Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins has taken aim at Christian and conservative commentators who criticized the controversial Last Supper representation displayed during the Paris Olympics opening ceremony last week.
In her column, Jenkins asserted that those who were offended by the portrayal of drag queens—many interpreting it as a representation of Jesus Christ and his Apostles in Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic painting “The Last Supper”—should reconsider their outrage. She argued that the performance aimed to promote empathy and understanding among viewers.
“All the religious police see are phantom insults,” Jenkins remarked regarding the Christians who took issue with the creative vision of ceremony director Thomas Jolly.
Jenkins contested the criticism, suggesting that Jolly may embody a more genuine form of Christianity than those who denounced his work. She stated, “Perhaps, just perhaps, Jolly is a better, truer worshiper than his critics. At the least, he did something they have failed to do: He saw faces and framed them with interest, rather than hostility.”
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A view of the Eiffel Tower with the Olympics rings and national flags of competing countries from the Place du Trocadero before the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on July 21, 2024, in Paris, France. (Photo by Kevin Voigt/GettyImages) (Kevin Voigt/GettyImages)
The brief segment of the Olympics opening ceremony spurred significant backlash from Christians and conservatives globally, with many interpreting the sight of drag queens arranged along one side of a long table—one queen donned with a halo crown in the center—as a mockery of da Vinci’s piece and the New Testament’s core narrative.
Notable individuals such as Elon Musk and Catholic Bishop Robert Barron expressed disapproval of the performance. Musk posted on X, declaring, “This was extremely disrespectful to Christians.”
In a video shared on the same platform, Barron, the bishop representing the Winona-Rochester diocese, remarked, “What do I see but this gross mockery of the Last Supper.”
In response, Jolly and media outlets quickly sought to undermine such criticisms, with Jolly affirming that the display did not reference “The Last Supper,” but rather another classical work, a point echoed by various news sources.
Jenkins supported this line of thinking in her column, stating, “That drag queen sequence was meant to refer, like Delville, to Greek pagan celebrations—not, as some Christian leaders claim, to mock Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper.’”
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A glimpse of performers featured in the Last Supper representation during the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony. (REUTERS/Tingshu Wang)
Jenkins proceeded to assert that the outrage stemmed from a broader religious animosity towards “experimental art.”
“Why some church leaders frequently exhibit hostility toward experimental art and deem it anti-faith is a challenging question to answer. However, it is undeniably not a modern issue,” Jenkins noted, adding, “Those criticizing the Opening Ceremonies over a brief pagan tableau within a captivating four-hour event belong to the same historically significant group of self-appointed evaluators who misjudged contemporary works not deemed appropriately reverent.”
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In her final comments, she concluded, “Critics of the Opening Ceremonies have indeed focused their attention—on all the wrong aspects.”
