The reenactment of a painting at the opening of the Olympic Games outraged spectators from all over the world. At one point during the ceremony, a group of drag queens posed in a way that appeared to be recreating the famous painting “The Last Supper” by Leonardo Da Vinci, which naturally offended a large number of people.
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This type of person is often called a “snowflake” to indicate a kind of hypersensitivity, but this is a misleading nickname, because these snowflakes usually have no sensitivity at all. If they did, they would not have been so outraged. Obviously, they would have been much more outraged.
Da Vinci’s painting depicts Our Lord Jesus Christ, which is why it constitutes a flagrant violation of the second commandment: “You shall not make for yourself idols, or any representation of anything in Heaven or Earth.” In other words, the drag queens’ parody is a blasphemy on top of another blasphemy, and it is not clear why Mr. Da Vinci —who, moreover, shared some inclinations with the drag queens— was exempt from criticism.
On the other hand, and even more seriously, the Olympic Games themselves—held, as their name suggests, in honor of the Olympian gods—are a flagrant violation of the first commandment: “You shall have no other gods before Me.” The drag queens’ act is therefore a blasphemy about a blasphemy, carried out within the framework of a blasphemy. That, in the midst of this cauldron of blasphemies, those offended can spot only one seems to me insensitive—and, by the way, blasphemous.
On the other hand, some said there was no reason for outrage, because the parody was not about Da Vinci’s painting, but about the painting “The Feast of the Gods” by Dutch artist Jan van Bijlert.
There are two problems with this argument. The first is that Van Bijlert’s painting is clearly a pagan version of Da Vinci’s, and is therefore itself a parody of the original. The second is that if the drag queens’ parody were about the Last Supper, there would be no problem either.
We live in a society where everything can be parodied. Those who are offended often lament that Christians are always the victims of this type of affront. “I know of a certain religion, and they don’t make parodies,” they say.
Although I have a vague memory of someone making jokes about Mohammed here a while ago in Paris, it is worth examining this complaint, which may be clearer if expressed this way: “Ah, back when we used to kill them for this kind of thing, they used to chirp more softly.”
Ultimately, the lament means that the message of turning the other cheek and forgiving those who offend us is deplorable. I don’t know who came up with this idea, but it seems that the person who was offended by the ceremony is someone who deserves to be parodied.
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