I woke up Monday morning with my heart fully invested in a mission: cheer on the U.S. women’s rugby sevens team, of which I had become a fan only one day earlier.

In the span of less than a week, I am one of a swarm of American Olympics viewers who has been taken in by rugby star Ilona Maher or bespectacled pommel horse specialist Stephen Nedoroscik or foil fencer Nick Itkin, who have all had starring turns for Team USA at the Olympics in Paris.

There is a fluid quality to being an Olympic spectator, learning (or sometimes relearning) the rules and aims, cheering for the athlete you may have just learned about and forming assumptions that are often quickly dashed.

For example, my excitement Monday morning was swiftly trampled — along with the rest of the U.S. rugby team — by Séraphine Okemba, the French standout who scored four tries. But that’s the vast majority of Olympic fandom for you: easy come, easy go.

Unless, apparently, you’re talking about the opening ceremonies, a facet of the Games which has shown just how sticky some of our American cultural assumptions are.

Part of me can’t believe — amid a vast menu of Olympic offerings that is easier to watch on demand than ever before — that a sizable chunk of the discourse is about literally one part of the opening ceremonies.

Seeing people dress as drag queens and satyrs around a large table, many viewers assumed it was a mocking (possibly Satanic?) send-up of “The Last Supper.” While Paris Games officials have “apologized” for the scene, director Thomas Jolly has said it was a bacchanal scene in the spirit of Greek god Dionysus rather than mocking the famous Christian tableau.

To be perfectly clear, I was lukewarm on the whole show (though admittedly the aria of a decapitated woman that kicked off a heavy metal segment caught my attention), but in my experience, all opening ceremonies are hit or miss. Yet, because we live in modern America where bad-faith actors use any excuse to stand on soapboxes and decry “wokeness,” of course this can’t just can’t quietly fade away.

I found it particularly boorish how Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah (a state where I lived for eight years) bashed the Paris ceremonies and promised that state’s 2034 Games will “showcase Utah values and our commitment to building family and community.” We now have a decadelong runway to get excited for a sanitized vision of an opening ceremonies about the merit of funeral potatoes, the ubiquitous casserole at in-state family gatherings.

But then there is also the commentary of people like ESPN’s Pat McAfee, who pulls up to non-football sports with the wherewithal of a rubber-necking passerby. If his Caitlin Clark discourse isn’t tiresome enough for you, he offered new material this week.

“There’s a lot of people that are saying, ‘What Thomas Jolly put together was incredibly disrespectful.’ And I think that is certainly a way to view things. That is a way to take it,” McAfee said. “And there’s a lot of people that have said that and for good reason. I have no idea how any of these things are the start of the Olympics or to announce that the Olympics are taking place.”

McAfee’s operative phrase is I have no idea — as in, people who are saying the opening ceremonies should only be about sports are clueless about the Olympics and its traditions.

Hate to break it to you, but cultural presentations have always been a part of every Olympics I can ever remember (McAfee and I are roughly the same age, so we’ve seen about the same number of Games). Anyone remember Daniel Craig’s James Bond pretending to jump out of a helicopter with Queen Elizabeth?

Yes, the French presentation was avant-garde — it’s telling to have to use French verbiage to describe a show so edgy it seemingly paid tribute to the ménage à trois. In a slight defense of confused viewers, NBC’s scattershot commentary of the ceremony didn’t offer much context or guidance.

But we’re kind of missing the point if we only watch an artistic impression of French culture through the lens of our narrow American culture wars. That’s really the heart of the Olympic spirit, which brings together many faiths and many cultural interpretations. We come to the table not really knowing what to expect. We quickly adopt the sports that strike a nerve with us. If there are events that don’t grab our attention, we change the channel.

Personally, I prefer a boundary-pushing French ceremony to past opening acts that have been infused with host-government propaganda. But maybe that doesn’t stir up pundits as much as drag queens do.

To linger on one brief scene of the Games that seems to offend our regional sensibilities is to miss out on the Olympics, a dizzying kaleidoscope of sports, nations and cultures. We don’t understand it all at first blush, and we should not pretend that we do.

As viewers, we’re here for a good time, not a long time — it’s better to simply absorb the stuck landings by Simone Biles, the blistering sprints by Noah Liles and, yes, the teeth-chattering stiff arms by Ilona Maher, my rugby hero for the next few weeks. Let the rest wash over you.

That’s the beauty of the Games: There’s always something new to get excited about. It would be nice if that’s what gets us all to move on.