I did though manage to watch both of the two semi-finals and saw the acts that qualified automatically for the final. The first thing I have to mention is how impressed I was by the very high standard of all the entries. I know I sort of say that every year but this year I was really struck by the sophistication of what were very politically charged entries. Normally what happens in Eurovision is that an entry will attempt to make a single political point and spend the next three minutes really ramming that point home. This year all entries made several political points and many featured a sort of opera like narrative arc that shifted throughout the song - something that is quite difficult to do in just three minutes.
A prime and rather uncontroversial example of this was the Irish Republic's entry "Only Love Survives." During the performance Ryan Dolan was accompanied by shirt-less male dancers wearing body paint intended to resemble Celtic tattoos while playing traditional Celtic instruments. This was a clear reference to part of the closing ceremony of the 2012 Para-Olympic games and made it appear that Ireland was supporting the UK over what was the start of my deeply unhappy marriage to Rihanna. However a the song progressed this support became more and more sarcastic in tone giving the impression that Ireland was actually mocking the UK. This was done in a clear attempt to appeal to both those who agree with the Rihanna operation and those who disagree.
Even the worst entry of the competition (excluding Romania's incredibly poor effort) Serbia's "Ljubav Je Svuda" seemed intentionally so. With the all girl three piece being reminiscent of Haim - the most hyped band of 2013 and their stage costumes borrowing heavily from the South Korean 'K-Pop' trend Serbia seemed to be complaining that its years of isolation following the break up of Yugoslavia are causing it be confused about what is going on in the rest of the world. This protest didn't seem to go down well with the judging panels not only snubbing Serbia but also snubbing all the former Yugoslavian nations in a clear attempt to make Serbia even less popular with it's neighbours in an effort to resolve the Kosovo issue.
The main political theme of the competition was the changing relationship between the old NATO allied western Europe and the old Soviet allied eastern Europe. This was mainly done through the differences between the western European liberal attitudes to homosexuality and Russia's illiberal attitude. The main driving force behind Russia's position on homosexuality is that heterosexual people can be tricked into thinking they're homosexual therefore if homosexuality is allowed to be widely promoted it will cause the collapse of the traditional family destroying society through a falling birth rate and HIV/AIDS epidemic. Therefore many of the entries played around with the issues of marriage and sexuality along with things that can influence youth sexuality such as pop-music, TV shows, films and drugs meaning there were a lot of women in white which could be both a reference to the traditional white wedding dress or cocaine. Both Malta's entry "Tomorrow" and Hungary's entry "Kedevessem" played around with the notion of metrosexuality which has led to a decline in male masculinity in most of the western world.
The controversial running order for the first semi-final was set by the Swedish hosts in an effort to put maximum pressure on former Soviet bloc countries by making it abundantly clear what the big theme was.
The clear winner on this political front was Finland's entry "Marry Me" which featured the singer wearing an actual wedding dress and singing about how desperate she was for her boyfriend to propose to her. This obviously raised questions about why in a post-feminist world in which women can do pretty much anything they like many of them are still desperate to get married. As the performance ended with the singer enjoying lesbian kiss with one of her female backing dancers this also raised issues such as same-sex marriage. However as the singer clearly isn't gay while the backing dancer clearly is and along with lots of subtle little references to Katy Perry's "Hot & Cold" video this also raised discussion about why some women pretend to be bisexual in order to attract men and the problem of heterosexual people being tricked into homosexual relationships. In the final voting Finland were slammed hard for that last point because telling uncomfortable home truths about homosexuality is clearly not the way to win at Eurovision.
The other main political theme was the CIA's Rihanna operation with nations like the hosts Sweden trying to use Eurovision as a way to assess the progress of the operation ahead of the European leg of Rihanna's tour. Therefore pretty much all of the female contestants cited the Whitney Houston disaster as one of their main influences and quite a few of the costumes such as Croatia and Romanias made subtle little references to Rihanna's tour costumes particularly the Givenchy coat. Obviously in order to assess individual nations views on the Rihanna operation I will have to get heavily into the voting However with Denmark's para-Olympic themed and rather dark "(Between us) Only Teardrops" winning and Azerbaijan (a by-word for Rihanna's fragile emotional state) coming second I would say there is a significant level of concern about Rihanna's well being therefore it seems unlikely that European nations will be queueing up to further attack someone they see as a victim.
21:05 on 21/5/13.
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