired creation.

It was tacky to drag out sexily dressed drag queens, a child, and crow about being inclusive.

I think it was cringe and embarrassing and shat on France's great history and culture from a height

but ALSO I think the French only have themself to blame, they gave the world Michel Foucault without whom identitarian woke rubbish would not exist

In other words the French have made their couche and now they have to coucher in it.

💯

At the end of the day, I don’t think the French care what others, least of all Les Anglo-Saxons, think.

French exceptionalism is as much a thing as American exceptionlism. They really don’t spend the most fleeting of moments worrying about what the neighbours might think (unlike the British who constantly think the rest of the world is laughing at them when the rest of the world mostly doesn’t even give them headspace).

They are not as original or free thinking as the English, ironically.

And after all, the idea that drag is being clever and inclusive is hardly anything but following the crowd.

The "Diversity" and "Inclusivity" wasn't very diverse or inclusive.
I thought, If I hear one more Edith Piaf related noise I'm going to kick the telly and I HATE Imagine, who would imagine using that tripe to peacewash the whole thing?

Agreed. Given the stagnant economy, the constant threat of stochastic terrorism including the multiple attempts to disrupt these olympics by the far left, and the powerful far right, the French definitely have a lot on their plate and don't care what we Brits think.

It is funny, though.

On a related note why were Lady Gaga and Celine Dion there? Why couldn't they have showcased french artists?

The way I see it, you need talent and incredible hard work to create something like de Vinci's The Last Supper.

You need absolutely zero talent to squeeze your overweight body into a leotard and take the piss out of the last supper.

There's a wider point here about cultural decline but I'm feeling too declinist to bother to make it.

Celine Dion (Canadian, stretched to being Swiss in Eurovision) at least speaks French, although is not famous for singing in it. Rafal Nadal (Spanish) was there because he won the French Open alot. Lady Gaga, Snoop Dog and a John Lennon song: no idea. I was rather surprised the French featured so many international names.

Interesting that the BBC said their commentators had been given little info to work with.

If the next ones are in California and Australia, will the entire ceremony consist of drag queens?

Lady Gaga is HUGE in France - she's basically been adopted as one of their own. Her biggest ever attended shows are in France. She also sings in French reasonably well. Celine Dion is Francophone (as is the Mali-born Aya Nakamura who also performed). That basically makes her culturally French as far as the French are concerned. The French take a very expansive (and somewhat paternalistic) view of la Francophonie - basically, if you speak French as a native language, you're in the club.

A bunch of other stuff that people claimed "wasn't French", such as the Minions, actually is.

Here's the full playlist from the night and you can see that every single song has a French connection: https://www.sortiraparis.com/en/news/olympic-games-paris-2024/articles/317447-paris-2024-olympics-the-playlist-broadcast-during-the-opening-ceremony

Much as I enjoy the early musical output of Snoop Dogg, I too have no idea why he was there.

He has a french bulldog who he adores, and occasionally raps about his frenchie. So maybe there was an error in translation.

Gaga's big in Japan too. She sings in Spanish, nonsense German and says she feels the greatest affinity with Italian culture because of her heritage. My point being, her fame in France doesn't really mean that she's been adopted as French. She's not part of the Francophonie as she's not a native French speaker. It just means she's globally famous.

Re Celine Dion, do the French really think she's 'basically French'? Because the attitudes of the Québécois to the French and relations between the two are rather more complex than your airy generalisation would suggest.

I think it depends what you think the purpose of the Olympics Opening Ceremony is. If you think it's an opportunity to show off your country's unique history and culture, then Gaga, Dion and drag queens were a Fail. If you think it's about a pan-global, bland watering down of cultural achievement, then it was OK I guess.

Still would've preferred to see more French artists perform.

It's globalism & Macron is a globalist which is why they featured so many outside artists instead of French..

@CantDealwithChristmas you seem to be ignoring the fact that both were singing much-loved French songs. Personally I think they were absolutely fine as choices - Paris is an international city and it's ok to have international stars there. France does not have any homegrown stars with the international recognition of Lady G or Celine Dion (the world of pop music is Anglophone after all) so in my book, and as far as the French are concerned, absolutely fine to import a couple of stars who are much loved there AND internationally.

As far as wishing you had seen more French artists perform - which ones specifically do you think should have performed and didn't?

Not the op your referring to but Vanessa Paradis would have been a brilliant choice.

Oh my god, so many! Proper groundbreaking French artists, or mainstays that are talented and uniquely French - , not just bland anglophone global pop artists who had their moment in the 2010s like Gaga.

Christophe Mae. Zazie. Raphael.

Also if you think about how important France has been to deep house - where were Daft Punk?? They CHANGED dance music!

And also...hip hop?? France is the second largest hip hop market in the world and some newer artists are utterly graoundbreaking so where were Freeze corleone, gazo, koba lad, PNL, MHD, zola, niska, oboy, moha la squale, kaaris, gradur, sofiane?

Total missed opportunity