Reason behind Olympic 'Blue Scrotum' performance at opening ceremony explained amid backlash from viewers
Topics: Olympics, Sport, Music, Film and TV
Poppy Bilderbeck
Featured Image Credit: BBC
Topics: Olympics, Sport, Music, Film and TV
The Paris Olympics performer whose 'blue scrotum' performance faced intense scrutiny online has spoken out.
On July 26, the 2024 Paris Olympics kicked off with a jam-packed opening ceremony, unfortunately, social media users were left divided.
Some were left disappointed by the sound quality of Lady Gaga's performance and others were confused and even outraged by the appearance of a singing 'blue scrotum' on top of a platter of fruit.
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After seeing a gold domed lid give way to a man painted head-to-toe in blue, singing from his lying position on a platter of fruit, many viewers took to Twitter to weigh in.
"Who had seeing a blue scrotum on their Olympic opening ceremony bingo card. For teenagers of the 90s this is like Eurotrash the movie. Incroyable," one user said.
Another wrote: "Horrific."
And a third questioned: "That supposed to be Zeus?"
While many were simply confused, conservatives were outraged, taking the act as a mockery of the Last Supper - and subsequently Christianity.
However, it's since been cleared up just what the singer was meant to be dressed as and what the performance all meant - and no, he wasn't Papa Smurf, Zeus a scrotum or anything to do with the Last Supper.
Artistic director of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony, Thomas Jolly, told BFM TV that the last supper 'wasn't' his 'inspiration' for the act.
Instead, the singer was meant to portray Dionysus - the god of wine, festivity, religious ecstasy and theatre - and the food and other drag queens standing around him were meant to represent them being at a 'big pagan festival linked to the gods of Olympus'.
Dionysus himself - a.k.a. actor and singer Philippe Katerine - even addressed the controversy to Le Parisien.
He explained: [Translation] "I wrote a song called 'Nude' and, while making it, I thought that for the Olympics, it would be good. During the first Olympic Games in Greece, the athletes were naked according to the representations of the time on engravings and vases. Nudity is really the very origin of the Games. At the beginning, they were naturist Olympics. So I sent my video, a little motivational tape to Thomas Jolly in February and he liked it."
Katerine noted he's 'a bit of an exhibitionist' and the performance is his 'culture' and he's 'proud' of it.
The singer resolved: "We’re full of different people and everyone lives their own way and, above all, has the right to do so. I loved doing it.
"It's the first time I sing this song, and I wanted to get my message across, which goes like this: 'If we are naked, there is no war because there are no weapons.'"