Event Review

[JWPM 1.1 (2014) 96-99] JWPM (print) ISSN 2052-4900 doi:10.1558/jwpm.v1i1.96 JWPM (online) ISSN 2052-4919

Event Review

Eurovision Song Contest 2013. Malmö, Sweden

Reviewed by: Paul Jordan, Cardiff University, Wales [email protected]

Keywords: Azerbaijan; Europe; Eurovision; Sweden; voting

The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) has been broadcast every year for nearly sixty years. It is the longest-running television programme in the world. The contest has changed dramatically since its inception; having nearly doubled in size over the past twenty years, it has come to encompass countries which did not exist as independent states when the event began in 1956. Eligibil- ity to participate is not determined by geographic position within the conti- nent of Europe, despite the inference in the title of the competition. Rather, entry to the event is dependent upon the national broadcaster being a full and active member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). Several countries which are geographically outside the boundaries of Europe have competed, namely, Israel and Azerbaijan since 1973 and 2008, respectively, while Morocco in North Africa took part in 1980. In addition, Turkey and Russia, which are both transcontinental countries with most of their territory outside of Europe, have competed since 1975 and 1994 respectively. Thus, Europe as a socio-political construct is not only mirrored in the ESC but effectively reinforced by it. After Sweden won the 2012 contest held in Baku, Azerbaijan, which was arguably one of the most politically charged in the history of the event, the contest was held in Malmö in May 2013. This was the first time since 2000 that Sweden had staged the ESC. Reflecting the wider austerity drive in Europe and the increasing financial pressure facing national broadcasting corpora- tions, Sweden’s national broadcaster, SVT, announced that they were staging the contest on a smaller scale. The large arenas seen in Germany, Norway and Russia were gone, as were the audacious opening acts. Malmö was differ- ent: one presenter, no frills and standing room only for the audience. Behind the scenes the party circuit was considerably restricted; gone were the days of unlimited alcohol for accredited journalists and seemingly limitless press packs. The 2013 contest also saw several countries withdraw from the contest due to cutbacks affecting their national broadcasters. Poland continued to

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2014, Office 415, The Workstation, 15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield S1 2BX. Event Review 97 stay away, having missed the 2012 event, whilst Bosnia Herzegovina, Portu- gal, Slovakia and Turkey all stayed home. Four years after the global financial crisis began, it had reached the ESC. Musically, 2013 was a mixed affair, with the usual ballads peppered with dance songs and, of course, a share of the bizarre songs which have become customary at the ESC. Greece’s Koza Mostra performed their song “Alcohol Is Free” in modern Greek kilts at a time when the Greek economy was crippled by debts, and many other countries were debating introducing minimum unit pricing for alcohol. Finland’s Krista Siegfrids demonstrated her support for equal marriage by sealing the performance of her song, “Marry Me”, with a same-sex kiss. Georgia opted for an old-school ballad written by Thomas G:son, the Swedish songwriter responsible for the winning entry in 2012, titled “Euphoria”. The BBC’s selection of Bonnie Tyler as the United King- dom’s entry followed the same format and form as in 2012—internal selection, performed by a well-known artist aged sixty-plus, yet without a major hit for decades. Politics were never far from the foreground despite the continuous stress on the apolitical nature of the event by the EBU, which oversees the organi- zation of the contest. SVT developed the slogan “We Are One” for the 2013 contest. The theme aimed to portray Europe as a united entity, emphasizing diversity and multiculturalism, a splendid ideal—except that Europe really isn’t united; it is a fractured construct, economically, politically and socially (Jordan 2014: 137). After the controversies surrounding alleged human rights abuses in Azerbaijan in the run-up to the 2012 contest, the Swedes had a point to prove and were not afraid of doing so. Press conference host Alexandra Pas- calidou actively challenged Belarus on its alleged poor human rights record by asking the Belarusian performer, Alyona, about her views on the “We Are One” theme. Unsurprisingly, under the eye of the Belarusian broadcasting authorities, she dodged the question. In previous years, press conferences had been used to ask simple, albeit banal, questions. In 2013 in Sweden, it was time for serious and gritty questions. “This is meant to be a press conference, after all”, remarked Pascalidou afterwards with a wry smile. In 2013, the Swedes were trying to be everything that the Azeris in 2012 were not. In Baku bottled water was available free of charge for accredited press. In Malmö journalists were provided with refillable bottles and directed to a series of taps from which to fill them up, the subtext being “in Sweden you can drink the tap water”. The three presenters in Baku in 2012 were never seen in public without their finest outfits, perfectly coiffed hair and full faces of make-up. In 2013 the presenter, Petra Mede, rehearsed for the three live shows with no make-up and her hair in rollers. This was a very differ- ent ESC, the evidence of which surely came with the interval act performed

