„Imagine …“
Bigger – greater – nicer: Paris 2024 organizers’ long-time announcements left little room to widen superlatives of an event labelled as „spectacular, but also integrative, expressive, unheard-of in its format – since it blends sport and culture“, said Tony Estanguet, president of the organizing committee: It is the Opening Ceremony of this year’s Olympic Games in Paris, boasted safe, secure and weather-proof. „The Ceremony will mark a grand coup“, Estanguet underlines, „to show the ambition France attributes to the Games.“ However, the day before a different ‘coup’ was delivered to the French Railways SNCF: Terror attacks on regional TGV train grids affected 800,000 travelers, and a seemingly incessant rainfall during the entire Opening Ceremony had taken event preparations to a crucial test.
Some saw a bad omen for the event which the organizers seem to have put largely on a- trial-and-error basis, inebriated by an aura of creativity and innovation, perceptively ‘à la française’, as meant to be: For the first time the Opening Ceremony was not held in the confines of a stadium – a decision contested in the aftermath by both participants and visitors. Instead, an almost 4-hour open-air show alongside the River Seine in the historic center of Paris pivoted on an armada of 85 ships ‘bateaux-mouches’, with athletes gesticulating and brandishing their national flags. Artists in colorful costumes were showcasing France, „proud of its history and narrative“, as President Emmanuel Macron said, downplaying his earlier skepticism about art director Thomas Jolly’s new concept of „enhanced openness, diversity and inclusion“. After all, the open-air event allowed an extended welcome to 320,000 visitors on 124 stands watching nearly 6,800 athletes from 205 delegations alongside the 6-km route both in real and on 71 screens.
Animating the 12 structural images of the show, roughly 2,000 artists had been mobilized and put into allegorical outfits as imaginative and provocative as can be, to rock the venue on the ground and over the rooftops of Paris, reanimating the prestigious monuments of Notre-Dame, la Concorde, le Louvre, le Grand Palais, the enchanted Eiffel Tower. The show provided colorful, crazy, even shocking scenes, superseded by glamourous stars and superstars, including the singers Lady Gaga, Aya Nakamura, artist Philippe Katerine and the French metal group Gojira, jointly with the musicians of the Republican Guard and the choir of the French Army. There were precious moments of reflection, though, as singer and song-writer Juliette Armanet and pianist Sofiane Pamart performed John Lennon’s ballad „Imagine … – and the world is one“.
Last but not least yet to everyone’s big surprise appeared – Céline Dion. Suffering from stiff-person syndrome, a rare neurological sickness, she gave her first performance since four years ago. People witnessed her very emotional comeback as she was featuring Edith Piaf’s classical ‘Hymne à l’Amour’ from the first floor of the Eiffel Tower. It was part of the finale and the pinnacle of the opening ceremony, shared with an extra dramaturgy granted to the torch relay. It included sports icons like multiple Olympic medal winners Marie-José Pérec and Teddy Riner, Zinédine Zidane … An emotional highlight was the presence of cycling legend Charles Coste, 100 years of age and oldest French Olympic winner. From a wheelchair he passed the Olympic torch to the final duo Pérec and Riner, and his eyes followed the lighting of the Olympic fire. Placed in a 7-diameter ring of artificial flames, the Olympic fire ascended at a balloon up to sixty meters into the night sky. –
Giving Way to ‘Zeitgeist’ Imperatives?
The ceremony was exceptional, indeed, interlaced with brilliant presentations and emotional moments: La Marseillaise, interpreted by mezzo-soprano singer Axelle Saint-Cirel in the blue-white-red French tricolor, perceived as an allusion to the French national symbol ‘Marianne’. The performance was followed by the evocation of ‘missing monuments’ of French women of merit, scenes of ‘La vie en rose“ and the immortal Cancan, redeemed by a touch of military brass, a lot of heavy metal, much rap and breakdance.
