Eurovision’s Glorious Silliness

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/09/opinion/eurovisions-glorious-silliness.html

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It’s a strange time for Europe. The Greek debt crisis has disappeared from the news but remains fundamentally unresolved, the long-term viability of the euro remains uncertain and the European Parliament elections may well result in about a quarter of the assembly’s being hostile to the very concept of a united Europe.

But hey, there’s one thing the Continent can rely on, even in these troubled times: the Eurovision Song Contest.

Eurovision is to Americans what the existence of Las Vegas is to Europeans: a cultural quirk that appears to make no sense but endures nonetheless. Americans have stared across the Atlantic for decades and marveled at the strange spectacle that unfolds every May: It’s surreal, frequently hilarious and cheesier than a Camembert festival.

The international flavor is part of Eurovision’s appeal: The judging is in French, but about 90 percent of the songs are in English — or something approximating English.

There’s nothing quite like it; sure, we have “American Idol,” but that generally lacks dancing Russian grandmothers and German country-and-western groups.

Beyond the obvious confusion about what they’re watching, the question that you hear most from Eurovision neophytes is what on earth this contest is for. The answer is more complex than you might think.

On the most superficial level, Eurovision exists to crown someone’s composition as Europe’s best pop song, a decision that seems to have very little to do with artistic merit and everything to do with politics (although outlandish costumes and perilous levels of camp also play a role). The contest used to be a springboard to a career in music — most famously, it introduced the Swedish supergroup Abba — but now, it’s not even that.

The last winner anyone outside Europe is likely to have heard of was the Finnish band Lordi, which won in 2006 and is best known for looking like a set of ‘80s Masters of the Universe action figures come to life. These days, the contestants are largely unknowns.

This year’s entries include an Armenian by the name of Aram MP3, the frankly terrifying Tolmachevy twins from Russia (best described as an unholy mash-up of the Olsens and JonBenet Ramsey) and a French gentleman who sings about the joys of having a mustache.

Why do people lap it up, then, year after year? Perhaps the most important consideration for appreciating Eurovision is that the competition is entirely devoid of irony. This is an event, after all, that can give us the spectacle of Dustin the Turkey from Ireland and a Swiss group reminiscent of Peter, Paul and Mary called Peter, Sue and Marc. I suspect the majority of Eurovision lovers know full well that the contest is ridiculous; that is its great pleasure.

National pride is also at stake. While no one takes the competition overly seriously, no one wants their country to blow it, either. Notably, Jemini, Britain’s entry in 2003, returned home in disgrace after getting “null points.” At all. From anyone. (Equally true, though, is that no nation really wants to win, because winning means having to host the next year’s competition, which costs a small fortune.)

Yet the voting is highly political, with Byzantine backroom dealing and bloc voting that would make the International Olympic Committee blush. Of course, there’s never been any outright confirmation that countries band together to rig the results, but there have been well-established voting blocs for years, some intuitive (the former Soviet republics tend to vote together) and others less so (Malta often votes with England and Ireland). The picture is further complicated by the fact that fan votes are also counted: At present, there’s a 50/50 split between the weighting of fan votes, registered by phone, and those of the judges.

When it was founded in 1956, the contest was an exercise in transnational broadcasting, and if nothing else, the competition proves that Europe can still unite in appreciation of silly pop music. But on a divided Continent and in an age of growing Euro-skepticism, Eurovision stages an optimistically enlarged conception of what Europe is or might become: Contestants represent countries from as far afield as Morocco, Israel and even Azerbaijan.

So what about this year? As ever, political intrigues are set to play out. Most notably, Ukraine and Russia both qualified this week for Saturday’s final, and there has been political wrangling about exactly how fan votes from Crimea will be counted. (The answer: It depends on whether Crimean voters register their choices from a Ukrainian or Russian mobile network.)

Controversy has surrounded Russia’s participation for another reason, made evident when the Tolmachevy Sisters were booed after they qualified at their semifinal. Who could possibly have foreseen that the audience at an event like Eurovision might be critical of a country with a draconian stance on gay rights?

This year, the random draw also has a perverse sense of humor, placing Greece in the semifinal on which Germany gets to vote, for instance. This all means that picking winners is inevitably a crapshoot. The host country has not done well in recent years, but that may be about to change. The 2014 events, which are streamed online, take place in Denmark, and the Scandinavians certainly seem to have a knack for Eurovision. A win for Iceland’s Pollapönk would reinforce the sense of rejuvenation that country has experienced in recovering from its particularly severe financial crisis.

But my money’s on Aram MP3, because, well, I like his name. It’s as good a reason as any other.

Tom Hawking is a New York-based writer and a senior editor at the culture blog Flavorwire.com.