Olympics, Opening Ceremony
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2024 Paris Olympics: Opening Ceremony Receives Massive Backlash

All you needed to do to know what people thought of the Opening Ceremony for the 2024 Paris Olympics was take a look at the official social media accounts.

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"Demonic," commented one user under a post on X reliving the Olympics Opening Ceremony.

"Turning it off to spend time with normal people," wrote another Olympics fan.

"That opening was horrendous," wrote a third. "You should be ashamed."

Those comments seemed to sum up the feelings of many after the Olympics Opening Ceremony featured what some believed was an inordinate amount of drag queens and bearded ladies and the like.

The opening scene seemed to reenact the famous "The Last Supper" painting, using actors dressed in drag to represent Jesus and the disciples. For the record, the creative director of the Opening Ceremony denied that a "Last Supper" portrayal was his intention.

Per The Associated Press:

[P]rominent far-right politician Marion Maréchal denounced the performance on social media.

"To all the Christians of the world who are watching the Paris 2024 ceremony and felt insulted by this drag queen parody of the Last Supper, know that it is not France that is speaking but a left-wing minority ready for any provocation," she posted on the social platform X, a sentiment that was echoed by religious conservatives internationally.

"... because decapitating Habsburgs and ridiculising central Christian events are really the FIRST two things that spring to mind when you think of #OlympicGames," Eduard Habsburg, Hungary's ambassador to the Vatican, posted on X, also referencing a scene depicting the beheading of Marie Antoinette.

Even far-left publications such as the New York Times had an issue with the Opening Ceremony, though for different reasons, it seems.

"Everything about Friday's ceremony and broadcast worked to diminish the athletes," the outlet wrote. "Sitting in cheering clumps, sometimes three and four countries together, they looked like passengers on party boats competing to make the most noise, to signal that their country was having the most fun."

Both sides are right. The French put on the worst possible Opening Ceremony in the history of the Olympics, and the reasons are many.