‘The View’ co-hosts condemn critics of Olympics Last Supper drag show: ‘Watch something else!’
The hosts of “The View” think the outrage over the so-called drag performance during the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony, which many felt alluded to the Last Supper, is overblown.
On the episode of the daytime talk show that aired Monday, July 29, the women dug into how many – including former “View” co-host Candace Cameron Bure – took to social media to express their displeasure with the drag-centric opening ceremony segment.
“It’s like, come on y’all –– it’s the Olympics! Stop!” Whoopi Goldberg, 68, said. “They’re not trying to do anything except talk about the history. They’re showing you the history.”
BACKLASH OVER OLYMPICS OPENING CEREMONY SCENE: After organizers spoke out to say that what many thought was a take on da Vinci's painting of 'The Last Supper' featuring drag performers was really a take on a 17th century painting of Greek Olympian Gods, #TheView co-hosts react. pic.twitter.com/6O5ErWx3PF
— The View (@TheView) July 29, 2024
Rather than taking “20 hours to write an email,” the Oscar-winner suggested that individuals who were “not happy” with the vignette simply “watch something else.”
“Just turn the TV off!” Goldberg exclaimed. “Watch something else! Put the newspaper down, don’t look at the pictures, these are choices. These are our choices. You have the ability.”
“Forget what Instagram is telling you,” she went on. “If you don’t like it, go to something else! You don’t have to stay! You have it in your power to make the change.”
Co-host Sara Haines, 46, shared Goldberg’s sentiment and also drew attention to remarks made by Thomas Jolly, the artistic director of the 2024 Olympics opening ceremony, to the AP about the drag show moment and its surrounding controversy, in which he shared his wish was not “to be subversive, nor to mock or to shock,” but rather “to send a message of love, a message of inclusion and not at all to divide.”
Haines, who often shares about her faith, said, “I get so frustrated with religion. Don’t go by the literal letter of the bible, go by the example of the word –– which is live with the grace, live with the forgiveness.”
She added that she is “so tired of being beaten over the head with religious messages when someone walks along their life not living like Jesus at all.”
Ana Navarro, 52, then pointed out that the Last Supper-evoking drag segment “was a very small part” of an event that was nearly four hours long.
“It’s what’s consumed so much of America, I guess, and I would say, it happens every four years,” Navarro said. “There are young people who train their entire lives, to be there to represent our countries. Can we please give them the focus?”
Evidently, “The View” alum Candace Cameron Bure could not.
In a video posted to her Instagram story on Sunday, July 28, the right-wing ex-Hallmark Channel actress, 48, decried the, in her words, “disgusting” performance that “completely blasphemed and mock[ed] the Christian faith.”
“It made me so sad, and someone said, ‘You shouldn’t be sad. You should be mad about it,’” she told her followers. “I’m like, ‘Trust me, it makes me mad, but I’m more sad because I’m sad for souls,” she added.
Like many on social media, Bure felt the drag performance was alluding to Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic late 15th century painting depicting his interpretation of the Last Supper of Jesus Christ.
However, since the opening ceremony, Jolly has revealed that the real inspiration for the drag tableau was not da Vinci’s Last Supper but a 17th century painting titled “The Feast of the Gods” by Dutch artist Jan van Bijlert, which depicts the Greek gods of Olympus crowded around a long table.
In an interview French news outlet BFM-TV on Sunday, July 28, Jolly explained, “The idea was to have a pagan celebration connected to the gods of Olympus.”
Bure, however, remained immovable in her outrage, saying that she does “not see how that relates to unifying the world through competitive sports and acceptable for children to watch.”
“I’m not buying it,” she insisted.