The Sydney 2000 Olympics also featured drag queens – where was the outrage then?
Both the Sydney 2000 Olympics and the Paris 2024 Olympics featured drag queens. (Pool Jo Sydney/Getty and X)
Some viewers were left in an apparent state of shock at the opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics, just because a few drag queens were included.
Many have been freaking out about drag queen torch-bearers, not to mention the “satanic drag show” (as they dubbed the opening ceremony) but drag queens were part of the Sydney Olympics, 24 years ago, and no one batted an eyelid then.
It begs the question: is Western society actually going backwards when it comes to LGBTQ+ acceptance?
Three of the Paris 2024 torch-bearers were drag queens: RuPaul’s Drag Race star Nicky Doll, Minima Gesté and Miss Martini took part in the historic relay. The trio were among more than 10,000 others who passed through 400 towns and cities ahead of the Games, which began on Friday (26 July).
The chief executive of anti-trans lobbying group LGB Alliance also hit out at Gesté just because she carried the Olympic torch.
Taking to X on Wednesday (24 July), Kate Barker-Mawjee said Gesté’s participation was part of the “erasure of woman in all spheres of public life”.
Nicky Doll also featured in the opening ceremony, in a segment called “festivity” which featured a number of drag queens gathered around a banquet table. Some people have claimed that this mocked Christ’s Last Supper. However, queer art director Thomas Jolly firmly denied the suggestion.
After the ceremony, former GB News host Laurence Fox tweeted about the scene, describing the drag queens as “devious little pedos” and “child f**kers”.
Nicky, the host of Drag Race France, has since threatened to sue the former Lewis star.
“I’m going to show you that you don’t get to write things like that about queer people for fun and the misinformation of it and [get] away with it. See you in court, again, @LoxxaFox,” she promised.
Earlier this year, Fox was successfully sued for libel by Drag Race star Crystal and former Stonewall trustee Simon Blake, following a similar exchange on X/Twitter where he described them as “paedophiles”.
Drag queens performed at the 2000 Sydney Olympics to great acclaim
At the closing ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympics, 46 divas performed a tribute to The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. The drag queens wore original gowns and costumes from the cult 1994 queer film.
“Sydney 2000 closing ceremony had drag queens driving heels in a tribute to Priscilla,” one user posted on social media, with footage of the moment. It shows the bus from the film, topped with a giant steel stiletto heel, being driven around the Olympic stadium like a parade float.
Alongside it were several stiletto-heel tricycle floats which drag queens danced around.
This shows that although the Paris 2024 opening ceremony is being labelled controversial and even “satanic”, the inclusion of drag queens in the Olympics is, clearly, by no means a new phenomenon.
What is Priscilla Queen of the Desert?
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is a nineties musical drama from Stephan Elliott that has gone on to be a cult classic. The film chronicles two drag queens, played by Hugo Weaving and Guy Pearce, and a trans woman (Terence Stamp) – in performances seen as quite brave and groundbreaking at the time – travelling across the Australian desert in a tour bus.
On their journey across the country to perform their cabaret show, they come across all sorts of interesting characters. Twenty years on from the film’s release, there’s talk of a sequel.
In April, original director Elliott said: “The original cast is on board, I’ve got a script that everybody likes, we’re still working out deals… it’s happening.”
You can read all of our Paris Olympics coverage here.
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