On Sequins and Sincerity: A Journey into Eurovision
I suppose, given that America is both currently governed by, and has the general spiritual ethos of a reality TV show host, Eurovision shouldn’t really seem as foreign as it does. The decades long annual contest, in which each country puts forth one musical act for a cross-continental competition, may be the world’s highest annual concentration of pyrotechnics, lycra, sequins, light shows, sincerity and camp in equal measures.
Acts tend to fall into one of three general categories:
1. Melodramatic torch songs (picture flowing, witchy gowns, on humans of all genders, with lots of fists grasping empty air and more lashes and fingernails than there would seem to ever be eyeballs or digits enough to support
2. HIGH camp concept songs that fuse acid trip aesthetics in costuming, set design, backup dancers and digital visual effects with the kind of ear worm pop numbers generally reserved for gum jingles
3. Satanic curious, full leather goth anthems, laden with white laser lights, fire, gallons of eyeliner, and enough skin exposure to cause the singer at least 2nd degree burns were they to have prolonged time in the sun in their costume.
In response to virtually every act, you can imagine JD Vance watching, feeling a disquieting combination of perplexed, disgusted, vindicated and (perhaps, to his surprise) aroused, thinking: See! I knew Europe was like this!
The enormity of the popularity of this tradition was hard for me to comprehend when I first heard of it in about a decade ago. I had just joined the newly formed Seattle Friends of Iceland Society, and some members suggested hosting a Eurovision viewing party. Euro-what? I wondered, completely unaware it had been such a continental institution dating back to 1956 and had launched such humble little acts as ABBA and Celine Dion.
Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams’ loving send up to the contest in the 2020 movie “Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga,” with its operatic plot lines and Sigfried-and-Roy-about-to-be-mauled-by-a-tiger fashion sense is only barely a parody. In the movie, Ferrell and Adams star as two humble Icelanders from the small fishing town of Husavik, located just one fjord east of the farm where I’m working, coincidentally. When I first visited Husavik on a previous Icelandic visit two years ago, I hadn’t seen the movie and was thus confused as to the origins of the ten foot tall billboard with the Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams quote, proclaiming in Icelandic: “The only thing I want is to be with you in Húsavik, by Skjálfanda, my home, my hometown.”
In the Eurovision contest, the host country rotates every year, going to the home of the previous year’s winner. So the Eurovision movie (spoiler alert!) is a farce that imagines how impossible it would be for Iceland, a country of just under 400,000 to host the million + tourists the event attracts. In the movie, not wanting to risk the financial and infrastructure ruin that would surely befall Iceland if their incredibly talented artist won and brought that level of visitors the following year, a governmental minister blows up all the leading Icelandic Eurovision candidates, leaving the scrappy Ferrell and McAdams as the unlikely understudies to go in their place.
The internet can, of course, be a dark place when it comes to conspiracy theories. But an actual delightful and facetious one was told to me by a German friend who was working in Iceland as an au pair when covid hit. The on-beyond-charming Icelandic group Daði Freyr were set to represent Iceland in Eurovision 2020 performing their hilarious and charming song “Think About Things” which, on first listen sounds like a romantic love song about desires to want to know what the love object thinks about everything in this world, as the singer pronounces his undying vows to always be there.
In fact, two of the singers in the six person band are a couple, along with a quartet of their friends, and wrote the song with their new baby in mind. (“I can’t wait to know… what do you think about things…”) In their delightful music video, all the group members wear sweatshirts with their own faces, in Minecraft blocky aesthetic, printed on them, and combine subtle coordinated hip wiggles as the lead singer’s long red locks are blown back in an homage to the dramatic flourishes of Eurovision performances, but with a Gen Z wink. The band was so incredibly popular in Iceland, everyone thought they really could be contenders for taking home the top Eurovision prize, thus saddling the country with the impossible hosting obligations the next year. “But then,” my German friend told me, “COVID started in March, And Eurovision had to be cancelled! Coincidence?” Eat your heart out, reddit debaters of wet markets and sloppily guarded gain of function research labs. The theory that COVID was released on earth as the only way to stop the undeniable global charm of Daði Freyr is the most worthy recipient of a 10-part basement produced youtube documentary.
