WHERE THE RIDICULOUS BEATS THE SUBLIME EVERY TIME: EUROVISION
By Dr George Welton
The Messenger, Georgia
May 18 2007
Watching the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest was a confusing experience.
As a heterosexual British man I am not really supposed to like it,
and I am certainly not allowed to get emotionally involved. Of course
it is kitsch, and camper than a Welsh caravan site, but it is also
a multi-cultural, European, hippy love-in, where every nation has an
equal voice. Taking it seriously is usually not an option. But this
year was different. I live in Georgia. Sopho was fantastic. And we
were robbed.
The fact that the best song of the year did not win is not, perhaps,
surprising. Historically most of the music is not very good and
fortune rarely favours the talented. Started in 1956 as a French
post-war Europe-building effort and based upon an already existing
Italian Musical Festival, Eurovision was born with strong crooning
credentials. As a result few stars have emerged from its ranks,
particularly over the last few years, in spite of offering a massive
international audience to those who take part.
For this reason it is usually a prerequisite to view the whole
endeavour ironically. British fans will trot out that tired post-modern
epithet ‘it’s so bad, its good’ as though the quantity of one’s
ineptitude produces some opposite quality. Even the less cynical
observer will rarely spend too much time in weighty musical reflection,
accepting the frothy pop-music spirit of it all and looking forward
to a damn good show.
The drama and nonsense of Eurovision has been heartily embraced by
participants and organizers alike. Previous competitions have featured
the Wombles (park dwelling, anthropomorphic, animated rodent-like
creatures who were hugely popular at the time) and the first outing
of the heel-kicking Riverdance (for which they should never be
forgiven). Against a back-drop like that, this year’s tin foil clad
transvestites and operatic vampires are hardly even a surprise.
It was surprising then that the Serbian and impressively voiced winner
Marija Serifovic, consciously avoided showmanship. As she said, ‘I
listen to music, I don’t want to watch it’. This may be good advice
given her personal aesthetic limitations but it is just not Eurovision.
Sopho, on the other hand, seemed to embody all of the best of
Eurovision tradition. Her performance started out as a ballad but
quickly moved into a display of modern operatic-house music that would
have done Bjork proud. Combined with a dress and make-up job out of
phantom of the Opera and Georgian backing dancers spinning and grinning
at the cameras it was an immense spectacle. Like diamante encrusted
ABBA or skirt ripping Bucks Fizz it was flamboyant, stylish and fun.
But alas it was not to be. There are a number of possible reasons for
this historic injustice. Serious Eurovision fans (yes, these people
do exist) often complain that countries tend to vote from political,
rather than musical conviction, supporting strong political allies
and the adversaries with whom they want to make amends.
This explanation seems a little implausible, as though the voters
somehow see Eurovision as a catch-all political consolation
(or conciliation) prize. It is as if the Turkish population
collectively says, ‘Armenia, we won’t acknowledge genocide but here
are twelve points’. Or as though Serbians shout with a single voice,
‘Bosnia-Herzogovina, we can’t renegotiate the terms of Dayton but
you can have our top score ‘.
Certainly, in East-Europe and the former Soviet Union, countries do
tend to vote with their neighbours. Serbia gained the maximum twelve
points from five of the eight countries on its border, and the Baltic
states heavily favour one another. But the most obvious explanation
is that geography and cultural similarity go hand-in-hand. So our
neighbours usually offer the music that is most familiar to us. And we,
of course, vote for whatever toe-tapping nonsense we were raised on.
Whatever the reason, this ‘neighbourly’ behaviour makes life difficult
for periphery states (since they have few neighbours) and favours
the recently fragmented since cultural ties remain strong.
Perhaps this offers the strongest case against Kosovo independence
yet: yet another Balkan country will essentially prevent any country
not once ruled by Josip Broz Tito from ever winning the contest again.
This may be overly cynical. Viewed from a particular angle both
of Saturday’s front-runners are entirely consistent with Eurovision
kitsch. Marija Serifovic’s religio-romantic power ballad combined with
her slow-motion lesbian dance routine certainly made for spectacle even
if she did not recognise the fact herself. And melodrama on that scale
has to be taken seriously. Equally, Ukraine’s Vera Serduchka is a comic
creation and caricature of an Ukranian peasant-woman. Reborn as a drag
singer, this home-grown Borat (who consistently and conscientiously
offends Ukranian nationalists) was always destined to do well because
of her existing fan base in the former Soviet Union and her natural
Eurovision transgender appeal-indeed, without the Balkan conspiracy
she was destined to win by a mile.
So, in the final analysis, maybe it is simplest to accept
that Georgia’s poor showing reflected its increasing cultural
westernisation. Though the skewered golden dragon in freedom square
and pink and blue street lighting might suggest that post-Soviet
kitsch is alive and well in Tbilisi Municipal Authority, Sopho’s
offering was not overly-melodramatic. It was simply beautifully sung
and flamboyantly performed in a competition where the ridiculous was
destined to win the day.