Candace Cameron Bure is not happy with the Olympics Opening Ceremony
On Saturday, the Great American Family Channel actor took to her Instagram Story to claim that the 2024 Paris Olympics had “completely blasphemed and mock[ed] the Christian faith.”
She called the performance “disgusting.”
Her issue? At one point during the performance, a collection of drag queens posed alongside a long table. Her interpretation – as was the view of many others, to be fair – was that it was a live-action riff Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Last Supper, a painting that depicts the final dinner of Christianity’s central figure
These performances almost always feature costumes and more. In this case, it included everything from Marie Antoinette (headless, of course) to French Drag Race stars and more. But this celebration of French history and culture ruffled feathers among evangelicals and conspiracy theorists.
Instagram Story posts automatically delete. However, allegedly at the request of her followers, Candace Cameron Bure reposted her Olympics rant to her page.
“You asked me to make this shareable on story, so here it is,” the actor wrote in the caption. “My take on the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony.”
“Since posting, many have tried to correct me saying it wasn’t about an interpretation of DaVinci’s The Last Supper,” she noted. Correct — Olympics organizers confirmed that not everyone who appears at a table is a reference to that Leonardo Da Vinci painting.
She believes that Olympics organizers are lying about the performance
Candace Cameron Bure acknowledged hearing that the performance at the table was not The Last Supper “but a Greek god and the festival of Dionysus; who is a god of lust, insanity, religious ecstasy, ritual [madness] etc.”
She complained: “I still don’t see how that relates to unifying the world through competitive sports and acceptable for children to watch.”
Cameron Bure then spun a conspiracy theory, suggesting that organizers are lying. “In any case, I’m not buying it,” she declared.
“I hope you’ll listen all the way through,” Candace Cameron Bure expressed about her Olympics rant.
She then penned a lengthy message for fellow Christians, concluding with: “Let us rend our hearts back to God, father of Abraham. Let us pray.”
Cameron Bure also tied it back into a discussion about the Olympic games with: “And pray for the Christian athletes to shine their light for the glory of God.”
So, Was the Opening Ceremony Bit really about The Last Supper?
Answer: No.
Just to be clear, a group of people standing on one side of a catwalk could be a reference to Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Last Supper, a painting that depicts the final dinner of Christianity’s central figure.
But not only was that not the intention behind this section of the performance, but the symbolism isn’t secret or even subtle. “The interpretation of the Greek God Dionysus makes us aware of the absurdity of violence between human beings,” the official Twitter account of The Olympic Games livetweeted.
Numerous followers of Candace Cameron Bure also objected to her extreme reaction to the performance.
Some sought to remind her that her beliefs are not universal, and that not every piece of art is designed to either agree or disagree with her.
Others pointed out that the purpose of this section of the Opening Ceremony was to highlight the cultural diversity of France — and, indeed, of the world. And it seemed that the message did not hit home with Cameron Bure.
What is this extreme reaction really about?
Additionally, some social media users observed that perhaps the actor’s apparent personal prejudices regarding the LGBTQ+ community were the larger issue. (That and, of course, her implication that portraying anyone else’s religion is not family-friendly.)
None of this is new. Candace Cameron Bure has repeatedly expressed the belief that she, a wealthy celebrity with numerous public platforms, experiences oppression because she is a Christian. Roughly two-thirds of the United States is Christian. Cameron Bure’s own God is mentioned on US currency and in courthouses.
Millions of Christians watched the Olympics Opening Ceremony without issue. Candace Cameron Bure may accuse them of being “lukewarm” in their faith. But it is possible that she’s the one with the faulty temperature gauge?