New scandal around the Tokyo Olympics, which begins on Friday: the person responsible for the opening ceremony was dismissed from his post because of a joke on the Holocaust dating back more than 20 years, the organizers announced Thursday.
To discover
The full program of the Olympic Games
“
We learned that during a past artistic performance
,” Kentaro Kobayashi “
used mocking language about a tragic historical fact
,” Tokyo-2020 president Seiko Hashimoto told reporters.
"
The organizing committee has decided to remove Mr. Kobayashi from his post,
" she added.
Read also: Olympic Games: Tokyo, the beautiful indifferent to the Olympic thrill
The consequences of his ouster for the opening ceremony on Friday night were still uncertain.
"
We are still thinking about how we can deliver the ceremony tomorrow,
" said Hashimoto, adding that she wanted to draw conclusions "
as quickly as possible
".
In a comedy sketch that aired on video in 1998, Mr. Kobayashi and another comedian impersonated a famous host duo of a Japanese children's television show.
By pretending to imagine a DIY activity where it would be a question of creating and installing small paper dolls, Mr. Kobayashi had launched to his partner: "the
ones from the last time you said + let's play Holocaust +
”, triggering laughter from the audience.
Kentaro Kobayashi, Director of the Opening Ceremony (on poster).
KYODO / REUTERS
The duo then joked by imagining the anger of the producer of the show because of this reference to the Holocaust.
This skit, "
which I had written, contained lines that were extremely inappropriate,
" apologized in a statement Mr. Kobayashi, an entertainment personality in Japan.
“
It goes back to a time when I couldn't get people to laugh the way I wanted, and I think I was trying to get people's attention in a thoughtless way
,” he added.
Cascading scandals
The Simon-Wiesenthal Center for the fight against anti-Semitism and racism condemned in a statement on Wednesday the past remarks of Mr. Kobayashi, denouncing his "
malicious and anti-Semitic jokes
".
Read also: Olympics: the tone is set, Tokyo will not be a party
"
No person, however creative, has the right to make fun of the victims of the genocide (committed by the) Nazis,
" the organization wrote, ruling that "
any association of this person with the Tokyo Games would insult the memory of six million Jews and make a mockery of the Paralympic Games,
”Mr. Kobayashi also joking about people with disabilities in other skits.
This dismissal comes just a few days after the resignation of Keigo Oyamada, composer of one of the musical themes of the opening ceremony.
The Japanese artist, known by the pseudonym Cornelius, had been caught up by old interviews he gave in the 1990s, where he lightly recounted how he persecuted disabled classmates in his youth.
In March, another artistic director of the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics, Hiroshi Sasaki, had also resigned for having suggested internally to disguise as pig a Japanese actress and star of social networks with assumed curves, Naomi Watanabe.
To read also: Olympic Games: a tandem of French flag bearers strong in symbols and ambitious
And in February, the president of Tokyo-2020, former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, was also forced to step down for sexist remarks that sparked a global outcry.
These cascading scandals have further tarnished the image of the Tokyo Olympics, already unpopular with a large part of the Japanese population who fear that the event will worsen the health crisis in the country.
Due to the restrictions in the face of the pandemic and the closed doors decided for almost all Olympic competitions, barely 950 VIPs are expected to attend the opening ceremony on Friday at the new Olympic stadium in Tokyo.
