The 2016 Eurovision Song Contest: 1st Semi-Final.

As I mentioned yesterday for the first time the Eurovision Song Contest is being broadcast in the US on the "Logo" network. Due to a time difference that can be as much as 9 hours I am not sure how they are approaching the semi-finals.

I know that in Australia which has a similar problem with the time difference they tend not to broadcast the semi-finals live. Instead they broadcast them both as one big program in primetime on what for them is Friday evening. However due to the time difference that can mean just as the second semi-final is getting underway on Thursday evening in Europe.

Then of course there is the fact that the Song Contest doesn't suddenly stop the moment the semi-final broadcast ends. The Song Contest actually opens on Sunday with a red carpet gala and Monday is taken up by rehearsals. Following the end of the semi-final there is a press conference of all the acts that made it through to the final. Wednesday is taken up by rehearsals before the process repeats and the rehearsals for the final take place on Friday. In between contestants exist in this bubble of press interviews and parties where the first rule is that you can only talk about the Song Contest.

As such this year I am trying to make a concerted effort to delay and break up my commentary on proceedings. However if you are clicking on a link entitled "The 2016 Eurovision Song Contest: 1st Semi-Final" there's got to be at least some expectation of spoilers.

My task has been made more difficult by the fact that Bosnia & Herzegovina did not make it through the first semi-final into the final with their song "Ljubav Je (Love Is)" by Dalal & Deen ft Ana Rucner & Jalal.

The stage setting for their performance feature musicians wrapped in the foil blankets the emergency services hand out to Irregular Migrants/Refugees who have just been rescued from the sea or the survivors of terrorist attacks. In the middle of the stage they had a barbed wire fence.

On one side of that fence you had Dalal - the woman - singing while dressed in an outfit that was heavily influenced by the Caucus region such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kurdistan and eastern Turkey. This was intended as a reference to the Kurdish, Yezidi and Assyrian refugees that are fleeing the fighting in Syria & Iraq along with Turkey's associated war against its own Kurdish population. I can't immediately think of a way that they could have referenced the Arab refugees who are also fleeing. After all something like the Hijab is a reference to Islam rather than any particular ethnic group. As such I don't think the omission was intended as an insult.

One the other side of the fence you had Deen - the man - dressed in the black leather jackboots and overcoat synonymous with the Waffen SS of Nazi Germany.

As such I think Bosnia & Herzegovina's entry really set the agenda for the entire competition. Unfortunately that means I really can't say too much about it at this early stage. Also I'm a bit worried that without it being included people who only watch the final will struggle to understand what is going on.

However the fact that the song which was unusually not sung in English didn't make it through the semi-final kind of suggests that even the more hardcore voters didn't understand what was going on and dismissed it as a bit clunky and lacking in subtlety.

Of the nations that were knocked out during the first semi-final that I do feel comfortable talking about we have;

San Marino: Their song "I Didn't Know" by Serhat was an absolutely savage takedown of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Unusually the Turkish singer Serhat is a dentist by training having graduated from Istanbul University.

I don't think anyone likes going to the dentist. Over the last couple of months there's been one of those funny little stories that I've not been following coming out of France about a Dutch national by the name of Jacobus van Nierop. Dubbed the "Dentist of Horror" Nierop seemed to take great pleasure in mutilating his patients with unnecessary and poorly preformed dental procedures. In April he was finally banned from practice anywhere in the European Union (EU) and fined E10,000 by a French Court.

After giving up dentistry Serhat became a TV host on the Turkish version of the gameshow "Jeopardy (Riziko)." He then launched a music career becoming successful in a vast range of nations including Greece and Russia. He is probably the only Turk who is currently popular in either Greece or Russia. The long list of nations where he is popular along with the vast range of nationalities involved in the entry is intended to raise another point.

Every year at the Eurovision Song Contest various versions of the same conversation take place;

"Q. Where is San Marino?

A. It's a small principality in the north of Italy. You see rather than being a nation in the conventional sense Italy is more of a loose confederation of city states - the Vatican City for example. I suppose you could use this as a metaphor for the European Union (EU)."

The song itself "I Didn't Know" was intended to invoke memories of the globally successful 2000 song "It Wasn't Me" by Jamaican/American singer Shaggy. You get the impression of Erdogan sitting at an EU meeting being told that the continent is being flooded by irregular migrants and him going; "It Wasn't Me" or terror attacks have taken place in Paris & Brussels - "It Wasn't Me" or that someone's shelled a refugee camp in Syria - "It Wasn't Me."

