A Swede who lives in Finland and who is lost in Euroland - the wonderful world of Eurovision
There is always some matter to discuss or just a song I want to share
Very welcome - I hope you'll like it here!

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Eastern Europe...

With the risk of getting really boring here, let me explain where I stand when it comes to the eternal debate about Eastern Europe and its effects on the Eurovision Song Contest.

First thing first - when the eastern countries first joined in, the song contest was dying. A German tv executive was quoted calling it "a decomposing something in the basement of television" and we will never know how close the cancellation of the whole thing was in the mid-90's.

The countries of the East brought in something the contest had lacked for a few years; enthusiasm, the will to win, the ambition to show yourself in the best possible light. In only a few years, many of the new countries had learned how to play the game properly and started getting very good placings, also sending in more modern-sounding songs with more ambitious stage performances.

What is important to understand is that there is no uniform East with a uniform culture. What we mean by East are the countries formerly included in the socialist sphere of Europe. (And, surprisingly, the countries of Former Yugoslavia, despite this country being present in the ESC since 1961.)

At some point, a large portion of fans, reporters and other people starting seeing "The East" as a threat, as a problem. These new people were, of course, the reason why countries like Belgium and The Netherlands failed to score well. Also - these new countries only voted for each other, and never for The West.

All this exploded in Helsinki after the 2007 semi final, when all ten spots went to Eastern countries (including Turkey) and the press centre went bananas. I have never read so much foolishness in print as after that semi final. "Throw Them Out!" was one headline. Tasteful.

There is always the need of an enemy, it seems. Not many years ago, there was much talk about the "Nordic mafia", and fans were very upset about Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland always voted exclusively for each other. That discussion has almost vanished completely.

As long as a song is good and well performed, I couldn't give a toss whether it comes from the east, the west, the north, the south or from the Moon. I want good songs to do well, regardless where they come from.

Also, reality is more complicated than "east vs west". Finland is east of Slovakia, why is the latter labeled "east"? Are the countries of Former Yugoslavia east or west?

And what about Germany? If the singer is from Dresden, should Germany be considered Eastern Europe?

There is a bitter taste of xenophobia to the whole discussion that I really dislike, and therefore I'd like to see this discussion abolished for all future.

Then you can ask yourself if all countries play by the rulebook or not but that has frankly nothing to do with geography.

1 comment:

  1. I agree completely with you. To me the real treat of the Eurovision Song Contest is to hear good, diverse and hopefully good music from different corners of Europe, and beyond. When the "East" joined the "West" on the Eurovision stage that was just what we got.

    Music is first, entertainment second but the contest is in my opinion a fun extra feature that gives some suspense to the show. And it gives the necessery punch to the countries to come up with good entries each year.

    However, many people, too many people, seem to think that the contest is the most important element of Eurovision and the final result of the contest is something that one should analyse, argue and agonize about. That leads to bitter newspaper articles, conspiracy theories and countries dropping out of the contest because the result is not right.

    I, myself, was rather bitter when I read the articles after the great 2007 contest in Helsinki. It seemed that the world had come to an end. The bitternes of some journalists gave a bad aftertaste to the Helsinki contest, which to me was a very entertaining, spectacular and well organised contest with lots of great music.

    Paradise Oskar had a great comment about his experience in Düsseldorf: It was a fun party with good people and great music. There was no contest really between the artists. In the end all the Europe just voted together where the party was going to be held next year.

    I wish we could all have this attitude to the Eurovision Song Contest. In that way we would all enjoy the traditional event rather than argue about it.

    Mikko

    ReplyDelete