For those who didn’t like the Olympic opening ceremony, it’s important to know who produced it and why.
The artistic director of the 2024 Olympic Games is French artist Thomas Joly. Not much is known about him, but what he has created is known, and many are wondering why.
Jolie was widely quoted as saying that he wanted “everyone to feel represented” in the show he created for the opening ceremony, meaning his aim seemed to be centered around inclusion and unity.
Since the Olympics are meant to bring the world together for a few days in the pursuit of sporting excellence, inclusion and unity would seem to be easy values to defend here.
Paradoxically, for each athlete and team, the Olympics is about competing with the ultimate goal of winning. Winning in itself does not bring unity or inclusion, but in fact quite the opposite: the pursuit of excellence can bring unity and inclusion. That is the whole point of the Olympics.
We must denounce this as an attempt to dilute, belittle and denigrate the ancient symbol of Jesus Christ.
Thomas Joly certainly had the ability to get the message across that he wanted at the Opening Ceremony, and he certainly could have found a way to blend unity and inclusion with competition and the pursuit of victory, as others have done at the Olympics for decades.
by The New York TimesJolie had “perks most directors could only dream of: a budget of nearly $150 million and a crew of more than 15,000, including dancers and musicians,” along with the potential for an audience of 500,000 theatergoers and 1.5 billion television viewers.”
He used his vast resources not to send a message of unity and inclusivity, but to do the exact opposite – to insult many of the estimated 2.6 billion living followers of Jesus Christ, as well as many others (including Muslims) who see Jesus in a divine light.
I have never met Thomas Jolly and know very little about him, but I was struck by the fact that he sees the Opening Ceremony as conveying a message of unity and inclusivity. I suspect that if Jolly has a purpose, his words must be interpreted in the opposite way to the commonly accepted meaning.
Division instead of unity.
Exclusion instead of inclusion.
Instead of kindness, cruelty.
Ridicule instead of respect.
Someone mentioned the other day that for the first time since the tragic fire threatened and severely damaged this irreplaceable landmark and place of worship, Notre Dame Cathedral, its bells were rung at the Inauguration.
Did Thomas Joly ever consider that these bells, and many of Paris’ most remarkable buildings, would not have existed without Christianity?
Has Jolie ever considered that Victor Hugo’s works — including characters like Jean Valjean in Les Miserables — would never have become such a global source of inspiration (and such a positive influence on France and its people) without Christianity?
Did Jolie ever consider that while flying the false flag of unity and inclusivity, she was actually sowing division and resentment?
While I can’t read people’s minds, especially those I’ve never met and barely know, I noticed a familiar pattern in Jolie’s rendition this week.
In European history, conquerors often commemorated and widely publicized their victories by replacing the sacred religious symbols of the conquered nations with their own.
In some cases, the conquerors destroyed sacred landmarks and symbols and built new ones on top of those their predecessors had built and maintained.
In other cases, conquerors commandeered existing religious symbols and structures and significantly altered them to reflect the conquerors’ values and objectives.
For example, imagine a cathedral built on the ruins of a mosque, which was built on the ruins of a synagogue, which was built on the ruins of a pagan temple. Every time something like this happens, one message is made very clear to those who have been conquered: “You have been conquered.”
I don’t speak for Thomas Jolly, but I wonder if this is what he had in mind.
Jolie, of course, is not building any physical structures one on top of another, but his message at the opening ceremony was an act of appropriating sacred Christian symbols, stripping them of their sacred meaning, and repurposing them to send a message entirely different from Christian teachings.
The message is the same as that conveyed by ancient conquering armies to their conquered subjects through the destruction and sudden replacement of physical and sacred structures and symbols: “You have been conquered.”
Obviously, Jolie does not possess military might. But he does possess an impressive brigade of messaging “soldiers” to convey whatever he wants to convey.
Followers of Jesus can choose not to consider themselves conquered, but unless we actively confront the secular and anti-Christian attempts to hijack our sacred symbols, they stand to lose much of their meaning and positive impact, and to that end, we must denounce them as attempts to dilute, belittle and degrade the ancient symbols of Jesus Christ.
In doing so, we can also point out the fact that, above all, this was an enormous and costly missed opportunity for France to share its rich history and traditions with the world – to truly come together and include other countries in the celebrations.
Instead of using his immense talents and vast resources to destroy a faith to which he was clearly deeply hostile, he could have moved in a positive direction – something that is easy to do in a country with a cultural tradition as rich as France’s.
Ultimately, the Olympics is about finding unity through a shared passion for athletics and the understanding that in nearly any human endeavor, competition is the midwife to excellence and victory.
Instead of excellence, Jolie produced mediocrity.
Instead of victory he suffered defeat.
This is a loss not only to France but to all who witnessed his fierce denunciation of the teachings of Jesus Christ.
The Olympics, and all those who take part in and watch the Olympics, deserve better.
Editor’s note: A version of this article originally appeared on As X threads (Formerly Twitter).