With lyrics like; "You have to see this love is real"  and "I need you more and more each day." the song is very much about a man who is deeply, madly, passionately in love with someone who's just not that into him. It is intended to make the point that Erdogan needs the EU a hell of a lot more than the EU needs Erdogan.

In the video supporting the song there's lots of use of gold lighting and gold props to give the impression that you're in a vast golden palace albeit an extremely dingy one. Erdogan is sort of considered the king of bling and the opening of his 1,100 room Presidential palace on a designated conservation zone has made him a figure of fun both within Turkey and beyond.

The costumes such as a Fedora hat and pinstripe double breasted suits play on the stereotype of a 1930's American gangster. This intended to make the point that Erdogan is not a politician nor a statesman. Instead he is a bully and a thug and should be treated as such.

Serhat is accompanied by male dancers who are playing the role of his gangster henchmen. A number of them are not only black by clearly darkskinned Africans. Although the majority of African refugees are arriving in the EU from Africa in the south rather than Turkey in the east this serves as a shorthand for the refugee issue. The fact they are portrayed as Erdogan's henchmen is a reference to the way Erdogan is weaponising the refugee crisis to bully the EU into giving him what he wants.

In short the whole thing was hilarious from start to finish.

The problem is that the performance Serhat gave on stage in the semi-final was very stripped back and spartan. I think this was intended as a reference to the way Erdogan tries to censor any criticism of himself not only within Turkey but also in other countries such as Germany. Once again Turkey has opted not to participate in the Song Conquest so Turkish voters won't have got to see any of this.

Unfortunately if this censored performance was the only performance you saw you simply would not have got any of the multitude of hilarious jokes. In a sort of mockery of Erdogan's speech the tone of the song itself is slow, dull and frankly a bit whiny.

Also on the night the henchmen dancers were replaced with women in the sort of gold & silver lame hotpants that you associate with a 1970's gay roller disco. Although I don't want to cause offence the massively over the top hair and make-up seemed intended to give you the impression these dancers were transvestites or Drag Queens.

Erdogan is deeply homophobic so suggesting that he enjoys secret gay orgies with Drag Queens is massively offensive to him.

However the Song Contest does have a significant gay fan base. The subtly of using someone's homophobia to mock them can sometimes be confused with homophobic mockery of gay people. Although it's technically impossible for them to be gay transgendered people are particularly fashionable at the moment.

Iceland:  In February 2016 it was announced that the US was re-opening its Cold War Keflavik Air Base in Iceland in order to keep Europe safe from the ever growing threat of Russian aggression.

Iceland's entry "Hear Them Calling" by Greta Salome was therefore a passionate display of support for the US' assessment of Russian aggression threatening all of Europe. Both in the video and on stage the performance relied heavily on animation being projected on the wall behind the singer.

That was a direct copy of the performance of "Heroes of Our Time" by Mans Zelmerlow which won last year. The "Heroes" it refers to are the so-called "Cyborgs" who are waging war against their countrymen on behalf of the US backed junta that currently controls much of Shamali Province (nee; Ukraine). Featuring lyrics such as; "Now the skies are burning" and "Oh, they’re calling out tonight" the song was a similarly full blooded call of support for the junta.

However it was so passionate you had to start to wonder whether it had crossed into the sarcasm and subtle mockery that is common at the Song Contest. You may have even got the impression that the US assessment of the Russian threat was being likened to the movies produced by the Disney Corporation that Greta Salome sometimes works for on their cruise ships.

A Song Contest finalist in 2012 Salome has the equivalent of a bachelors degree in the violin and a masters degree in music. Particularly at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia and the Eurovision Song Contest that followed the cultural superiority of the Soviet education system was as a convenient way to highlight the difference between the US and Russia.

So while the words she was singing were passionately pro-American I get the impression Ms Salome was leaning towards Russia.

Interestingly the Disney Corporation chose yesterday to release their quarterly financial results in the US. I suspect the corporation may be considering its relationship with the artist.

Finland: Their song "Sing It Away" was performed by Sandhja who is half-Indian (I think Hindu) and half-Finnish.

With frequent reference to "Heavy Water" the song itself had a very nuclear theme. India is a course a nuclear armed state and it is right next door to China which is of course another nuclear armed state. As a member of the UK Commonwealth India has a strong diplomatic relationship with the UK which gives the UK diplomatic access to issues in that region that just aren't available to other European nations. For example when Erdogan made his recent visit to the US around the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) there was a sort of joint UK/India protest.