But there was also shock and kitsch and an overload of wokeness, a mere parody of a fashion show with drag queens and transgender models striding up and down the rain-drenched red carpet on a remodeled bridge across the Seine river, as their chosen transgender catwalk. Last but not least, however, there was an insertion that had all the ingredients of a scandal: Intended or not intended, the way of presenting a gay parody of a Bacchus or Dionysos feast in an alleged setting of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting The Last Supper displayed a mockery to the Christian religion and triggered a storm of indignation – yet more to it: Followers of Christianism and other religions worldwide showed themselves united in solidarity and launched a sharply-worded protest.
How did this come about? Was it due to a big communication problem, or a doubtful intent to harmonize libertarian abandon, unchained queerness and staunch French laicism? –
Laicism and secularism were once brought about in politics to treat people equally and ban conflicts emanating from religious issues. Problems arose anyway, as decision makers not only banned religion from public life, but excluded God altogether. Following the famous dictum that the way we are living together, „is based on conditions that the liberal, secularized state cannot guarantee“, it is understood that these conditions, depending on the imponderable and arbitrary decisions of others, may profoundly vary from people’s general life concept.
This dictum relates directly to the Paris 2024 opening ceremony: All of a sudden, the envisaged ‘grand coup’ turned out a highly controversial debate, nurturing all over again doubts on how to reconcile ‘zeitgeist’ imperatives in form and content with the timeless dignity of the Olympic Games’ message to the world. –
A Message to the Olympics
While Paris 2024 art director Thomas Jolly was busy with justifying the show facing widespread discontent, communication director Anne Descamps expressed her apologies. Nonetheless, the key-question kept lingering: If there was no evil intention to offend others, then how could professional communicators whose senses of cultural empathy should be awake, fail to see the risks of abusing well-known transcendental motifs? Overtaxing the freedom of thought and its expression will not help, since liberty is based on mutually accepted rules of living together. Nonetheless, given the rights of gays and other minorities to demand respect and bring their concerns and issues to the public panel, the question looms whether, on each and every occasion, minorities are supposed to impose their ideologies onto the vast majority of the people. It could be so simple: Sometimes, the easiest way to start creating peace is that people are being left in peace.
There is a widespread feeling that our world has turned upside-down. Erratic behaviors and structures cause fear and uncertainty, and popular outrage outdoes reasonable arguing.
Certainly, it may be the task of Arts & Culture to use even drastic designs of alert, in order not to be left unheard. However, the proactive mission of Arts & Culture is also to bring people back to the bright sides of life, even if focused on some valuable hours of show and festival. Art & Culture is predestined to interpret the abundance of what bears its name, underscoring human creativity, energy and even heroism in peace.
Abused by politics or infiltrated by criminals or any kind of ideological currents, the Olympiad will disavow its vision and will, even as a mere symbol of peace, gradually become non-relevant. Following the noble message of peace, in reminiscence of the classical dedication ‘To the True, the Beautiful, the Good’, the Olympics will have a future, with Arts & Culture as the Games’ designer – and God no longer being excluded from inclusion.
The Paris 2024 Opening Ceremony has set milestones of creativity and innovation, but – alas! – also suffered from crudity and redundancy that created sharp controversies. This could have been avoided. Unfortunately, the picture of France as the world’s Number One tourism destination was underexposed, gay performances overstressed, the French Revolution reduced to the morbid spectacle of a beheaded queen, the proverbial elegance of French fashion missing. However, the ceremony had its amazing and highly emotional moments, and the quest of peace found its resonance in many a thoughtful song and word. Expecting a stronger impact of global peace, say ‘truce’, during the Games would be illusionary anyway: Never has there been a ‘sustainable’ Olympic Peace since ancient times. This may provide either fatalistic consolation or reviving aspiration – it’s up to us to benefit from the virtues of Faith, Hope and Love. Hope may be the last to die, but Faith is the first to be, and Love is the greatest of all.
When in December people are preparing for Christmas, France will celebrate the reopening of Notre Dame de Paris. The universal message of „Peace on Earth“ will be extended to „all people of good will“.