Karl Marx was writing about the French Revolution and its aftermath when he quoted Hegel’s saying that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. Marx wrote that Hegel had forgotten to add “the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce”.
Not even Marx could have foreseen the degree of farce with which the French Revolution was treated in the Paris Olympics’ opening ceremonies. There were multiple renditions of Marie Antoinette, clad in blood-red and carrying singing severed heads in the very place she was last incarcerated. Meanwhile, a rock band and an opera star sang versions of Ca Ira, a song associated with the French Revolution.
Marie Antoinette might have been ill-educated, flighty and far too fond of clothes and play-acting, but she also adopted an enslaved Senegalese boy, Jean Amilcar, who had been given to her as a gift, set up a home for unmarried mothers and was a champion of inoculation against smallpox, then a leading cause of mortality globally. And she never suggested that the impoverished peasants eat cake.
Some alleged allies are in danger of undermining Christianity’s foundations by treating it simply as a useful bulwark against perceived threats
She was subject to the most horrific, sustained barrage of vicious propaganda, much of it pornographic, during her lifetime and after. In the light of LGBT+ representation at the Olympics opening ceremony, it was ironic that one of the allegations hurled at her was that she was a tribade – a lesbian.
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Before she was beheaded, her eight-year-old son, Louis Charles, was taken from her. He died in prison at 10 after being forced into testifying at her kangaroo trial that she had committed incest with him. Marie Antoinette refused to answer the charge, appealing instead to the mothers in the court.
Joe Duplantier, the lead singer of the heavy metal band, Gojira, played during the Marie Antoinette section. He told Rolling Stone that “beheaded people, red wine and blood all over the place” was romantic, normal and part of French charm. He also said that the French Revolution ushered in laicité, separation between church and state, “so therefore it is free in terms of expression and symbolism”.
The French Revolution certainly did not usher in a wonderful era for women in France. In 1793, Olympe de Gouges, author of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman, was guillotined as a counter-revolutionary. The French did not trouble themselves to give the vote to women until 1948.
Given the way Thomas Jolly, the artistic director of the opening ceremony, represented Marie Antoinette, one of the most maligned murdered women in history, it is probably a waste of energy to enter the debate as to whether his camp tableau was parodying the Last Supper or was simply representing Dionysius as an underclad Smurf.
It is not the first time Leonardo’s iconic painting has been featured in pop culture. In 2013, Buzzfeed listed 55 parodies, featuring everyone from Snoop Dogg to Doctor Who. We even have our own ethnically diverse version on Millennium Walk, commissioned by Mick Wallace, where Judas is portrayed as a banker.
So, far from being edgy or original, it is a jaded trope. Certainly, parodies rarely have had audiences of 29 million but the fact that it is parodied so often attests to the power of the image.
It captures the moment that Jesus declares that someone will betray him. Each of the disciples reacts differently. Only Judas hangs back, lost to the light.
My guess is that the artistic director could not resist a sly reference to the iconic image and then tried to persuade us not to believe our lyin’ eyes.
However, some of the alleged allies of Christianity, such as Elon Musk who joined in the condemnation of the alleged parody, are in danger of undermining Christianity’s very foundations by treating it simply as a useful bulwark against perceived threats.
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There is now a trend for people to declare themselves to be “culturally Christian”. Musk is just the latest, in his case, in an interview with Jordan Peterson. (The latter was wearing an odd jacket festooned with kitsch images of Jesus and Mary.)
Musk said that he’s “actually a big believer in the principles of Christianity” and thinks they’re “very good”. But his real religion is “the religion of curiosity, the religion of greater enlightenment”.
He seems to think that religions are valuable assets when it comes to raising the birth rate.
It captures the moment Jesus declares that someone will betray him. Each of the disciples reacts differently. Only Judas hangs back, lost to the light
Richard Dawkins, frontrunner in the New Atheist movement that you don’t hear much about anymore, recently reaffirmed that he is a cultural Christian, albeit one who would like to see the faith aspect die out completely.
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Dawkins thinks the truth claims of Christianity are nonsense, but loves the poetry of the King James Bible and evensong in Anglican cathedrals. He seems to think that Christianity is easier to stomach than Islam.
These cultural Christians are a bigger threat than any number of parodies of depictions of key moments in Christianity. Domesticated Christianity which is valued for its principles but not for its most central truth has about as much hope of survival as poor Marie Antoinette had once she entered the Conciergerie.