Inclusive spectacles, gentrification and celebration capitalism in Paris Olympics (2024)

Abstract

This article examines the Olympic Games in Paris (2024) as a spectacular sporting mega-event that triggered political debates about power relations, social inequalities and gender discrimination in sporting practices. In Paris, the logic of celebration capitalism and spectacle met the liberal spirit of inclusion and the Dionysian atmosphere, moving away from the linear ethnocentric representations and images of past ceremonies. The spectacle of the Olympic Games largely reflected the narrative of innovation and social liberalism of the elites of French society, but in which the demands of social activists for sporting practices that respected the environment and the city’s ecosystems and for measures for the social inclusion of the poor and plebs in Paris had no place.