Supper's Ready

I tuned out of the opening ceremony at the Olympics in Paris, turning off the TV because I found the whole damn thing too Hollywood.  And I ended up missing the one thing that made it quintessentially European.

The ceremony culminated in a tableau of drag queens parodying Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper, which the right-wing New York Post reported offended Christians all over the world.  By the world, the Post means America, because, like any other right-wing American institution, the Post believes that America is the center of the universe.  There probably aren't that many Christians in France; heck, more people in France probably go to services in mosques than in churches.  Notre Dame Cathedral, the restoration of which is expected to be completed by the end of this year after a devastating fire in 2019, is being rebuilt less for the Mass services than for the tourist business.   

And this isn't the first time the Last Supper has been parodied.  Does anyone remember Viridiana, the 1961 movie made by Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel, which included a scene of beggars taking advantage of the title character's generosity by breaking into a mansion and having a banquet and an orgy in which Leonardo da Vinci's painting is re-created?  Of course not, because Americans don't watch foreign films.  It was censored in Spain by Franco's fascist state, and it was mostly likely banned outright in Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and other cities currently known as "blue cities."  It's unlikely that it was shown in the Dallas theater where Lee Harvey Oswald was apprehended two years later after the Kennedy assassination - not because it was banned but because it was never offered for distribution there in the first place.  Why?  Maybe you weren't paying attention - it's Dallas!

You don't have to go too far back to find Last Supper parodies here in America.  How about Robin Williams' retelling of the Gospels in his stand-up act in which he had Jesus and His disciples meet for dinner at a Chinese restaurant?   

Was the drag show in bad taste?  Most likely.  If the New York Post had critiqued it as a matter of taste, would that criticism have been more valid?  Certainly, although political correctness even discourages critiques based on taste.  But to cast it as an offense against faith and an act of blasphemy?  Ha ha, Christian conservatives have a lot of damn gall to bash this drag show as an act of blasphemy, especially when you consider the numerous offenses and blasphemies Christians have committed - the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, Pope Pius XII, the PTL Club, the Moral Majority . . ..  

Such faux outrage over "anti-Christian" blasphemy, of course, is very American, while the Olympic drag show was very French.  So I apologize to the French for suggesting they went Hollywood.  Hollywood wouldn't have staged - and in 2028, won't stage - anything like that.  You think Buñuel would have lasted in Hollywood back in the day? Don't think so.  The man made Belle de Jour, for Pete's sake!

And that movie is very, very French.

Which means it likely never played in Dallas.