Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾
Weekend Tales #6: The Paris Olympics fried my brain
A South-East Asian reaction to the social media hullabaloo around the Last Supper, Christians, Republicans, Democrats, Dionysus, blah blah. 📧 Subscribe to read the post. Subscription is free.
http://elizabethtai.com/2024/08/02/weekend-tales-6-the-paris-olympics-fried-my-brain/
Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾
@noam it's not the painting that is the problem but what eventbit represents, which is consodered a very sacred event in the faith. It wss the meal Jesus had before He was crucified and where he taught us the communion.
Noam writes
@liztai I agree with one of the links in your blog: an artist doesn't control what the audience sees in their art. So even if the intention was referencing a different painting, millions of people saw this as the Last Supper, simply because it's the most famous painting of that type.
Something else puzzles me: May I ask why you take referencing the painting of the Last Supper as blasphemous?
Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾
@noam I honestly don't expect non-Christians to understand. They often regard God as a concept or a philosophy, but to some people Jesus is a literal person they know, so they don't like it when their beloved friend is insulted. Just have to think of it that way and you will understand.
Noam writes
Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾
@noam though I am not that upset that they insulted it as we kinda know to expect that and we are pretty sure our God doesn't need defending. I am more upset about the gas lighting and how they are mocking the Christians for feeling upset 🙃
Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾
@noam even if they replace the drag queens with straight people Christians will be insulted. Ah, the age of moral relativism and post modernism, when what was obvious before is no longer obvious 🙃
It's all in the context.
Last supper imagery - holiest moment for Christendom, now depicted as a debauched event with a man whose genitals were peeking out standing behind a kid.... Yea I am not sure how that would be taken! 😅
If they can't accept that pov it's too bad.
Noam writes
Elizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾
@DavidBHimself to me, I am puzzled by why you should react this way to people who are expressing dismay that their values are being hurt? Do we not have the same rights? Or do we just not matter?
It's this tribalistic, binary, limited, no nuance discussion around this topic on english (or western) social media that makes it very tiring. Go to Chinese, Malay speaking social media you will be surprised at how diff it is.
DavidB
@liztai@hachyderm.io Sorry but no, just no.
Like many people, you're projecting.
Is it the Last Supper? We can debate it forever. Yes, it is, and no it's not. But it references Greek Mythology (you know, Greece, the country where the Olympics are from), I mean, the DJ has an Apollo crown on her head and Dyonisos is literally on the table.
But yeah, many classical paintings depicting Roman/Greeks parties are inspired by the painting of the Last Supper, which is itself inspired by older artworks (including Roman and Greek ones). This is intertextuality, it's everywhere in art, always has been, and always will be.
And on a myth level too. A lot of motives and myths of Christianisty come straight from the Roman/Greek mythologies (and a lot of parallels can be drawn between Jesus and Dionysus, and also between Jesus and Apollo).
Once again none of these things exist in vacuums, they all inspire each other, and this is a continuation of that.
But sure, let's say it's the Last Supper and the Last Supper only. What's the big deal? Hasn't the painting been referenced countless times in (classical art, as I mentioned) as well as pop culture? What's the difference?
There is quite a leap to make to go from "A scene referencing a world-famous painting" to "mocking Christianity."
And why? Why would they want to mock Christianity, right there? The thing took place in Paris, if they wanted to mock Christianity, there were many opportunities to do it and in more meaningful locations than a contemporary pedestrian bridge turned catwalk.
Being upset about this is plain ridiculous and only denotes a total misunderstanding of what's going on there.
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