The moral panic over a scene of drag queens feasting at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics set off a firestorm of outrage from religious conservatives and politicians who believed the scene was a mockery of the Last Supper. Except it wasn’t about the Last Supper at all.
The so-called re-enactment was a scene of a bacchanal, a feast to the Greek god Dionysus. After all, the Olympics originated in ancient Greece, and the Greek gods were a part of the culture of that time. French director Thomas Jolly, who oversaw the opening ceremony show, explained that the scene was Dionysus arriving on a table and that it was meant to be representative of the gods of Olympus celebrating the Olympic Games.
Tolerance, sadly, isn’t what conservatives are noted for, especially since many of them deemed the 2024 Olympics ‘woke.’
Tell that, though, to those unable to see the scene outside the lens of their conservative religious convictions. They inserted those beliefs into an Olympic celebration put on by the country that had a whole revolution against the oppression of the monarchy and Christianity. Criticisms arose from figures such as Roman Catholic Bishop Robert Barron, who took to X to condemn the scene. French Catholic bishops, who really ought to have known better, complained about the “mocking” of Christianity, and some Greek Orthodox Church representatives condemned the opening of the Olympics as “blasphemous.”
Churches weren’t the only ones complaining. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Elon Musk, who owns the social media platform X, also panned the depiction of the drag queens. C-Spire, a tech company, announced that it was pulling its advertising during the Olympics because of the scene.
The organizers of the Olympics apologized, saying that they didn’t mean any disrespect for the Christian faith but rather that they wanted to emphasize tolerance. Tolerance, sadly, isn’t what conservatives are noted for, especially since many of them deemed the 2024 Olympics “woke.”
It is fascinating and understandable that the Christians and others who condemned the scene automatically went to the Last Supper as their reference point. Much of their worldview is limited and doesn’t consider views that fall outside their faith. First, the classical image of the Last Supper comes from da Vinci’s painting. It doesn’t represent the reality of what the Last Supper looked like. The confusion and misplaced anger over the scene tell us a lot more about conservative Christians and others than perhaps they want us to know.
Moral panics like this one demand immediate strong denunciations and lamentations about the decline of morality and society. Moral panics are designed to take control of any narratives in society that are deemed evil or sinful. In this case, drag queens have been the cause of a political and religious firestorm not only in America, but also in conservative religious nations worldwide.
Second, the fact that Christians immediately identified the scene as being the Last Supper suggests an intellectual simplicity and a knee-jerk reaction. Had any of these critics looked closely at the tableau, it didn’t resemble da Vinci’s Last Supper at all! The number of people at the table didn’t even match the 13 who would have been Jesus and his disciples. Their immediate gut-level response was telling. Not understanding the allusions to Greek mythology or the origins of the Olympic Games and their cultural context suggests that the book-burning, anti-history contingent of religious conservatives has coincided with their ignorance of art, culture, history and society.
It’s France, folks. It dealt with conservative religion and monarchy in its history in decisive and bloody ways.
The Olympics are being held in Paris! There’s a reason there was a whole scene filled with headless Marie Antoinettes at the very prison in which she was held, listening to Gojira’s heavy metal music.
It’s France, folks. It dealt with conservative religion and monarchy in its history in decisive and bloody ways. Curiously, religious conservatives didn’t have much to say about the menage a trois scene that was also included in the opening ceremony. Perhaps that wasn’t as sacrilegious to them as drag queens having a bacchanalia. The outrage surrounding this particular scene at the opening ceremony reveals several important things about conservative religion and politics at the present moment. One, trans persons and queer people continue to be the subject of ire and persecution from conservative religions. Sexuality is often the first place for persecution in societies that have conservative factions in majority politics. It also signals intolerance for not only these people, but also for the cultural context of the nation France. This particular level of criticism against France isn’t new — remember freedom fries from the Iraqi War? That didn’t last long, and I suspect this new moral panic won’t last over the course of the Olympics. After all, the outrage only shows just how limited in scope their imaginations are.
Anthea Butler is a professor of religious studies and Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania. 
