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Full House star Jodie Sweetin defended the Paris 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony recreation of the Feast of Dionysus against critics who incorrectly interpreted it as being a parody of “The Last Supper.”
Friday’s opening ceremony featured a sketch that saw drag queens, a transgender model, a naked singer dressed up as the Greek god of wine Dionysus, and a child together at a long dining table.
The scene drew backlash from the Catholic Church and others, including Sweetin’s former Full House co-star Candace Cameron Bure who interpreted it as being a “disgusting” and “blasphemous” recreation of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous “The Last Supper” painting of Jesus Christ and his apostles sharing a final meal before his crucifixion.
The Olympics artistic director Thomas Jolly recently explained his intentions were to celebrate a “grand pagan festival connected to the gods of Olympus.”
“It was pretty clear, [it was] Dionysus who arrives at the table,” he said in an interview with French outlet BMFTV. “Why is he there? Because Dionysus is the Greek god of festivities and wine, and is the father of Sequana, the goddess of the Seine river.”
“Tell me you don’t know about art or history without TELLING me you don’t know about art or history,” Sweetin wrote in a recent Instagram Story, alongside a reel from comedian Walter Masterson mocking the misinterpretation of the sketch.
She also shared a graphic from Instagram influencer Matt Bernstein that stated: “The drag queens at the Olympics were recreating the feast of Dionysus, not the Last Supper. And even if you thought it was a Christian reference – what’s the harm? Why is it a ‘parody’ and not a tribute? Can drag queens not be Christian too?”
Paris 2024 organizers later apologized for the controversial sketch, with spokesperson Anne Descamps telling a press conference: “Clearly there was never an intention to show disrespect to any religious group.”
Descamps added that the decision was motivated by a desire to achieve “community tolerance.” “Looking at the result of the polls that we shared, we believe that this ambition was achieved,” she said.
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Bure has since edited her Instagram post to say that “many have tried to correct me saying it wasn’t about an interpretation of DaVinci’s The Last Supper, but a Greek god and the festival of Dionysus.”
“I still don’t see how that relates to unifying the world through competitive sports and acceptable for children to watch,” she argued. “In any case, I’m not buying it.”
Sweetin, 42, and Bure, 48, starred together in the hit sitcom Full House, which ran from 1987 to 1995, and its spin-off Fuller House. The pair have long held opposing political viewpoints, but have remained close.
“Having Candace and Andrea [Barber] as best friends growing up and sort of as older sister figures, it meant a lot,” Sweetin said on a 2023 episode of the Behind the Velvet podcast. “I was an only child, so it was great to have those relationships.”
