A tech firm’s choice to withdraw its promoting from the 2024 Paris Olympics has drawn consideration following a controversial efficiency on the opening ceremonies. C Spire, a telecommunications and expertise firm primarily based in Mississippi, introduced on Saturday morning that it was chopping ties with the occasion.
The announcement got here shortly after a efficiency that includes drag queens and dancers, which was perceived as a parody of Leonardo da Vinci‘s “The Final Supper.”
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“We had been shocked by the mockery of the Final Supper throughout the opening ceremonies of the Paris Olympics. C Spire might be pulling our promoting from the Olympics,” C Spire posted on X.
The controversial efficiency
The efficiency, which befell on the Debilyl Bridge with the Eiffel Tower and Seine River as a backdrop, started with three French drag queens and different performers standing on the base of a runway.
C Spire didn’t specify the character of the commercials they’d supposed to run throughout the Olympics, nor did they disclose the monetary impression of their choice to tug out.
The corporate’s choice seems to have been influenced by the unfavourable reactions from numerous quarters who seen the efficiency as disrespectful to non secular iconography.
“C Spire is supportive of our athletes who’ve labored so laborious to be part of the Olympics,” C Spire President and CEO Suzy Hays stated in an announcement.
“Nonetheless, we won’t be part of the offensive and unacceptable mockery of the Final Supper, which is why we’re pulling our promoting from the Olympics.”
In protection of the inventive decisions made for the ceremony, Thomas Jolly, the occasion’s inventive director, spoke at a press convention. He defined that the efficiency was meant to represent “inclusion” and aimed to showcase a variety of cultural expressions.
“Our topic was to not be subversive,” Jolly stated.
“We by no means needed to be subversive. We needed to speak about variety. Range means being collectively. We needed to incorporate everybody, so simple as that. In France, we have now freedom of creation, inventive freedom.
“We’re fortunate in France to reside in a free nation. I did not have any particular messages that I needed to ship. In France, we’re republic, we have now the precise to like whom we would like, we have now the precise to not be worshippers, we have now numerous rights in France, and that is what I needed to convey.”
