Eurovision

[liv]

cjwatson and I got home from France just in time for Eurovision. So, with jack, we spent a pleasant evening drinking cocktails and watching the show.

I found the show unusually bland and boring. There was very little exciting staging, very little outrageous camp, just a bunch of people singing more or less pleasant songs. I liked Norway a lot, especially with the Sami elements, and I liked France even if they were a trying a bit too hard with a song about a fat person and a deaf person getting to dance even though people tried to exclude them.

Regarding the headline acts, I'd got the wrong impression that Madonna and Idan Raichel were performing together, which would have been massively exciting. But ok, they were also quite cool separately. I was a bit cheesed off with Madonna at first, showing up to a show in Israel completely covered in crosses, but it turned out this was for an anniversary staging of Like a Prayer. And I was really quite impressed with her sneaking in a little sequence where dancers wearing Israeli and Palestinian flags embraced.

I was also really quite annoyed with the debates all over social media about boycotting the show. Some people said the boycott had been requested by Palestinian activists, and I didn't see that, but that could be because I don't follow enough Palestinian activists on social media. But if it's true, then that's a very good reason for the boycott. What it seemed like to me was a bunch of self-righteous mostly European lefties who are horrified at the idea of a country that has racist politics and is involved in an illegal occupation hosting Eurovision. Totally unacceptable to have Israel alongside all those entirely non-racist countries that have never occupied anyone else's land or used military violence against Arabs, like Russia, Australia, the UK etc...

I don't have a problem with individual people boycotting whatever media they feel uncomfortable with. I just got annoyed with the debate which assumed that all decent human beings must always boycott anything to do with Israel. Anyway, I found Abigail Nussbaum interesting on the topic of Eurovision and Israeli politics. She describes Eurovision going ahead, even though Netanyahu hates it possibly even more than European lefties, as the last flicker of normalcy before the dark. I find Nussbaum credible because she's actually Israeli, but I appreciate this may make her less credible in the eyes of people who will see her as representing the hegemonic voice of the oppressor.

Comments

[edrith.co.uk]

I like Eurovision. My wife got me into it and now we usually have a small Eurovision party where everyone brings food or drink from a European country, which works well as you can mix talking with watching the better acts. This year a scholl-friend who's moved to Israel gave me some recipes so I could cook some appropriate dishes as the host!

I agree about the acts not being as fun/exciting/outlandish as usual. Still good, but not as many really memorable ones. I was quite disappointed with Madonna, as I thought her voice unfortunately didn't really match the way it used to be, though I agree the staging was good. The bit where all the previous winners/contestants were all singing together was great though.

On the politics, I'm pro-Israel so I was glad that the BDS attempt failed and that a country that's usually only in the news here for violent reasons had the opportunity to showcase its positive aspects to such a large audience.