Answering all the questions you have about Philippe Katerine
The French singer was playing the weird blue guy dressed as Dionysus during the Olympic ceremony
Summer is almost over. I took a little break travelling around France, seeing friends and attending local shows. Now we’re back to business: I thought it would be nice to take some time to explain who was this strange little blue man you might have seen singing during the Olympic’s opening ceremony.
Everybody seems to agree: the opening ceremony was great overall, with a ton of great performances: Céline Dion singing Edith Piaf’s l’Hymne à l’amour [trad: the Anthem to Love] on the Eiffel tower, French metal band Gojira covering an anti-bourgeois song after a decapitated Marie-Antoinette showed up at the window of la Conciergerie (where she was incarcerated before her execution), Juliette Armanet covering Imagine with Sofiane Pamart playing on a burning piano, Aya freaking Nakamura performing with the Garde Républicaine [trad: the Republican Guard, a.k.a; cops on horses] in front of l’Académie Française [trad: the French Academy] and a lot of French Disco/EDM.
But, the most funny and unexpected moment came when a weird blue guy appeared in front of a row of drag queens to sing a song about being naked. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is Philippe Katerine.
Frenchsplaining Philippe Katerine
Born in 1968 in a traditional catholic family, Philippe Blanchard grew up in Vendée, a département* well-known to be the home of traditional catholic families. Drawn to music since childhood, Katerine’s studied arts in Rennes and released his first album at the age of 22.
The funny thing about Philippe Katerine is that he didn’t begin as a jokester. His first seven albums are all intricately delicate, built with bossa nova guitars and beautiful love songs. For a while, Katerine’s music was pretty and easy to listen to. He was recording everything by himself, at home.
Striped down at first, his sound evolved, embracing more diverse instrumentations with the help of his backing band: the Explorers. The songs remained beautiful, naive and uncomplicated. The climax of this era is the delightful 8ème ciel [trad: Eighth Sky], released after a decade of singing.
But, in 2005, Katerine snapped. He released his most well known song Louxor J’adore [trad: I love Louxor] [Frenchplanation: Louxor is a nightclub] to promote his new electronic album named Robot après tout [trad: Robot after all], a pun aimed at Daft Punk’s Human After All. Katerine’s record is the antithesis of Daft Punk’s third album, where they tried to reach for humanity and realness through rock music. Philippe Katerine, on the other hand, was aiming for artificiality and irony.
Apart from the anthemic Louxor J’adore, the album also contains another nightclub-themed banger (100% VIP) and a song about being followed in the street by Marine Le Pen called 20.04.2005. Katerine is obsessed by hours and dates of mundane days or historical events.
The same year, Katerine also released the perfect Serge Gainsbourg’s eulogy with the song Serge recorded with the London-based band the Herbaliser where he recalls the one time he encountered Gainsbourg in the street, three days before his death.
One could say it was easy to see the signs of his craziness in his previous albums, especially the 1999 novelty songs Je vous emmerde [trad: Fuck you all] or Poulet n°728120 where he’s just reading what’s written on a random supermarket chicken packaging. His autobiographical movie Peau de cochon [trad: Pig’s skin], with a scene where he’s showing to a friend his collection of shits taken during historical events, could qualify as well.
Philippe Katerine never looked back and became France’s official court jester. You can find countless television programs where Katerine is being a weird little guy. As an actor, he remained more nuanced but the albums kept getting weirder like this beautiful little song about being the Queen of England and shitting on everyone’s face (it’s a bilingual song, you’re welcome).
He also has a cool song about eating bananas. One about wearing bucket hats. Another about getting kisses. One called Sexy Cool which is about being sexy and cool. And another one called Juifs Arabes [trad: Jews Arabs] where he repeats the words “juifs” and “arabes” dressed as a pope surrounded by muscular men. It’s really something.
Another cool fact about Katerine: rappers love him. For example, he’s been invited by the extremely vulgar Alkpote to play a baby singing about love. And he has another song with MC Circulaire [Frenchplanation: a pun with “circular saw”] dedicated to a small football team.
tldr: he’s a weirdo.
The questions
Why Philippe Katerine?
I already explained why: he’s our joker. To apply for the job, he sent a tape to the director Thomas Jolly with his brand new song, arguing that it was a very Olympic song.
“To convince him, I put forward three arguments. Firstly, the idea of reconciliation: when you're naked, you become harmless, you join hands. No pockets, so no weapons hidden in the pockets. Then there's degrowth: naked, you stop buying textiles. And finally, a return to the origins of the Olympic Games, when athletes competed naked”.
Philippe Katerine in the HuffPost
Why is he dressed like that?
Katerine is supposed to be the human representation of Dionysus, “the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre”, according to Wikipedia. That’s why he’s surrounded by a smörgåsbord of fruits and cheese. I don’t know about the blue color tho, maybe it’s a Smurf thing.
Is it supposed to make fun of the Last Supper?
No, you ignorant bigots, the scene is based on the Feast of the Gods by the Dutch painter Jan van Bijlert, currently hanged in the Magnin Museum in Dijon. Everyone knows that. It’s a callback to the mechanical horse and its rider, seen earlier during the ceremony, acting as Sequana, daughter of the Zeus and the spirit of the river Seine for the Gauls. Go get an education.
If you have more questions, do not hesitate to ask them in the comment section.
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