Eurovision

Last night I was perhaps introduced to the oddest and most frightening aspect of European culture -- Eurovision.

Now, I consider myself pretty fortunate to have had the opportunity to have been able to come to Europe many times, yet I had never heard of this thing. Neither had any of the Americans whom gathered with our European friends in the living room of our house to watch American Idol meets the FIFA World Cup.

If one were to try and get a barometer of Europe, I would say to skip the books or documentaries, and just watch this television event. You will more or less get the sense of otherness, geopolitics, and really odd europop complete with men from Azerbaijan dressed as angels and devils with dancers behind them gyrating on the television.

(*It should be noted that any descriptions in this post are not only not an exagerration, but if anything, a lacking attempt to try and describe the visuals and music that play before you on the screen.)

Basically Eurovision is a massive song competition across Europe where each country submits a performer, and all of the countries vote for a winner. It has been put on every year since 1956 as an ambitious endeavour in live television, along with an opportunity to tie together Europe in the post-war period. Past winners have included famous acts such as ABBA and Celine Dion.

I would have thought that for such a massive competition, surely one of us Americans should have heard about it. What you get, then, is an incredibly eclectic mix of musical genres going back to back for two hours without any commercial breaks. Some countries like Romania take the serious ballad approach, while others go for irony. Below, Spain with a song about a chicken, and Latvia with one about pirates in which they yell out to a techno beat "With a hii hii hoo and a hii hii hey!", show some of the odds sides of the competition. If in doubt, though, a country's seem to take the approach of getting a beautiful young girl, getting her scantily clad, and then adding some sort of disastrous pop song to that idea:

Just some of the many faces of Eurovision.

It really is something else. If you feel like watching any of these for a sample, simply click here. I would say if you want odd, then check out Bosnia & Herzogovina's entry, which features odd looking women in wedding dresses bouncing up and down, while a man and women sing and dance through a colorful clothesline.

After the performances are finished, there is a 15 minute period in which people call or text in their selections for winners in a country other than themselves. Here, the competition gets incredibly interesting on a political level. Apparently, lots of academic studies have been done analyzing the history of voting patterns in Eurovision, and how they are indicative of important political and ethnic issues at the time.

The biggest problem that the competition suffers from is extreme bloc voting. Essentially, all of the Eastern countries, Baltic countries, and Scandinavian countries will vote highly for one another while awarding no points to Western Europe. These relationships explain why Greece and Cypress give each other the top scores ever year.

For decades before the breakdown of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, it appeared to be more or less music competition essentially. There were always allegations of improper influences, such as Franco bribing countries to let Spain win, but the competition at least had elements of being free.

Since Russia and the former Soviet states have entered and created massive voting blocs, no winners have come from the West since 1997.

Those eligible for the competition are part of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), which allows a country like Israel that once won with a transexual to participate each year.

This year, there was little surprise as Russia easily swooped in to win the competition. The rumor is that Baltic states are increasingly concerned about Russia potentially not providing oil, so they are trying to win favor with the Russians.

Another interesting aspect are the effects of ethnic diasporas on the voting results. The influence of migration could be seen in a country like Ireland which has seen an influx of Eastern Europeans in the past several years, giving two of its top three votes to Poland and Latvia.

As each country comes in to inform the rest of Europe about their votes, it becomes at little surprise as the votes are typically predictable based on their geopolitical relationships with other countries.

With the Russian winners, the competition is now set to take place in Moscow next year. This comes, though, at the grumblings of the big four countries -- France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom -- which provide much of its funding.

The shirtless Russian winner who apparently was doing nothing but loads of coke during his entire week in Belgrade leading to the competition. His act obviously featured an elevated ice skating rising rink out of nowhere.

Perhaps the largest draw to watching Eurovision on television is the commentary of Sir Terry Wogan on the BBC; the man is an institution. He has been broadcasting it every year since 1973. His broadcast, though, isn't what you would call typical news coverage.

The best way I can explain it, is that he basically provides narration over the song performances, the voting, and the actual hosts who are in the arena. It's not really neutral commentary either, as he makes fun of the acts and the hosts for their lack of talent, and the way they talk.

More or less, it sounds like he's couped up in a room by himself with loads of drinks, and progressively gets meaner and drunker as the competition drags on. And he lets you know it. It's wonderful.

At the end of this year's Eurovision broadcast, while the Russians danced in celebration on stage, Terry bemoaned that it was no longer a music competition anymore, and that both he and Great Britain needed to think about whether to come back next year.

It left a bit of a sour taste in Eurovision, as questions about what an integrated Europe really is are continually becoming difficult to answer.

On the bright side, though, we know that the French are the French. And their musical selection, which was my favorite, is quite a treat, and the new song stuck in my head:

Sébastien Tellier is basically cooler than anyone around.