Thursday, 07 November 2024

Meet the French Theater Director Behind the Olympics' Drag Queens, Same-Sex Foreplay, Queer Last Supper Opening Ceremony

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Meet the French Theater Director Behind the Olympics’ Drag Queens, Same-Sex Foreplay, Queer Last Supper Opening Ceremony
Artistic Director of Ceremonies Thomas Jolly for Paris 2024 Daphne Burki, poses in in manuBERTRAND GUAY/AFP via Getty Images

The 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris kicked off Friday with an opening ceremony that left many stunned and repulsed — drag queens cavorting in the streets, raunchy same-sex foreplay, and a gender-queer re-enactment of The Last Supper.

There was even a bearded “woman” crawling around on all fours in a provocative blue bustier.

Who was responsible for the unfolding artistic atrocity? Meet Thomas Jolly, a theater and opera director who was little-known outside of France before Friday’s broadcast — which was viewed by more than a billion people worldwide — turned him into a global curiosity.

In interviews prior to Friday’s broadcast, the openly gay Thomas Jolly gave no indication that he would be turning the Opening Ceremony into a Pride parade. But he did emphasize the importance of inclusion and representation.

“How do you write a show in which everybody, at one point, feels represented and a part this bigger thing, this bigger ‘us’?” he said. “It’s ambitious but also complex because one has to broaden one’s own imagery, one’s own outlook and include everyone, understand everyone so that no one feels left behind.”

For a family friendly event, Olympic organizers provided no advance warning of the sheer number of drag queens and gender non-conforming performers who would be on display, nor did they mention the ceremony’s bizarrely horny undercurrents, with performers engaging in simulated acts of lust.

They certainly gave no clue about The Last Supper parody, which prompted a swift backlash among Christians — many of whom noted that Jolly wouldn’t have dared to mock Islam in the same fashion.

In the  tableau vivant, Jesus Christ is played by an obese woman wearing a dress with plunging cleavage. The disciples are played mostly by drag queens in brightly colored wigs.

Jolly, 42, has been heralded as a wonder boy of the French theater, infusing the classics with post-modernism and avant-garde provocations. He has directed for some of France’s most prestigious institutions including the Paris Opera and the Festival d’Avignon.

His taste for the outré clearly informed his choices for the Olympics.

Friday’s spectacle included what appeared to be a male performer with one of his testicles hanging visibly outside his lady undergarment.

There was also an actress playing a decapitated Marie Antoinette, with her severed head singing the French Revolution anthem “Ça ira.”

Follow David Ng on Twitter @HeyItsDavidNg. Have a tip? Contact me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.


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