Organisers of the Paris Olympics have apologised for what some critics described as a parody of “The Final Supper” in the course of the lavish opening ceremony of the Recreation on Friday.
The scene featured drag artists and dancers and was extensively criticised by the Catholic church and Christian teams.
The French Catholic Church mentioned the festivities “included scenes of derision and mockery of Christianity.”
“There was clearly by no means an intention to point out disrespect to any non secular group,” Paris 2024 spokesperson Anne Descamps instructed a information convention on Sunday.
“Quite the opposite, I feel we tried to rejoice group, tolerance. We consider this ambition was achieved. If folks have taken any offense, we’re in fact actually sorry.”
Whereas the scene has come below criticism, the opening ceremony was additionally extensively praised, with some folks stating that the scene was extra harking back to different works, like “The Feast of the Gods” by Johann Rottenhammer and Jan Brueghel.
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Thomas Jolly, the director of the opening ceremony, insisted that “The Final Supper” – a mural painted by Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci – wasn’t the inspiration behind the scene in an interview with CNN affiliate BFMTV on Sunday.
“Dionysus arrives on the desk as a result of he’s the Greek God of celebration and that sequence is named ‘festivity,’” Jolly mentioned.
“The God of wine, which can also be a French jewel and father of Sequana, the Goddess linked to the River Seine. The concept was to create an enormous pagan social gathering in hyperlink with the God of Mount Olympus — and you’ll by no means discover in me, or in my work, any want of mocking anybody.”
In a put up on X, previously referred to as Twitter, the official Olympics account mentioned the “interpretation of the Greek God Dionysus makes us conscious of the absurdity of violence between human beings.”
