The mascots for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games are here and people reckon they look like walking clitorises in sneakers. That’s it. That’s the story.
They are called the Phryges, which is a word that has completely broken my Year 12 French-learning brain. Thank Christ that series of syllables never came up in an oral exam because I just know I would’ve been fighting for my life.
Obviously, they weren’t meant to resemble genitalia. The Phryges were modelled off Phrygian caps, which were worn during the French Revolution to symbolise the emancipation of slaves. The Smurfs also wore them, which is nice if you’re a Papa Smurf stan.
I feel like now is an appropriate time to unveil the aforementioned Phryges.
On vous présente la Phryge Olympique et la Phryge Paralympique !
Les mascottes de #Paris2024 ✨
Sportives, fêtardes… et françaises 🇫🇷Here are the Olympic Phryge and the Paralympic Phryge!
The #Paris2024 mascots ✨
They are sporty, love to party… and are so French 🇫🇷 pic.twitter.com/plupKzQqNs— Paris 2024 (@Paris2024) November 14, 2022
They really are giving clit in the most hilarious way possible. The glans. The bulbous red tips on their heads. I’m gagged. However, the French flag-coloured false lashes are a certified slay.
I think I speak on behalf of everyone when I say at least the 2024 Paris Olympic Games mascots weren’t modelled off, like, a guillotine. Would’ve been a bit on the nose.
My therapist: You need to stop fixating on the the mascots for the 2024 Paris Olympics Games. They can’t hurt you.
The mascots for the 2024 Paris Olympics Games: pic.twitter.com/Rg5ViVAJfU
— Josh Withey ❀ (@josh_withey) November 14, 2022
French journalist Quentin Girard said the smiling clits were “revolutionary and feminist”.
“From a political point of view, it’s not a bad thing that Paris lets go of its eternal phallic Eiffel Tower,” he wrote in an opinion piece for the French newspaper Libération.
He’s got a point: the Tour Eiffel is definitely serving cocky.
He also said it was très bon that France has “at last understood what one looks like”. Every single ex-boyfriend in the world has been found shaking.
Heard your boyfriend can’t find the Paris 2024 Olympic Games mascot https://t.co/vveJrxMeFh
— Caspar Salmon (@CasparSalmon) November 14, 2022
The Vagina Museum in London, which is devoted to vaginas, vulvas and everything in between, even used the Phryges to educate folks about the clitty. It was very funny ha-ha, as Kath Day-Knight would say.
“We’ve published a new guide to the anatomy of the clitoris!” it wrote on Twitter.
“Here’s the parts of the internal and external organ.”
We’ve published a new guide to the anatomy of the clitoris! Here’s the parts of the internal and external organ. pic.twitter.com/h2fJpSDOoT
— Vagina Museum (@vagina_museum) November 15, 2022
As much as I love the cheery clitorises, I would’ve loved to have seen something très French as the 2024 Paris Olympic Games mascot. Maybe Remy from Ratatouille or a yassified Serge Gainsbourg.