Eurovision takes place in May, and this year, Iceland advanced to the final competition, held last weekend, along with 25 other countries, so the anticipation was extra heightened. Anna and Sveinn have an annual tradition dating back 30 years, where they get together with two other couples, one who lives just north of here in Grenivik, and one who lives just south in the larger town of Akureyri, and they rotate hosting. They had their friends over here this year, so their youngest daughter, Silla, volunteered to be on sheep watch duty throughout the competition, popping back in as often as sheep labors allowed to see the competition status and letting her parents fully enjoy their evening. Middle daughter Rakel, who has an apartment in Akureyri, volunteered to host German Saskia at her place, so we made a plan to make dinner and watch the festivities in her apartment and then go to a live concert nearby afterwards.
To get supplies for dinner, we first went to the closest Bónus market, the nationwide grocery chain, iconic with its logo of a cheerful, neon pink piggy bank mascot on a bright buttercup yellow background flying on flags outside every branch. The Icelandic author, Andri Snær Magnason, a talented purveyor of gorgeous prose fiction and non-fiction also wrote what turned out to be his most popular book inspired by the grocery chain, a collection of poems called, simply, Bónus, which, according to the author “is a mythological journey through a Bónus supermarket based on the Divine Comedy by Dante.” Says Magnason:
I was living in Reykjavík and wanted to become a poet. But I was very sad because I was not surrounded by roaring waves, tumbling glaciers or golden plovers. I was not in Paris drinking absinthe or shooting elephants in Africa. I lived close to Iceland’s largest parking lot next to a strip mall.
I wondered - who decides what is poetic or not? Who says a mountain is poetic or a puffin? I wandered around Bónus and found out that it was not as unpoetic as it seemed at first glance. The supermarket was divided exactly like the Devina Commedia by Dante. You start in Paradiso, the fruit division, go to Inferno, the meat products and end in Purgatorio, the cleaning products.
Bonus Poetry started as a joke or it really started as the cover and the concept: Selling out, surrendering completely to the market forces, handling poems as any consumer product. The poems began to flow and became a book.
The video poem to one of the pieces, “You Are What You Eat,” is at once humorous, and tender:
You are what you eat
My grandfather was 70% water
He was 70% the stream
that trickled past his farm
he was 30%
the sheep that grazed on his mountain
he was the fish swimming in his lake
he was the cow eating
in his field
he was the stream, he was the grass,
the mountain and the lake
I am not 70% water
perhaps 15% mineral water
the rest is coffee and coca cola
I am italian pasta, swiss cheese
danish pork and chinese rice
american ketchup
runs through my veins
you are what you eat
I am a miniature of the world
no
I am a miniature of Bonus
Magnason took the book to the owner of Bónus who really liked the cover so he published the book and sold it by the counter with all the Bónus products. I own a copy at home, but still always check to see if they are in stock when I go to various Bónus markets. At my first Bónus visit this trip, there was a stack of German translation versions sitting by the checkout.
Icelandic grocery shopping is mostly similar to the United States (though substantially more expensive) except that when you arrive, you grab your own price scanning gun from a rack on the wall, which perches in a designated spot in your shopping cart, and as you go through the store selecting items, you scan each one, such that you have a running total of costs and all items are ready for check out when you arrive. We bought ingredients to make what Rakel had in mind for dinner–a pasta dish with mushrooms, grilled zucchini, red pepper and some zesty cheeses.
We made a second stop at an adult beverage store per Rakel’s request. All beer, wine and spirits are sold in one separate shop in Iceland. I had heard of tourists actually buying alcohol in the duty free shop on their way out of the airport when they arrived in Iceland, just to avoid the steep alcohol taxes, so I knew it would be expensive, but still, my jaw dropped at the prices, making me grateful to be the designated driver that evening and not on the market for any of the wares. On top of base shipping costs to an Island in general, I’m sure this exorbitant tax is a conscientious effort on the government’s part to deter what could quickly become habitual bad habits, especially during the extremely long dark winters. Still, it was shocking to see a recognized Icelandic manufactured Reykja vodka, which can be acquired at fine Safeways through the continental United States for about $25, sold here for nearly $70. I imagined someone getting rich by going to the United States to buy up all Iceland’s distilled spirits, and then surreptitiously smuggling them back into the country and selling them in darkened alleyways at a massive profit.
We went back to Rakel’s to cook, and the competition kicked off at 7:00. It was beyond helpful to have two experienced viewers–Icelandic Rakel and Germanic Saskia–on hand to act as anthropological, if not linguistic, translators.
