Drag Queen Show Wasn’t Just Mockery

'We can identify the full scope of the mockery in the Olympics drag performance—the work of “the accuser” to weaken Christian witness in the public square by demystifying the Eucharist of its holiness.'

From Crisis

By Casey Chalk, MA(Theol)

The Olympic Drag Show was a validation of the beliefs of many wayward Christians who have long supported degenerate lifestyles.

Catholics are rightly incensed by the 26 July performance by a group of drag queens and dancers of an apparent “parody of the Last Supper” during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics, which Bishop Robert Barron of Minnesota labeled a “gross mockery of the Last Supper.” The interpretation of the performance as a mockery of the Church’s most important rite was ubiquitous in responses to the event: Elon Musk called it “extremely disrespectful to Christians.” Clint Russel, host of the Liberty Lockdown podcast, declared: “There are 2.4 billion Christians on earth and apparently the Olympics wanted to declare loudly to all of them, right out of the gate NOT WELCOME.”

Yet as much as drag artists reenacting Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” is offensive to Catholics who adhere to the Church’s teaching on sexuality, terming this a “mockery” to Christians the world over fails to fully interpret the meaning and significance of the event. Rather than ridicule, the drag show was performance art in service of political and theological goals: namely, to co-opt Christian imagery in the service of the sexual revolution and its progeny, an objective many Christians share. If there is any intended “mockery” in the event, it stems less from the performers and those celebrating it, and more from a source far more sinister.

For starters, we should remember that there are millions of self-professed Catholics who believe people of all sexual identities, proudly engaging in all manner of sexual behaviors, should be welcomed and celebrated “at the Eucharistic table,” as it were. Catholic organizations such as DignityUSA and New Ways Ministry affirm LGBTQIA+ identities and their full acceptance into the entirety of the sacramental life of the Church, while Catholic academic institutions such as Notre Dame, Loyola University Chicago, and University of San Diego have hosted drag shows. Though it pains me to write it, most self-identifying Catholics in Europe and even the United States say homosexuality should be accepted and that gays should be allowed to marry. 

If you think that’s bad, consider the doctrines and praxis of many Protestant denominations. The Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, and the United Church of Christ, among other American denominations, expressly affirm gay marriage. The United Method Church earlier this year dismantled its “anti-LGBTQ policies and teachings,” including lifting bans on same-sex marriage and gay clergy (many individual Methodist churches left the denomination over this issue). The United Church of Christ’s website features an article titled “Drag Performance as Worship and Praise,” and many other Protestant churches host drag services.

For such self-defined Christians, there is nothing obscene or offensive about uniting drag and Holy Communion (or whatever their particular theological tradition calls it). That sacrament, its depiction in art, and for that matter any other Christian religious imagery is the possession of all sexual identities, they’d assert, because “love wins.” For the person who believes drag can be just as much an act of worship of the divine as anything else (if not moreso, given it celebrates a “historically oppressed minority” and is thus an act of justice and charity) the Olympics show wasn’t mockery, but validation of their beliefs. 

Yet it also serves as an effective vehicle for a broader political objective: to neutralize the influence of “traditional” Christian views of sexuality in favor of those endorsed by the sexual revolution, whose tenets have become central to the mission of many Christian denominations, and even, sadly, many Catholics. Christian rites and imagery are only a threat to this pro-LGBTQ+ movement as long as they are perceived as existing in opposition to the aims of the sexual revolution. Drag performances—themselves a perverse liturgical rite of our sexualized, anti-human culture—that are effused with traditional religious themes are aimed at emptying those rites and imagery of their “anti-LGBTQ+” power. These religious expressions can then become simply another token to be trotted out in the service of what is actually holy according to our current public religion: human agency, the will to do whatever one pleases. 

Of course, this amounts to an inversion of the order of creation. God (and His Church) exist in service to man and the perverse appetites of his sinful heart, rather than man and his sexual desires being graciously transformed to honor God and create new life. In this theological sense, we can identify the full scope of the mockery in the Olympics drag performance—the work of “the accuser” to weaken Christian witness in the public square by demystifying the Eucharist of its holiness and the special respect even non-Christians are inclined to offer it.  

To treat the Eucharist this way acts a leveling force, even for those who celebrate drag artists acting out “The Lord’s Supper.” It is, the artists implicitly communicate, no more or less to be revered than anything else. What is to be revered is the individual’s freedom to act out his preferred desires, sexual or otherwise, and for everyone else to dutifully clap their hands and cheer him on. 

In that sense, we can appreciate the more sinister dimension to such “entertainment.” Even if those engaged in the performance art—or celebrating it from the comfort of their homes, rainbow flags in hand and “Hate Has No Home Here” signs in their yard—believe it to simply be a manifestation of authentic human expression, love and beauty, Satan laughs in delight. For he knows that profaning the sacredness of the “source and summit” of the Christian faith in this manner will further disempower it in the eyes of many who might still retain some residue of a Christian culture and its recognition of the sacred. What saddens me is that so many LGBTQ+-affirming Christians truly believe such “art” to be faithful to Christ’s redemptive mission on earth, rather than the work of the devil.