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Sport has been a political business since the days of the Greens and Blues factions racing in the Hippodrome of Constantinople. The controversy sparked by the drag- queen “living painting” in the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics, which is either an adaptation of Leonardo da Vinci's “The Last Supper” or of Jan van Bijlert’s “The Feast of the Gods” (depending on optics), shows that very little has changed in terms of interpretation. Beyond the bone of contention, who has gained what at the Paris Olympics so far?
The Olympics, an opportunity for promoting policies and politicians
Admittedly, “the sportive, knightly battle awakens the best human characteristics. It doesn’t separate, but unites the combatants in understanding and respect. It also helps to connect the countries in the spirit of peace. That’s why the Olympic Flame should never die!” This a very good definition of the Olympic spirit, although the author of this quote is surprising: a certain Adolf Hitler, who two years after making this statement on the sidelines of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, invaded Europe and staged the Holocaust, causing the world's deadliest conflagration to this day. The political stake of the Olympics is evident: you can identify yourself with an immutable and undoubtable ideal of antiquity, claiming the hard-won prestige for yourself.
And yet, what link is there between an Olympics held in a democratic country in 2024 and one that sought to glorify Nazism, in 1936? Certainly, any line of comparison between Emmanuel Macron and Hitler is misplaced and is in no way related to this article. However, the scale of the event (unprecedented in both cases) and its political underpinnings are worth discussing. In 1936, the Olympic Games featured the first non-experimental TV broadcast in history (the Germans were able to watch the Games in post office viewing rooms, in case you were wondering) and a 100,000-seat stadium. It was glorified in “Olympia”, the first of the two-part epic propaganda film directed by the dazzling Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's morally questionable propaganda director. In 2024, the ceremony was held outside the stadium, as the several hundred thousand participants would not have fit in any stadium. Instead, people watched the parade unfold on the Seine, featuring hundreds of vessels. In addition, the opening ceremony had an estimated TV and social media reach of one billion people. The event was particularly opulent and lavish, from the living painting that caused an uproar, to the gushy kitsch of Lady Gaga and Celine Dion’s performances (although it’s hard to believe quality music would have been able to attract an audience of hundreds of millions of people).
The Olympics in French political narratives
Emmanuel Macron is by no means Hitler, but he is nearing the end of a thrilling political race where at one point he seemed to have lost everything. Macron tends to re-emerge as the dominant power broker of French politics, after the European and parliamentary elections nearly stripped him of all political legitimacy. The French president took part in “Olympic” mass rallies, before and during and after the opening ceremony, congratulating the participating artists for their “courage”. An event of such scope (the budget of the Organizing Committee stands at 4.38 billion EUR) is sure to be steeped in political or propaganda symbolism. And “The Last Supper” (or “The Feast of the Gods”, depending on your point of view) is but one of the many leftist references, which also included a black mezzo-soprano interpreting “The Marseillaise” (Axelle Saint-Cirel), a pop singer of Malian descent (Aya Nakamura) dancing to the solemn tunes performed by the Republican Guard, and the metal band Gojira, featuring a decapitated Marie Antoinette (thankfully not the original, but a dummy). Perhaps the best description of the opening ceremony came from “La Libération”, the French publication calling it “a succession of inclusive and self-deprecating collages”, “a welcome catharsis after the parliamentary election”.
Nicknamed “Jupiter” and accused of "Caesarism" in France, Emmanuel Macron demonstrated he has paid heed to the lessons taught by the Romans – give the people bread and circus. The last part, at least.
And yet, last supper or feast of debauchery?
When accused of mocking Christian symbols, the organizers issued a public apology, claiming they were referring not to Christianity, but to antiquity and Dionysus, in specific the aforementioned Dutch painting. Some of the participants in the “tableau vivant”, have however drawn a link between their performance and the biblical scene. A week or so later, the Vatican said it was “saddened” by the reference to “The Last Supper”, while the New York Times quoted well-established art historians who also noted an inkling to Leonardo's painting. It is nearly impossible to assume that actor and director Thomas Jolly, the “mastermind” behind the opening ceremony, was a fool to cause such controversy without purpose, given his remarkable record. Otherwise, it is worth mentioning that while virtually unknown to the general public worldwide, Jolly is a celebrity in France, among other things owing to the 24-hour marathon show “H6R3”, drawing on Shakespearean plays, which was shot to permanent and extraordinary was fame by a TV documentary made in France. In other words, France was presented not just with a new play about itself, but also with a beloved director.