We started by watching a couple classics from years past on youtube. Saskia’s favorite genre, like many fans, is category #2, high camp. To describe a Eurovision video, is to sound like one is high on acid. For instance, Norway’s 2022 submission from the group Subwoolfer “Give That Wolf a Banana” in which two front men in “Pulp Fiction”-style clean black suits with white shirts, don banana yellow wolf masks, and prance around with their yellow paws singing about how they will eat your grandma, while the word “Grandma” flashes in seizure inducing yellow 48 pt. font on the screen before you.
I once heard a good rule of thumb: never tell anyone your dreams unless: A.) they involve the person directly, in which case it will always be interesting (“It was you, but you had blue hair! So weird, right?!”) or B.) they involve a mutual friend or acquaintance in an unexpected romantic liaison with someone you also both know. Ditto, the interest. Otherwise, the fact that it was “my childhood house, but not really my childhood house, ya’ know what I mean?” will be slowly, like lemon juice in paper cuts, stinging your trapped recipient to death with small doses of boredom.
Eurovision videos seem similarly like dreams, so I’ll spare detailed descriptions of all the 26 acts, each which left me a bit more speechless than the last, except to say it was a Mediterranean year for me, with Malta, Italy and Greece (I like to think the latter was not only because the Greek performer was the only female competitor wearing glasses, but it didn’t hurt…). And next time you’re feeling tired or inebriated, google “Espresso Macchiato” and the fact that the Estonian candidate is singing in Italian will be at the least of the elements of confusion you’re experiencing. Out of loyalty to my host country I felt the need to fully participate in the democratic process and log into the website where I paid .99 Euro to vote for Iceland. The Icelandic entry, Væb, is fronted by two teenage looking brothers that were giving peak early Justin Bieber vibes, but bedazzled in faux diamonds, and with Nordic Minecraft digital video background effects. My American SIM card was detected by the website, and I was grouped into the category “Rest of the world” which gets the equivalent of one country’s worth of votes when it comes to tallying up the total.
I was unfamiliar with the scoring, which was quite the drawn out, stakes heightening ordeal– the three Swiss hosts announced first the vote allocation of each country’s “official” panel of judges–they cannot vote for their own country’s artist, and instead, must rank their top 12 other countries, each of which is then given 1-12 points in order. That first round is thus 26 rounds of announcements, with the camera cutting to the top ranking country’s artist each time, and the artist(s) leaping to their feet, clutching their hearts and thrusting their arms directly towards the camera in a show of astonished, tear-soaked gratitude for the support.
As the points are accumulating, the overall ranking moves dynamically on the left of the screen, as in live-broadcast sports brackets. After this first round of official country judging, shockingly (to the assembled audience at least), the poor Icelandic brother got exactly zero points (meaning they weren’t in the top 12 for ANY country). “You’ve GOT to be kidding me,” Rakel exclaimed in disgust, knitting furiously in the corner. Væb was total kitsch, but was very much at home within the psychedelic-soaked tone of their fellow entrants and we also all thought the sibling element would work in their adorable favor. The only working theory we could come up with for their lack of international support was that they’d sung in Icelandic, and unlike most of the other European countries, where at least someone else will understand the language of your lyrics, the Icelanders pretty much only have themselves.
In round two, the global fan votes are tallied. I can only imagine how much money Eurovision rakes in on this little for profit telethon, as each vote is approximately one Euro, and each person can vote up to 20 times on any given credit card. This year was quite tense, and when it got down to the very final country’s fan reporting, it was between just two countries, Israel and Austria. Wait, the uninitiated might understandably be asking, since when is Israel in Europe? I had the same question, and google revealed that while no, it was not in Europe, Israel had a long standing partnership with the European Broadcast Commission (EBU) which runs Eurovision and was therefore an honorary entry. Australia is also a somewhat surprising participant, but as a technical commonwealth of the European dwelling England, that, I could at least intuit.
While Eurovision has long proclaimed itself to be a “contest without politics” in 2022, it banned Russian from participating as a statement against the invasion of Ukraine. In contrast, last year, Swedish Singer Eric Saade, whose father is Palestinian, performed his 2011 3rd place Eurovision song “Popular” during the introduction to the contest and wore a keffiyeh wrapped around his wrist. For this, he was chided by the Eurovision organizers who expressed regret that Saade "chose to compromise the non-political nature of the event" and his performance was not uploaded to Eurovision's social media platforms.
