The controversy around the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris appears to have died down, at least in the mainstream media. Though you can be sure fundamentalists around the world, who have never seen a revenue opportunity they won’t gladly embrace as a cause, are still milking it from their gilded pulpits. But there are still some lessons we can learn from, if you’ll pardon my French, the whole kerfuffle.
Joining what The Daily Beast called “The Olympics Drag Queen Freak Out” was one Elon Musk, who posted on X: “This was extremely disrespectful to Christians.” In another post, someone put up an image of Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper with the bit of the performance that seemed to mimic it, with the question “Why?” Another person responded with: “Because doing this results in fewer dead people than if the imagery of Islam were mocked,” to which Musk replied, “Christianity has become toothless.”
One isn’t quite sure what to make of all that, other than that Musk really is pushing the luxury liner of billionaire idiocy out. There’s the usual paradox of Christians lamenting the fact that the son of their God insists that his adherents are supposed to peacefully turn the other cheek. If you’re upset because you can’t kill blasphemers, perhaps it’s time to upsize to a more vengeful god? Ares, the Greek god of war, might be an option, especially as he is known for being particularly brutal. Alas, most of the major gods that have survived into the 21st century seem to be a little too woke about violence, despite what some of their adherents would have us believe.
The qualifier “fewer” is also a little ominous. The person posting that seems to believe that dead people is going to be a given, it’s just how many we kill in retaliation that’s unpredictable. Someone else, described as “Kansas City Chiefs’ kicker” Harrison Butker, which I assume is some sort of enforcer position in organised crime, posted a video from the opening ceremony and warned of the consequences of mocking God. He quoted Galatians 6:7-8: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked. For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption.” It’s quite something to read this solemn and threatening biblical quote from someone whose X handle is @buttkicker7. Ah, the sweet ironies of digital life.
Then again, this is the same three-time Super Bowl champion (for those unfamiliar with the culture, this is an award given to the person who sells the most Tupperware in a year) who gave a commencement address to an arts school in the US, where he urged men to “be unapologetic in your masculinity, fighting against the cultural emasculation of men”. And who, in an obvious allusion to Pride Month, described Catholic pride as “not the deadly sin sort of pride that has an entire month dedicated to it, but the true God-centred pride”. So probably not the biggest fan of drag artists.
A characteristic of those who try to ride the outrage train is that they have no actual affinity with whatever cultural slight they’re reacting to
Regular readers of this column will recognise one of its recurring characters, the facsimile demagogue and corner store politician Mehmet V Dag of the African Dimocracy (sic) Movement. Why does he crop up again, you ask in despair. Because he is useful to us in the same way that a graffitied public toilet is useful. Scrawled incomprehensibly on the wall we can find the lowest common cultural denominators of public discourse. If we can but decode them, we’ll unlock the key to the mass idiocy that drives conspiracy theorists and unhinged outrage.
A characteristic of those who try to ride the outrage train is that they have no actual affinity with whatever cultural slight they’re reacting to. They’re just spotting a moneymaking opportunity. This means they’re bound to get it wrong, and reveal that they’re faking it, because they don’t really understand what it is that is meant to be upsetting people.
In the case of Mehmet, in his attempt to push enragement (that’s my portmanteau of “engagement” and “enrage”), he has forgotten whose side he is on. Mehmet posted an image (a real one, not a fake) of Musk dressed in a weird costume, which is described on the site of high-end NYC costume store Abracadabra as the “Devil’s Champion Leather Armor Set,” an “infernal ensemble that you probably saw Elon Musk sporting for Halloween, featuring sharpened lame plating in a brilliant blood red finish”. (And it’s probably an apposite moment to remind ourselves that Musk has named three of his children X Æ A-Xii, Exa Dark Sideræl and Techno Mechanicus).
Under the picture of Musk in red leather, Mehmet posted “Alan musk ... Tell me, what message are you sending to Christians with these photos [sic]?”
It’s a bit rich to accuse Alan of mixed messaging, considering who is doing the accusing. But mixed messaging is a characteristic of those who seek to profit from confusion. A classic recent example is that Alan Musk of politics, Jacob Zuma.
Following Zuma’s expulsion from the ANC, his new party reacted with anger. The ruling read, “As torturous as it may be for the charged member to find himself outside the ANC after devoting more than six decades of his life to the organisation at great personal sacrifice, it would not be permissible for him to be a member of the MKP and the ANC at the same time.”
TimesLive quotes MK Party spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhlela. “MKP, and on behalf of president Jacob Zuma, expresses profound shock and dismay on learning from the media about an alleged leak [of] the ANC national disciplinary committee [expulsion decision]. We confirm this as an act that appears to be a deliberate attempt by the ANC of [President Cyril] Ramaphosa to undermine Zuma. Alarmingly, neither Zuma nor his designated representative, comrade Tony Yengeni, were informed of this ruling, a stark violation of the ANC constitution and the constitution of South Africa.” He also described the ANC’s handling of the disciplinary process as a “kangaroo court”.
Given that Zuma was charged with bringing the ANC into disrepute by collaborating with MK “in a manner contrary to the aims, policies and objectives of the ANC”, and following his establishment and presidency of that party, it seems a little odd that MK is complaining about the way he was expelled. “MKP will not passively watch as these grave injustices against its leader unfold,” they fulminated. “Zuma will engage his legal team to urgently determine the course of action and ensure justice is served. On such conclusion of consultations, Zuma will announce further actions based on the guidance of the consultations”.
In the case of those latching on to the perceived blasphemy of the Olympics opening ceremony, it’s all about manufacturing relevance by imagining insult
As with the furore over the alleged slight to Christianity in the Olympics opening ceremony, there’s a wilful misreading, or rather rewriting, of what actually happened. In the case of the Olympics, the opening ceremony’s artistic director, Thomas Jolly, has insisted that the scene misidentified as a parody of the Last Supper is actually a reference to a pagan celebration featuring Dionysus, the Greek god of fertility, wine and revelry.
Whether drag artists portraying Greek gods is as blasphemous as making fun of Christian gods (or God — I’ve forgotten precisely how the whole Trinity thing works), I leave for the religious experts among us. But in the case of MK and, speaking of false gods, Jacob Zuma, I can pretty confidently state that their outrage at Zuma’s expulsion is just another way to muddy the waters of culpability.
It’s some weird inversion of Groucho Marx’s classic telegram to the Friar’s Club, when he wrote “Please accept my resignation. I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.” In Zuma’s case, it’s refusing to be expelled from a club he has already left. And in the case of those latching on to the perceived blasphemy of the Olympics opening ceremony, it’s all about manufacturing relevance by imagining insult. You couldn’t ask for a clearer example of how bad actors try to manipulate narratives for profit.
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