How the Olympics’ Last Supper Stunt Highlights the Cruelty of Modern Culture

Events like the opening ceremony of the Olympics are always going to be opportunities for creators to reflect on current and past culture in ways that one would hope tie the two together in celebration of how far we have come. That didn’t happen at this year’s Olympics.

In a move that could most charitably be called a blunder, Thomas Jolly –actor and artistic director, staged a version of the Last Supper populated by drag queens.

The controversy that followed had Olympic officials initially confirming the blasphemous homage was inspired by da Vinci’s Last Supper. Jolly later claimed it was intended to represent a pagan festival of Greek gods. Later he backpedaled further saying, “You will never find in me a desire to mock or denigrate anyone.”

Whether Jolly is being sincere or not is a question for another day. Many have also already talked about how this offends Christians, and rightly so. It mocks their beliefs by portraying an important event from their holy canon with people dressing and behaving in ways their faith opposes.

That’s not the only way it offends.

What has not been talked about is the story of the Last Supper and the crucifixion of Jesus the following day, which is the best-known account of scapegoating in the world. It is Jesus’s act of forgiveness while he is being crucified that sets the tone for the religion that has brought most of the first-world where it is today. 

The more salient issue is what it means when a cultural behemoth like the Olympics openly mocks a mythos about scapegoating and forgiveness.

This is not a trivial thing.

To mock the specific part of the Christ story that is the height of his scapegoating and mobbing is to trivialize those events and suffering they engender. When it’s the Olympics that are putting this message out at a point in time where many people are being offered as tribute to cancel culture, our modern scapegoating, often over issues surrounding gender identity, it’s like the local bully wiggling his bum to the world as he stomps on all those who have been unable to adequately fight back.

Everyone who has been cancelled in the last decade has every right to be angry and offended by this. It smacks of smug cruelty.

This thoughtless antagonizing gesture is not an isolated incident in today’s world.

While it is difficult to pin down concrete changes that shifts in culture bring, and it is an old saw for older generations to lament the uncouth youth, there are some solid indicators that the world is becoming more cruel.

Since the advent of the internet, our collective ability to bring rough justice to people we have never met has blossomed. From BBS doxxing and the flame wars of the late 1990s, we have arrived at the era of cancellation. Today internet mobs can ruin the lives of several strangers before they finish drinking their morning coffee. 

As cancellation has become normalized in society, mobbing has increasingly happened in person like back in the olden days. 

If all these scapegoats were proven murderers, rapists, or other such violent offenders it would be fairly easy to justify looking the other way.

But it is the outsided level of punishment compared to the crime that should have everyone rethinking their self-righteous behaviors. Many people are cancelled for things as trivial as having unpopular opinions, poorly worded social media posts, serving the wrong kind of chocolate, or even telling the truth.

It’s not just social shaming that’s increased. Online harassment on the whole is rising, with a growing trend in sexual harassment and stalking. 2020 saw the largest recorded single-year jump in the murder rate, and both the United Kingdom and the U.S. have seen sharp spikes in animal cruelty.

To many, this might seem the perfect opportunity to pile on, lament how awful the world has become, and target Jolly and the Olympic Committee to be cancelled in turn.

As someone who is still putting my life back together from my own experience with bullying at the University of Tennessee and being cancelled from the Clinical Mental Health Counseling Masters program, I can see the temptation. 

Nevertheless, I think that is the wrong takeaway from this Olympics. While there is a role for justice and reform in these transgressions, retribution is not a pathway to reconciliation or peace.

I suspect that Jesus, were he alive today, would offer a different solution.

Because for all Christianity’s flaws, mixed history, hypocrisy, contradictory messages, and cruelty of its own, this religion has stood the test of time because it brings an important goal to the world, something that can stop the ratchet of revenge that makes cruelty get worse.

Forgiveness.

About

Diogenes in Exile began after I returned to grad school to pursue a degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at the University of Tennessee. What I encountered, however, was a program deeply entrenched in Critical Theories ideology. During my time there, I experienced significant resistance, particularly for my Buddhist practice, which was labeled as invalidating to other identities. After careful reflection, I chose to leave the program, believing the curriculum being taught would ultimately harm clients and lead to unethical practices in the field.

Since then, I’ve dedicated myself to investigating, writing, and speaking out about the troubling direction of psychology, higher education, and other institutions that seem to have lost their way. When I’m not working on these issues, you’ll find me in the garden, creating art, walking my dog, or guiding my kids toward adulthood.

You can also find my work at Minding the Campus

Diogenes in Exile is reader-supported. If you find value in this work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber or buying Thought Criminal merch to keep this mission alive.