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2014. 98 Journal of World Popular Music by Mede herself. The performance, entitled Swedish Smorgasbord, began with scenes from a war zone, which was ironic given Sweden’s history of neutral- ity. The self-deprecation of Sweden’s national image and identity was evident throughout the performance, however, as were some serious political points relating to equal marriage (featuring a same-sex kiss) and gender equality, as Mede sang “Our roles are reversing/ our daddies are nursing/ in all our cities/ the men don’t have titties/ but they still stay at home to raise the kids”. Fur- thermore, during the broadcast itself Mede told the audience directly, or the “10,000 dancing queens”, as she referred to them: “You just haven’t met the right girl yet.” The timing of such statements could not have been more crucial; in Russia the state Duma passed a law prohibiting discussions about homosexuality and in Georgia the day before the Eurovision final, riots took place after activists attempted to hold a gay pride march in Tbilisi. Any doubts over the intention of Sweden to promote egalitarian values through the ESC were shattered by both this performance and the staging of the 2013 contest itself. The voting in the ESC is arguably one of the more controversial elements of the television format, and 2013 was no exception. During the semi-finals, all former Yugoslav republics were knocked out, which meant that for the first time since 1985 there was no representation from the former Yugoslav federation. Inversely, with the exception of Latvia, all former Soviet republics qualified for the final. Denmark’s Emmelie de Forest achieved the same result as the last time the contest was held in Sweden and romped home to victory with “Only Teardrops”. In the aftermath of the contest, controversy arose when footage of Azeri delegates allegedly buying jury votes emerged. This was further compounded when Russia allegedly finished second in the public phone vote in Azerbaijan and yet was awarded no points in the final. Azeri president Ilham Aliyev called for an enquiry, at which the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov, stated that the “outrageous action [would] not remain without a response” (BBC News 2013). Meanwhile, Belarusian presenter Alexander Lukashenko also became embroiled in the controversy when he alleged that the Russian votes were falsified. The European Broadcasting Union launched an inquiry and in August 2013 revealed that the rules relating to jury votes would be changed. As of 2014, the results of the jury vote would be made public immediately after the contest, along with the names of jurors and the specific countries that each person awarded points to. Allegations of vote-rigging in the ESC are nothing new. However, the prompt response from the EBU suggests that investigation into the allegations uncovered irregulari- ties, the scale of which at the time of writing remains unclear. Meanings are never fixed; social reality is constructed and ever-changing. The continued success of the ESC as it is entering its sixtieth year in 2015 is

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2014. Event Review 99 quite remarkable given that a wider European identity remains a vague con- struction still in the process of formation. The question of what constitutes Europe and what holds it together remains as pertinent today as it was following World War II. The global economic crisis has further aroused discussions concerning development and notions of Europeanness. Fricker and Gluhovic (2013) argue that the ESC has become a stage on which the changing realities of Europe are being played out. I would go further to state that the ESC today as a competition sanctions a playful form of quasi-xenophobia, in that whilst the contest seeks to present Europe as a united entity, it actually represents an idealized form of the EU, a notional space without borders. Despite media narratives depicting the ESC as an Eastern European “stitch-up”, in reality Western Europe controls the contest. This is exemplified by recent changes in the voting procedure following pressure from the “big five” broadcasters from France, the UK, Italy, Spain and Germany, who are the largest financial contributors to the contest. Despite the increased competition in the digital broadcasting age and the global financial crisis, the ESC as a television format continues to endure. Eurovision exhibits these wider socio-political tensions year in, year out, and will continue to do so. As such, it represents a unique form of public diplomacy, allowing countries to pass judgement on each other without the threat of repercussion. Yet the disputes concerning Azerbaijan and Armenia in 2009 demonstrate that Eurovision is in fact a form of living nationalism. In an ever-changing Europe, meanings and identities are shifting rapidly. This offers future opportunities for research as we seek to understand and encapsulate some of the key debates in specific contexts and at specific moments in time.

References BBC News 2013. “Russia: Azerbaijan’s Eurovision snub ‘outrageous’ ”. BBC Online, 21 May. Available at http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-22609523 (accessed 14 April 2014). Fricker, Karen, and Milija Gluhovic, eds. 2013. Performing the ‘New’ Europe: Identities, Feelings and Politics in the Eurovision Song Contest. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. http://dx. doi.org/10.1057/9781137367983 Jordan, Paul. 2014. The Modern Fairy Tale: Nation Branding, National Identity and the Eurovision Song Contest in Estonia. Tartu: Tartu University Press.