Eurovision and Australia Chris Hay • Jessica Carniel Editors Eurovision and Australia Interdisciplinary Perspectives from Down Under Editors Chris Hay Jessica Carniel University of Queensland University of Southern Queensland Brisbane, QLD, Australia Toowoomba, QLD, Australia ISBN 978-3-030-20057-2 ISBN 978-3-030-20058-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20058-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. 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Cover design: eStudioCalamar This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Chris Hay offers his thanks to colleagues past and present, especially those in the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Sydney, through whose Research Seminar Series the ideas that animate this book were developed and encouraged. His part in this work is dedi- cated to the original Eurovision crew: Anna, Billy, Ceili, Clifford, Scott, Vanessa, and Vyv. Our thanks also to the University of Queensland, who supported Jacquelyn Prior’s contribution to this research through the award of a UQ Summer Research Program scholarship. Jessica Carniel would like to thank her colleagues at the University of Southern Queensland for being supportive of, if not slightly bemused by, her Eurovision research. Particular thanks go to her co-editor, Chris Hay, for letting her come on this hamster wheel, and to the contributors whose passion made this volume possible; Matthew Klugman for kickstarting the ideas all those years ago; Sara Bice for her unwavering support and friend- ship; the fans, especially the participants in her original study, for being a constant source of inspiration; and the special critters at home who toler- ate the May madness that now permeates our entire year (sorry, not sorry). She would like to dedicate her part in this work to her father, Umberto, who passed during its writing—volare, papa. v CONTENTS 1 Introduction—“Good Evening, Europe—Good Morning, Australia!” 1 Chris Hay and Jacquelyn Prior Part I Australia in Eurovision 15 2 Australia and the Eurovision Song Contest: A Historical Survey 17 Dean Vuletic 3 The Politics of Diversity and Participation 33 Anika Gauja 4 Indigenous Representation at the Eurovision Song Contest: A Quintessentially Australian Identity 57 Julie L. Collins and Lorina Barker 5 Gender-Bending or Gender-Straightening? Australia and the ESC at the Intersections of Gender, Sexual Orientation, and Ethnicity 75 Bronwyn Winter vii viii Contents 6 Sounds Like Australia? Listening to Australia’s Eurovision Song Performances 101 Brent Keogh, Shelley Brunt, and Liz Giuffre Interval Act 123 7 Australia and Eurovision: The View From Europe 125 Paul Jordan Part II Eurovision in Australia 139 8 Eurovisions from Down Under: Multicultural Community Preferences and the National Broadcaster, SBS 141 Nina Markovic Khaze 9 Lessons Learned: Teaching European Studies in Full Eurovision 165 Alison Lewis and John Hajek 10 Our Aussie Divas: Interrogating Australian Identity through Audience Reactions to Australia’ Eurovision Entrants 189 Celia Lam 11 “It Really Makes You Feel Part of the World”: Transnational Connection for Australian Eurovision Audiences 213 Jessica Carniel Contents ix 12 Pyjama Fandom: Watching Eurovision Down Under 239 Chris Hay 13 Conclusion—Eurovision—Australia Decides 259 Jessica Carniel and Chris Hay Index 281 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS Lorina Barker is a descendant of the Wangkumara and Muruwari people of Northwest New South Wales, the Adnyamathanha of the Flinders Ranges in South Australia, the Kooma and Kunja of Southwest Queensland, and the Kurnu-Baakandji, Northwest NSW. Lorina is Lecturer in History at the University of New England. Her main interest is in remodelling research methods so that they are culturally appropriate and accessible to family and community, who are the core audience for her academic research and creative arts projects, most recently Looking Through Windows and her new project Songlines of Country. She will never forget singing along to ABBA and trying to dance like Frida and Agnetha in library at Weilmoringle Public School. Shelley Brunt is Senior Lecturer in the Music Industry programme at RMIT University and the co-editor of Perfect Beat journal (Equinox). Among her publications are Made in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand: Studies in Popular Music (edited with Geoff Stahl, Routledge 2018) and numerous articles on Japan’s answer to Eurovision, Kouhaku Utagassen. Her favourite moment in recent Eurovision history was the social media outrage over Israeli singer Netta Barzilai’s appro- priation of Japanese culture in her 2018 winning performance. Jessica Carniel is Senior Lecturer in Humanities at the University of Southern Queensland. Her broad research interests include Australian and global immigration, cosmopolitan cultures, sporting communities and identities, cultural studies and gender studies, with a focus on multicul- xi xii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS tural Australia. She is the author of Understanding the Eurovision Song Contest in Multicultural Australia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Eurovision inspired her life goal to be spun upside-down by a team of gay robot cen- turions from the future before performing a drum solo. Julie L. Collins is an academic at the University of New England, work- ing predominantly in the area of Indigenous Studies. Julie is also a creative artist and theatre practitioner, with many years of experience of working with community to create and present performance. Julie’s research interests include the role of immersive theatre and storytelling in evoking empathy and transforming behaviour in an environmental and social justice context. She has developed an enthusiasm for Eurovision in recent years, since Australia has become a competitor and having finally got over the shame of the UK giving ABBA zero points back in 1974! Anika Gauja spends her Saturday nights crunching the numbers of the Eurovision voting—like all good psephologists. By day, she researches and teaches in the fields of political participation and comparative democracy at the University of Sydney. Her academic interest in Eurovision stems from a life-long love of the contest, hosting Eurovision parties, and having to explain to friends and family what the hell it’s all about. Liz Giuffre is Senior Lecturer in Music and Sound Design and Communications at the University of Technology Sydney. Her research includes Music and Television, Audience Studies, and Genre Studies. She cried like a baby when Conchita Wurst won in 2014, and still rates this as the best Eurovision moment of all time. John Hajek is Professor of Italian Studies in the School of Languages and Linguistics at the University of Melbourne, where he teaches Italian and European Studies. He is a linguist with additional expertise in European political history. His interest in Eurovision is both political and personal—as a child of an ethnically mixed New Australian fam- ily who for years had no other opportunity to see and hear their compatriots on TV. Chris Hay is Lecturer in Drama in the School of Communication and Arts at the University of Queensland. Chris is an Australian theatre histo- rian, and his more prosaic research interests include the pre-New Wave NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xiii period between 1949 and 1968, the evolution of Australian arts institu- tions, and the role of government subsidy in shaping national culture. He maintains that no Eurovision entry will ever reach the heights—both lit- eral and vocal—of Cezar’s 2013 entry for Romania, “It’s My Life”. Paul Jordan obtained his PhD from the University of Glasgow in 2011. His research interests include nation building and nation branding of post-communist states, national identity, and nationalist politics. He is also a regular media commentator on the Eurovision Song Contest, and despite her less than perfect vocals, he still maintains Gina G was robbed in 1996. Brent Keogh is Lecturer in Communication at University of Technology Sydney, and currently teaches Culture: Plugged and Unplugged, Audio and Music Production, and Communications Practice Project. He com- pleted his doctoral studies at Macquarie University in 2014, examining the discourse of World Music in Australia. He believes Dami Im was robbed in 2016, and is desperately trying to get Spain’s 2008 Eurovision submis- sion—“Baila El Chiki Chiki”—out of his head. Celia Lam is Assistant Professor in Media and Cultural Studies at the School of International Communications, University of Nottingham Ningbo China, Ningbo, China. She received a BMedia in screen produc- tion from Macquarie University, Sydney, and a PhD from the University of Sydney. Her research focuses on the cultural and aesthetic impact of digital technologies on media production and consumption, audience reception, and fan studies.