Ultimately, beyond the controversy stirred by the drag queen interlude, its meaning is clear and consistent with the other artistic episodes of the ceremony: a self-deprecating reinterpretation of the past. Assuming this was a deliberate offense to Christian sensibilities, the ceremony was also imbued with an artistic and ideological significance: Europe must look itself in the mirror and recognize it is not quite what it was expecting, a reward for its concern for the others’ sensibilities.
The heroes the organizers want and the heroes chosen by the people. Jesse Owens and Yusuf Dikec
Back to Leni Riefenstahl's 1936 propaganda film 'Olympia', which contains one of the most easily dismantled visual trickeries, which might seem surprising for a film that dictated not only the standards of visual propaganda, but also those of TV broadcasts of sports competitions: several delegations of competitors, including those of Greece and France, give Hitler the Nazi salute, and Hitler salutes back, with an air of dignification. In fact, it was the “Olympic salute”, which, just like the Nazi salute, copied the Roman salute. Because of the horrors of Nazism, the “Olympic” salute fell out of use altogether (by the way, as a result of the war, the next edition of the Olympic Games was held no sooner than 1948). Riefenstahl's montage is still worth mentioning because it is one of the first clear representations of the concept of “post-truth”. The gesture is real, but what about its interpretations? Maybe some of the athletes attending the opening parade knew what they were doing? Did Hitler really salute back, or was the scene cut from other video recordings and edited into the movie at the right moment? And if he did salute, was he aware of its Nazi-Olympic ambiguity?
The answer is no clearer than the explanation about the living painting of the 2024 Olympic ceremony (again, the analogy is in no way referring to Nazi sympathies or other similarities, but to mass communication instances). The only thing that is clear is that the post-truth is a lie that is not a lie: rather, a pseudo-extrapolation that can neither be clearly substantiated by a factual basis, nor refuted beyond a reasonable doubt.
However, things do not always go exactly the way propagandists plan. At the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, there were reports of Jewish athletes from other countries being discouraged from taking part in the Olympic events – a move that was tacitly endorsed by some of the participating countries. The United States is said to have done the same, removing two Jewish athletes from its delegation. The problem is that one of their replacements was Jesse Owens, a black athlete who demolished all Nazi propaganda narratives, winning four medals in sprint and long jump events, breaking the speed record in the process. His feats debunked myths surrounding the superiority of the Aryan race, not despite, but as a result of ideological pressure.
In 2024, Paris, France (and perhaps Europe as a whole) was inoculated with anything but feelings of superiority and hatred towards others. Quite the opposite: a circus show, performed at parameters of glamor and pomp never before seen. The controversy regarding “The Last Supper” shows, however, that the general public is free-thinking and making its own choices. But the disruptive protagonist of the 2024 Paris Olympics is something else entirely, or rather someone completely different from the figure of Jesse Owens. His name is Yusuf Dikec, a Turkish air pistol shooting champion who quickly became a “meme” on social media after scooping silver with nothing but his hands in his pockets (he casually kept a hand in his pocket while competing), without the super-technological “cyborg-like” gear used by the other contestants. You must have learned, by now, that Dikec is 51 years old, that he took up shooting because of an upsetting divorce, that when interviewed after climbing on the podium, he asked his wife to give his dog back, or that Dikec reportedly shocked organizers after asking if there was a smoking area nearby. These are nothing but lies, or jokes that were turned into disinformation. The only real thing about Dikec is his age. In fact, Dicek is a serious athlete who has been taking part in the Olympics since 2008. He started his career as a non-commissioned officer in the Turkish Gendarmerie. The only difference between Dikec and your typical shooting champs is that he doesn't use head gear, an operculum covering his other eye, or any other comic book superhero accessory. Just a pair of glasses, something to be expected of a man his age, with frames that seem to have been purchased from a local optics boutique.
Propaganda is deceitful, and social networks are rambling and raving (when they're not instruments of propaganda). Is there any truth to this story? If so, it is “cool” and “chill”, the descriptions typically attributed to the Turkish champion on social media, in a sense closer to the truth, namely not so much “awesome” as “relaxed”, “self-composed”. Clearly, we are looking at a continental, if not global, tendency. And yet, the winning “meme” of the Paris Olympics is a man holding a gun. How “cool” is that?
