Political Analysis of the Eurovision Song Contest 2007
- From: vkarlamov@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: 16 May 2007 01:50:49 -0700
Submitted to the University of Hard Knocks in partial fulfillment of
the G.F.Y. requirements in Anti-Social Studies.
This year, for the first time, I watched the entire Eurovision Song
Contest. Well, "watching" is not the exact term. I played it while
working on the computer. My usual way of watching TV.
The Contest consisted of two parts:
1. The concert itself. Quite boring. Not my cup'o tea. Only Portugal
and Poland marginally appealed to me, but they didn't even make it to
the finals. I feel like a white crow or a black sheep or both when it
comes to modern music. I am glad that USA chose not to participate, so
I was spared from listening to hip-hop. In fact, Eurovision Song
Contest is the only European event or organization not controlled by
the US of America.
Kudos, though, to countries like former Yugoslav republics (all of
whom sang in their native Serbo-Croatian/Slovenian, Latvia, France and
a few others, that didn't sing in English. Very brave of them. But
wise: with modern pop music, the less you understand the words, the
less you dislike the song. No wonder Serbs with relatively decent
lyrics in Serbo-Croatian, won.
2. The voting. The most exciting educational program I have ever
seen.
Here are some of the observations I made:
The most important result is the total and complete victory of Eastern
Europe (especially Slavic countries) over West Europe. Among the 24
finalists, the first 16 places went to Eastern Europe (i.e., former
socialist countries plus Greece and Turkey), while among the last 8
places, 7 were West Europeans (that got into the finals primarily by
decree).
This is an example of the reality that, after 60 years of being
bombarded by American mass culture, mass culture in West Europe is
dead. Eastern Europe has been bombed by USA "culture" for less than 20
years, so there is still some life left.
Great success of Russian singers, who took 2nd, 3rd and 6th. The group
representing Russia itself, took 3rd, not on the strength of its music
but on the pretty and sexy looks of the girl group. There are dzens of
such girl groups on the Russian pop scene, all taking advantage of the
Russian luck of having the most beautiful, thin, limber, long-legged,
slim-waisted and long-necked women in the world. I expect Russia to
continue doing well in the future Contests by exploiting this
advantage. However, given that the girl duet Tattoo and trio Silver
both took 3rd, maybe next time Russia should overwhelm the competition
by sending a quartet, a quintet or, better yet, a whole chorus?
The only country that can compete with Russia in terms of female
beauty is Ukraine. Ukraine too went for the female entrant, but it was
a drag queen Andrey Danilko, a man dressed as an ample and jolly
mature woman a la "La Cage aux Folles" named "Vera Serdyuchka".
Danilko/ Serdyuchka is primarily a Russian musical comedian, but
Ukraine takes him seriously, and so did the rest of Europe, giving him/
her the 2nd place.
But the most beautiful woman in this year's contest was the Armenian
announcer.
Great success of Balkan singers, especially Yugoslavs, who took 1st,
4th, 5th, 7th, 11th, and 15th. Add to that 8th, 12th and 13th for
Armenia, Georgia and Romania, countries of similar cultures.
Serbian victory was partially due to the newfound (thanks to the Iraqi
tragedy) sympathy for the victims of the Croat/American/NATO/ KLA
ethnic cleansings.
All this adds up to the total domination by Eastern (mostly Orthodox)
Christianity cultures, which took 1st through 3rd, 5th through 8th,
10th, and 12th through 14th. That is, they took all medals, 11 out of
the first 14 places, and 0 out of the last 10 places. Amazing... You
may add 11th placed Bosnia-Herzegovina, which is half Orthodox-
Christian. In fact, all top 14 countries are either Eastern-Christian
or Muslim or both.
All 3 winners came from non-NTO counties, while all 6 biggest losers
came from NATO. I guess, warmongering and brainwashing cannot co-exist
with culture and entertainment, which need free thought and
originality.
While the overall voting was based on music and performers, individual
voting greatly reflected cultural sympathies and antipathies between
countries.
For example, Sweden received almost all of its votes from Nordic
countries: it was ranked 1st by Norway and Denmark, 2nd by Iceland,
3rd by Finland, 9th by Andorra, while the rest of Europe gave Sweden
nothing.
Similarly, Germany gave 1st place to Turkey, hardly a surprise.
Here is the link to voting results, which can give wealth of
information to politologists and culturologists.
http://www.eurovision.tv/addons/scoreboards/2007/final.html
Here are some observations:
Russian music is loved in Belarus, Armenia, Estonia (all gave 1st
place), Ukraine (2nd), Israel, Turkey (3rd), Cyprus, Georgia, Latvia,
and Serbia (4th).
English music is loved in Lithuania (1st) and Ireland (4th) and
nowhere else.
Germans, who, following the geopolitical traditions of WWI and WWII,
initiated the hounding and rape of Serbia in the 1990s, gave Serbia a
surprising 3rd place.
Turks were magnanimous to their biggest victims and enemies, giving
1st to Armenia (!), 5th to Bulgaria and 7th to Greece, showing that
cultural similarities take priority over ethnic hatred. Thank god!
Israelis voted for the countries where they or their parents came
from: Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Romania. Poland, however, received 0
from Israel in the semi-finals, but it didn't do well with the rest of
Europe either, receiving its highest points from Ireland, the country
that has been recently flooded by Polish emigrants, and Andorra.
Curiously, Andorrans gave no points in the finals to their big
brothers from Spain.
.
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