Due to the Commonwealth the UK has a much larger non-white population than many other European nations. That population is extremely well integrated. There were race riots involving the Pakistani Muslim population in Bradford in 2001 but generally large scale racism died out in the UK in the 1970's. In UK politics the supposedly racist right is represented by the UK Independence Party (UKIP). For want of a better term their immigration policy is really; "Fewer Whites, More Coloureds." 

This past weekend everyone's been working themselves up into an absolute frenzy over the election of Sadiq Khan as the first Muslim Mayor of London. One of the first people to congratulate him was the Secretary of State for Business Sajid Javid. He is also the Muslim son of an immigrant Pakistani bus driver.

In fact I would go so far as to say that getting excited abut Sadiq Khan becoming Mayor proves you're not a proper Londoner.

Particularly as once you get past the novelty of him being a Muslim you would notice that there are some pretty nasty racist and homophobic undertones to Khan's campaign. Even US rapper Azealia Banks seems to have noticed and she's on another planet half the time.

The video supporting the song heavily invokes the imagery of London's inner-city multi-cultural housing estates. These of course are very different to the immigrant ghettos you get in places like Sweden, Belgium and France. Although she sports the cropped, bleach blond hair that is pure Miley Cyrus Sandhja's look seems heavily influenced by the globally famous London artist M.I.A who is currently working closely with Swedish clothing retailer H&M and won't hesitate to tell you about her Sri Lankan Tamil heritage.

Again though none of this came across in Sandhja's stripped down and spartan semi-final performance yesterday. This could have been a sign of support/enquiry into San Marino's self-censored performance or it could simply be a sign that they'd had enough and wanted to go home.

Either way the general impression you were left with was of a woman who really couldn't be bothered. Plus Finland went first in the running order which never helps.

Montenegro: The big controversy of this years Song Contest is the inclusion of Shamali Province in the competition despite their song "1944" being in direct violation of the golden rule that prevents songs being overtly political. As I explained yesterday this rule is in place, in part, to stop every song turning into a Grindcore tirade.

Although itself not explicitly political Montenegro's entry "The Real Thing" by Highway is pretty much a Grindcore tirade. As such it is clearly intended as a protest against the inclusion of Shamali Province despite their rule breaking.

The tone of the song is very masculine which is emphasised by a scantily clad woman dancing throughout the video that supports the song. In last night's performance this woman was front and centre on a podium at the front of the stage with the band itself almost hidden away in the shadows. I think that it is fair to assume that the gay men in the audience were no more interested in her than I was in the band's male lead singer.

With Montenegro supporting Russia's objections to Shamali Province's inclusion this display of heterosexual male masculinity could easily be viewed as a big "F*ck You!" to the Song Contest's legions of gay fans.

However I think it actually made a much more intelligent point.

It turns out that your sexuality only defines who you want to have sex with. It doesn't determine how good you are at sport, how neat or even basically hygienic you keep your home, what clothes you like to wear or what music you like to listen too.

When I was living in Brighton - the UK's gay capital - it was extremely common for gay men to go to rock shows, punk shows and drum & bass club nights. They used to complain constantly that when they went to the gay clubs and bars where the dating happens or the annual gay pride festival they suddenly had to pretend they liked "Kylie f*cking Minogue."

As it always helps to have evidence to corroborate your point last night I found on Youtube an American Grindcore band called; "Limp Wrist." As far as I can tell all the members of that band are gay men and extremely proud of that fact.

The gay men who are fans of Eurovision are united not by their sexuality but by their shared love of the glittery, camp silliness on which the Song Contest thrives.

The problem is that Eurovision has long acted as a sort of beacon for gays rights across the continent. However sometimes the image of homosexuals that it projects is of a sort of weird, brainwashed cult who all dress the same, behave the same and listen to the same music. That can actually be a barrier to furthering the cause of gay rights amongst people who believe that homosexuality is a choice or some sort of mental illness.

The discussions about this issue are currently being had in Montenegro and hopefully across all of the Eurovision nations.

So I actually think that by busting this stereotype that gay men can't like rock music Montenegro put on a much more effective gay rights protest then simply waving a Rainbow Flag and booing Russia.

The other nations not to make it though to the final were; Estonia, Greece & Moldova.

They should consider it a great compliment that I am not discussing them further here. It is a sign that I think they were so good and deserving of a place in the final that I have to self-censor for the sake of greater good. 


16:40 on 11/5/16 (UK date).