Eurovision is on this week, otherwise know in certain circles as 'Gay Christmas' due to its huge popularity with gay men.
One self-congratulatory Eurovision cliché regularly quoted at this time is how Conchita Wurst’s 2014 Eurovision win was a watershed in LGBT acceptance and visibility.
“Look how tolerant we (western) Europeans are in crowning a bearded drag queen.” Apparently, Conchita's win appalled anti-LGBT Russia and Türkiye.
At the time, Bulgaria answered back…
A bearded drag queen? We’re way ahead of you! Our biggest pop star since 2000 has been Azis, also a bearded drag queen, openly gay and Roma. Have a look at this video clip of his from 2004. Note that this would be shown at all times of the day (no watershed here).
Türkiye then said…
Well, how about this: our biggest singing star of all time is Zeki Müren: gay, flamboyant, practically in drag all the time.
And then there’s Bülent Ersoy, who’s transgender. Conchita? Huh!
Does this make Bulgaria or Türkiye a haven for LGBT tolerance and acceptance?
Absolutely not!
Then we have other self-delusional clichés about the supposed political role of the Eurovision Broadcasting Union (EBU), the erstwhile alliance of public service broadcasters and the organisation behind the Eurovision Song Contest. Such as this opinion piece of logic gymnastics and convenient cherry-picking in trying to defend Israel's continued presence in Eurovision when the public broadcasters of Russia and Belarus have been suspended. The author argues that Israel's broadcaster KAN needs the EBU's protection in the face of Netanyahu's threats of its closure (no longer an issue, actually, as KAN is far more compliant with toeing the line these days) and curiously claims "politically, the EBU supported state-run 'public service broadcasting' with a fundamentally critical, liberal bias: broadcasters that were simply mouthpieces for their governments were excluded."
OK, so please explain if the EBU "excluded government mouthpieces", then how come, for example, in 1955 Spain's RTVE was accepted into the EBU when Spain' media was firmly under tight censorship during the height of Franco's fascist dictatorship, or that bastion of 'fundamentally critical, liberal bias', Libya's LJBF was a full EBU member right up until Gaddafi was deposed in 2011. And try telling most Serbs that its public broadcaster, RTS, also a full EBU member, is not a "government mouthpiece".
We must not be fooled by these clichés. Let's be honest here. Things are never black and white. There are always many factors involved. Analogies and solutions are never simple. And these also apply to Eurovision.
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