Thoughts on Eurovision 2014

I’ve always believed Eurovision was a good thing for gay rights in Europe. A good thing because, if you want to take part, you have to show the whole contest. You can’t censor anything, not even the blatant homosexual innuendos or .. well, blatant homosexuals and their rainbow flags. And when there’s a law against “homosexual propaganda” in Russia, the fact that they have to show Eurovision makes me pretty happy. After all, it doesn’t get more “homosexual propaganda” than Eurovision!

I find myself wanting to be careful not to draw too many optimistic conclusions about Conchita Wurst (and Austria) winning, but then it’s hard not to. 

 While I think Sweden’s song was better, Austria’s performance knocked it out of the park. She made that song THE number one song. The song to beat. And if she’d been a woman or perhaps even a drag queen without a beard (meaning you can “forget” there’s a man underneath the wig and the dress and the boobies) I would have been a lot more confident that she’d win it. But she wasn’t. Here was someone who’s obviously not a woman, who’s obviously a bit queer, winning the Eurovision Song Contest.

And people from countries where GLTBQ people have little or no rights, voted for her.  The juries didn’t always, but the televoters did. Less so than in western Europe, but still, they did vote for her.
Fuck you, backwards lawmakers.
You’ve been given the finger by your own people.

But of course Eurovision isn’t political….  Still, I can’t help but hope that for GLBTQ people in countries where the lawmakers (and perhaps popular opinion) still haven’t gotten their heads out of their collective arses, this win can mean something.  Whether it’s showing them they’ve got our support, they’re not alone (ooh! Armenia!), or that eventually, things get better everywhere, I don’t know. But I hope so. 

And I can’t help but think especially of GLBTQ people in Russia. The booing was over the top. It was unnecessary and it was rude. If I were Russia I would have told Europe  to stuff it and gone back home. The booing was not against the Russian people, it was against their leader.
Still, as I said, it was rude and it was not the place to do that. Rainbow flags yes, booing no. After all, it’s not the Russian people who are narrowminded idiots, it’s Putin. There’s a difference. 

And then there’s the other results. 

- It seems to me like you need a lot of luck in the running order, when you’re sending a “good, but not winning” song. No, the UK, Europe (“the rest of”) doesn’t hate you.  I just don’t think the last spot is such a coveted spot anymore (Ireland last year?), the contest just takes too long. If they cut down on the number of songs in the final, then yeah, maybe. But for now I think people have overdosed on the number of feathers, wind machine, glitter and craziness by the time we reach song number 26. I honestly think had you switched Spain and the UK’s running order, the result would have been switched as well. 

-Long live the jury/televote split! While you can still predict the 12s in certain countries, at least you can’t predict the top 10 anymore. 

- Had France been in the Balkan they would not have been last. It seems like being part of a voting bloc doesn’t so much make the difference between winning or losing, but when you send an average song it means the difference between a meagre two points or at least 9 or 32 points.

- And for my own country, Belgium must have been in a state of collective hysteria when selecting “Mother” as our entry. What happened? We were all so sure it was going to do well. Yes, I knew it was overly sentimental and bombastic, but I’ve never seen the fault in that, personally, it’s my thing! So what was it? Was it just the least bad song in a bad selection to choose from? Was it the fact that we got collective goose bumps when Axel Hirsoux sang in the preselections?  (he sang a lot better in the Belgian selection than in the semi) Or did we underestimate the creep-factor in singing about your mother? Any insight would be welcome.