Bacchanalia or sacrilegious parody?

THE sound and the fury that one scene from the otherwise fabulous opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics might seem to many to be disproportionate outrage over something sobriety would consider artistic. Some have proffered the explanation that the montage was meant to connect the Paris games to their Greek origins — and so, the scene was actually the reenactment of a bacchanalia, which it could very well have been.

The French bishops, however, while inviting attention to the beauty, the sportsmanship and the goodwill that should accompany the games, called its inclusion "malheureux" — unfortunate.