“[B]y valuing too highly a real, but subordinate good, we have come near to losing that good itself.
…
Apparently the world is made that way… You can’t get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first.”
“Bacchae of Thebes, you have attained the greatest triumph of them all, though it will make you weep and groan. A fine accomplishment indeed—to lay one’s hands on blood, the blood of one’s own son.”
— from “The Bacchae” by Euripides
I have not lived on earth enough years to qualify as an old man, but more and more I find myself just as ornery as any old man might be in the face of the world’s all-too-human spectacles.
My old-man-roommate, who happens to be my grandfather, keeps telling me, “Don’t get old, Joe.” I can’t shake the feeling that it’s too late, I’m already there — an old man watching fools inherit the world, fools much too swift to take good things too far by placing them in the wrong order, either too high or too low.
I felt that way watching the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics — that I’m getting too old for this stuff and at much too young an age.
The overripe glitz-and-glam of the opening ceremony certainly brought forth the “get off my lawn” geezer in me – and that was before the mockery of The Last Supper took place. Upon seeing the Drag Supper, I felt absolutely ancient in my disgust. And I wasn’t alone.
“This was an intentional choice to mock Christianity and Christians,” wrote U.S. Sen. Katie Britt on X. “It’s disgraceful. And it’s the same kind of bizarre craziness that’s being pushed on children and teenagers across America. We need to turn our eyes back to God and restore common sense.”
“France felt evidently, as it’s trying to put its best cultural foot forward,” said Bishop Robert Barron in a short video posted to X, “the right thing to do is to mock this very central moment in Christianity, where Jesus at His Last Supper gives His body and blood in anticipation of the cross. And so it’s presented, though, as this gross sort of flippant mockery.”
I agree, but it’s worse than the senator and bishop suggest. What the world witnessed wasn’t just a drag show parody of the Last Supper; it wasn’t just “bizarre craziness” or "flippant mockery”; it was a radical subversion of the Last Supper.
I say this because of the naked blue man.
French actor Philippe Katerine, who sang his hit song “Nu” (translated “Naked”), was scantily adorned to evoke the image of the Greek god Dionysus – also known in the Roman context as Bacchus.
"All of antiquity extolled Dionysus as the god who gave man wine. However, he was known also as the raving god whose presence makes man mad and incites him to savagery and even to lust for blood. He was the confidant and companion of the spirits of the dead,” writes Walter Otto in “Dionysus: Myth and Cult.” “Dionysus was the god of the most blessed ecstasy and the most enraptured love. But he was also the persecuted god, the suffering and dying god, and all whom he loved, all who attended him, had to share his tragic fate."
Notoriously, the female followers of Dionysus, the Maenads, were said to have engaged in sparagmos (dismemberment) and even omophagia (the eating of raw flesh) while in their fits of ecstatic, frenzied communion with the god. Euripides' classic tragedy centered on Dionysus, “The Bacchae,” portrays a mother so in the throes of frenzied possession that she blindly tears her own son to pieces at the behest of the god – and then proudly carries her son’s head home as a trophy, thinking it to be the head of a lion, only realizing much too late what she has done.
I recount this gnarly chapter of Greek myth and poetry to say, again, that the Drag Supper wasn’t mere mockery, but a radical subversion, a revolutionary desecration meant to pierce the heart of the Christian tradition.
In other words, it was very French.
The naked blue man wasn’t just present at this unholy, androgyny feast; he was presented as the feast for the drag parodies of Christ and his apostles to consume – the body and blood of Christ replaced by the body and blood of Dionysus – all as this “god” sang, “Let's live as we were born, naked, just completely naked like animals are.”
Watching the spectacle, I felt old — much older than my years, much older than even my old-man-roommate. Disheartened and perplexed by mysterious forces that seemed older than we knew, I sat in silence.
There is a time and place for many lesser goods under the sun, from wine and revelry to the study of Greco-Roman gods and myths. C.S. Lewis even included Bacchus in his “Chronicles of Narnia” series, suggesting the lesser god and his followers could be redeemed in Christ – with the key sentence from “Prince Caspian” reading, “I wouldn’t have felt very safe with Bacchus and all his wild girls if we’d met them without Aslan.”
Despite their prodigal sins, the wayward sons of the world may still find their way back home. There is always hope when first things are put first. But by valuing too highly a real but subordinate good, we in the West have come close to losing the good itself. By seeking to liberate ourselves from first things for the sake of second things, we grow nearer to losing everything.
When man makes gods of his passions for power and pleasure, he eventually yearns to be liberated from himself. Stripped naked of his dignity, man is not equal, but lesser than all the other animals, tragically fated to weep and groan at what he thought would be his greatest triumph.
Joey Clark is a native Alabamian and is currently the host of the radio program News and Views on News Talk 93.1 FM WACV out of Montgomery, AL M-F 12 p.m. - 3 p.m. His column appears every Tuesday in 1819 News. To contact Joey for media or speaking appearances as well as any feedback, please email joeyclarklive@gmail.com. Follow him on X @TheJoeyClark or watch the radio show livestream.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819news.com.
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