Courtesy of the IOC.
The Olympic Games are one of the most-watched events on TV: not only do they symbolize the values of sportsmanship, cooperation, and physical excellence, but they are also a symbol of the cultural values of our time. Hosting the games doesn’t make the home country any profit; in fact the opposite is often true, with countries losing billions of dollars to build infrastructure, pay for personnel, and choreograph the opening and closing ceremonies. Yet cities around the globe vie for the chance to hold the Olympic events, competing and preparing almost as intently as the athletes themselves. The chance to host the games means the chance to speak to the “spirit of the times”, to have a role in dictating culture, in defining excellence, and to perform on the world stage, to the world audience.
Courtesy of the IOC.
News outlets flared up with stories of divisive reactions to the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony, many focused on a drag show that some said was a parody of The Last Supper. The famous Leonardo da Vinci painting depicts Jesus and his twelve disciples sharing a meal the night before his crucifixion, and while the painting is mostly prized as an artistic study on perspective and human expression, it holds some religious significance as well. Enough, at least, that the Vatican actually spoke out against the opening ceremony performance, stating: “The Holy See was saddened by certain scenes at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games and cannot but join the voices raised in recent days to deplore the offense done to many Christians and believers of other religions”. The Olympic organizers subsequently apologized for the performance, and said that the show was not intended to parody the painting. Yet complaints still echoed about the dispaly, many of them tinged with queerphobic undertones, comparing this year’s drag performance to the ceremonies of years past.
Beyond the opening ceremony, arguments raged on social media about the candidacy of two cis-woman athletes who were accused of being trans. Twitter threads of transvestigations showed a deep undercurrent of transphobia in the public, while an opposing force defended the athletes and waged gender debates in the comments. Hateful comments were met with those celebrating the victory of one of the athletes accused of being too masculine to compete in the boxing tournament. The amount of media attention given towards the debate about fairness of competing surpassed the media’s attention to the actual competition, again showing a trend towards global interest in the cultural implications of the games’ rules, more so than the games themselves. Similarly, debates were waged about the decision to include Russian/ Belarussian and Israeli athletes in the games in the context of their ensuing regional conflicts. Public interest was weighted towards the precedent that the Olympic Games set as the representative of global commitments for peace and unity.
Courtesy of the IOC.
Like this year, the Olympic Games opening ceremonies of the past have always been displays of cultural values— from the different countries’ athletes’ uniforms to the performance that the host country puts on. In the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Yoshinori Sakai— born in Hiroshima on the day the atomic bomb was dropped— lit the Olympic Flame to symbolize a cultural moving on from the horror of WWII. During the 1984 Olympics in L.A., actor Bill Suitor flew around the arena in a jet-pack while an orchestra played Michael Jackson songs and other “Music of America”. Italy demonstrated its design superiority in the 2006 Torino Games: with costumes by Giorgio Armani and Moschino. This year’s Olympic uniforms were also a subject of much media attention, as the Opening Ceremony outfits ranged from heritage-inspired outfits— like the stunning Mongolian uniforms from label Michel & Amazonka— to modern fusions of traditional-dress and sportswear, like Stella Jean’s designs for Haiti.
The games have always been an excuse to show off, to perform, and to define a cultural reputation for the participating countries as individuals and as a collective whole. And the media spectatorship surrounding this year’s Olympics displays a coexistence of the archaic and the modern— in the traditional-inspired uniforms, in the drag-Dionysus persona that sparked controversy, in commentary from the Vatican read on smartphones and retweeted on Twitter. For some, the Olympics exist in their mind as a history of Western culture, while for others it’s the chance to define a country’s future reputation. Both visions of the games exist simultaneously, the oldest sports— boxing, wrestling, and sprinting— conducted alongside the newest— breakdancing, surfing, and skateboarding. This parallel existence of the old and new marks our cultural zeitgeist, the Olympics acting as a reflection of where we stand today.