Ultimately, this year, the final vote total came down to the very last announcement, with Austria just nudging out the win.
The next day, back at the farm, the other Icelanders in the house also expressed confusion about the judging. “I can not understand that,” both Silla and Anna said to me separately about the silver medalist. The New York Times published an article a week later elucidating some of the mystery, detailing the official Israeli campaign to garner Eurovision votes and thus global accolades, broadcast on Netenyahu’s personal instagram account, and echoed on state media X, tiktok and Youtube accounts, where he urged all his followers to “Vote 20 Times!” for the Israeli candidate. 20 votes, the article said, is the max per voter, but as my voting receipt reminded me, is actually the max per credit card of a voter.
The cognitive dissonance of merging the stated goal of an “a-political” festival that nonetheless has banned countries for invasions and violence and whose stated motto is “United by music,” with the silence around the current ongoing death toll in Gaza of over 52,900 humans, 15,600 of whom are children, was not lost on all European telecasters. In protest of the EBU warnings, the Spanish national public broadcaster aired a message before the final began: “In the face of human rights, silence is not an option. Peace and justice for Palestine.” The Belgian broadcaster VRT in the semi-finals similarly displayed a message: “This is industrial action. We condemn the violations of human rights by the State of Israel. Furthermore, the State of Israel is destroying freedom of the press. That’s why we interrupt the picture for a moment. #CeasefireNow #StopGenocide.” VRT listened to EBU warnings, however, and did not air this message during the finals. However insistently Eurovision and EBU officials may claim the contest is not political, obviously both Israel’s critics, and Israel’s government itself, disagree.
After the contest, we migrated to the nearby concert venue, the main music and dancing spot in town, with the curiously Spanish name, “Vamos.” It was a mix of musical traditions on display with one upstairs room dominated by a local quintet performing an impassioned mix of Icelandic rock with a mixture of American covers ranging from “Proud Mary” to the Cranberries “No Need to Argue.” I couldn’t read the band’s full name on the partially obscured banner behind them, but it featured a beer stein with a "hang loose" hand sign emerging from it and the name “husbands” visible above, though they had a front woman singer too.
The next room over was dominated by a more youthful crowd, with a pogostick jumper of a DJ, and black out curtains attempting to obscure the near day-light conditions outside, even as midnight came and went. There were multiple young male revelers wearing sunglasses indoors too and I couldn’t tell if this was a fashion trend, or a further attempt at simulating the kind of darkness that permits dance club debauchery. The amount of all-night light really is wild in the energy it instills. Saskia and I strolled to the car after closing at 3:00 AM and leisurely drove back to the farm, arriving around 3:45. Throughout, my primary sensation was of awe-struck revelry for the fruity peach and lemon sun-kissed skies which dipped down to the fjord as we drove, and not, as would have no doubt been the case were the time table translated to Seattle in fall, a near desperate urge to claw my eyes out in desire for unconsciousness and sleep.
What struck me overall as a uniting thread over the weekend, pondering both Eurovision and Magnuson’s Bónus poetry, was the Philippe Petit Man-On-A-Wire-esque success of a tightrope work in balancing humor and sincerity, never dipping too far into falling off one side as to forget the importance of the other as a ballast–A reminder not to take oneself too seriously, but to take what you love very seriously, and not to be afraid to look insane in the pursuit of that sincerity. Perhaps that’s what makes the Eurovision competition feel so distinctly foreign, and even initially, (I’m not proud of this, but it was real…) cringe to me in the face of such bald-faced displays of emotion. Granted, I have not (gratefully?) delved into all the fathoms American reality TV has to offer, so I can’t claim to be an expert. And I never got into “American Idol.” Maybe that show in its heyday did tap into similar veins of both earnest artist ambition and collectivist audience participation in a way in which contemporary, passively consumed, cliche riddled American reality shows, where stock phrases like “I’m just afraid he’s here for the wrong reasons!” could populate a bingo card in their predictability, do not.
So, I salute you, banana wearing yellow wolf mask wearers of the world, both literal and metaphorical. Here’s to the sincerity of the pursuit of making something fully one’s own, and to grandmothers, not yet eaten, the world over, who are proud.
Comments
Post a Comment