The 2018 Eurovision Song Contest: Grand Finale Pt.7.

A direct continuation of Part 6; https://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2018/05/the-2018-eurovision-song-contest-grand_21.html

NATO's Many Crimes.

Particularly since the creation of Shamali Province NATO has attempted to claim a moral superiority over Russia.

This next group of acts suggest it would be a bad idea for NATO to even attempt to draw a moral equivalency with Russia. By listing NATO's many crimes.

The Netherlands: This year they were represented by Waylon with the song; "Outlaw In 'Em."

Eurovision entries are often designed to achieve particular political goals. The week long Song Contest itself tries to condense the entire a experience of being a popstar into a single week.

So it is common that nations will actually use stars of musical theatre as their entry. That person will adopt the character of such-and-such popstar and commit to that role for a week. Then in a month's time they'll adopt a completely different character in, say, a production of Les Miserable or Cats.

This year the Netherlands have gone in a different direction. In Waylon they have chosen a well known and accomplished musical star. Albeit someone who rather than being a popstar is a star of Europe's Country Music scene which is surprisingly larger than you would think.

Having been discovered on the 2008 season of "Holland's Got Talent" Waylon has released four top selling albums. In 2016 he was a judge on the TV talent show; "It Takes Two" and a coach on the Dutch version of; "The Voice."

Famously in 2014 Waylon formed the double act; "The Common Linnets" with Ilse DeLange to perform at that year's Song Contest. Their song "Calm After the Storm" placed second and went on to become a huge radio and sales hit across Europe.

It is also the only time in history Miley Cyrus has been described as a calming influence.

I don't know how familiar Waylon will be to American Country Music fans but he is certainly well known within the American Country Music scene. He studied under Waylon Jennings in Nashville, Tennessee for three years from 1998 until Jennings death in 2001. Then known as Willem Bijkerk he adopted the name Waylon in tribute.

This song is co-written by Ilya Toshinskiy and Jim Beavers.

Born in Obninsk, Russia Ilya Toshinskiy is the guitarist with the band Bering Strait. They have been based in Nashville since 1998. As a session musician Toshinskiy has won 8 Music Row Awards and 2 American Country Music Awards for his work on top selling records for the likes of (early) Taylor Swift, Shakira, Florida Georgia Line and Rascal Flatts.

A native of Texas Jim Beavers started out as a Director of Marketing for first Capitol Records and then Virgin Records. He then branched out as a session musician and songwriter for the likes of Lee Ann Womack, Chris Stapleton, Luke Bryan, Dierks Bentley, Tim McGraw, Toby Keith, Gary Allan, Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert along with other absolutely huge names within American Country Music.

When you start talking about the American south and country music it won't be long before someone mentions the Confederate Flag. That is a blue Saint Andrew's Cross on a reddish, orange background. Within the St Andrew's Cross there are 13 stars representing the 13 Confederate states in the US Civil War.

Within the current civil war in Shamali Province the ethnically Russian forces have adopted the Soviet Naval Flag. This is a blue St Andrew's Cross on a reddish, orange background along with a faint, white St George's Cross which is often not used. It is very similar to the Confederate Flag lacking only the 13 stars within the St Andrew's Cross.

In an attempt to smear those ethnically Russian forces particularly the US under Obama has tried to portray them as racist by claiming they are flying the US Confederate Flag. In reality it is the forces flying the Soviet Naval Flag that are fighting against the ethnic cleansing of the US-backed Waffen SS.

Wrapped in the flag of the Soviet Navy the Dutch entry was a stirring rebel anthem in support of the ethnically Russian forces in Shamali Province's ongoing civil war.

It is particularly significant that it is the Netherlands taking this position. When attempting to claim moral superiority over Russia the US and its NATO allies frequently cite July 17th 2014 (17/7/14) shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.

Flight MH17 took off from the Netherlands and of the 298 people killed 193 of them were Dutch. So when the US claims it is taking action against Russia because of MH17 it is really claiming to act on the Netherlands behalf. It's telling that when the Netherlands speak for themselves they say something very different.

The Song Contest is often used for nations to float ideas that their governments cannot formally endorse. However the Netherlands' contradiction of the US over Russia is actually in line with current Dutch government policy.

In February 2018 the Dutch Foreign Minister Halbe Zijlstra was forced to resign. He had claimed he had attended a meeting in which Russian President Vladimir Putin had claimed he wanted to build a greater Russia in eastern Europe. Zijlstra's resignation came after he was forced to admit that he'd simply made up these anti-Russian claims.

As you may remember from the 2018 Winter Olympics US Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller did not react well to Halbe Zijlstra's resignation. This Dutch lawmaker's resignation was rapidly followed by Mueller prosecuting Dutch lawyer Alex van der Zwaan over false claims.

Judging by the events of Friday (18/5/18) at the Santa Fe High School in Texas Mueller has taken news of the Netherlands' Song Contest entry equally poorly. Curiously on exactly the same day the current Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok was visiting the US.

The Portuguese hosts of the 2018 Song Contest however seemed very supportive of the Dutch entry. 

Using the slogan "All Aboard" this year's contest has had a significant naval theme. At the Grand Final the hosts introduced a new sequence in the form of a parade of national flags. This saw the flags of the competing nations being paraded around the arena by people in distinctly naval attire.

It was Portugal effectively screaming at the audience; "IT'S THE NAVY FLAG!"

The message of the song is that everyone's got a bit of the outlaw in them. A tattoo you keep hidden, a couple of scarred up knuckles, "(A) Heartbeat beatin’ to rock ‘n’ roll rhythm."

It was effectively the Netherlands, as a NATO member, going;

"We've all supported genocide in an effort to illegally overthrow the Syrian government."

"We've all supported ethnic cleansing by illegally overthrowing the Ukrainian government."

"We've all committed genocide by using force to illegally change the borders of the Balkan nations."

"We've all illegally used force to steal away Serbia's southern Kosovo Province."

"We've all helped re-start the African Slave Trade by illegally overthrowing Libya's government."

The Netherlands particularly emphasised that last point by having Waylon perform in both the Second Semi-Final and Grand Final surrounded by black, slave like dancers.

"US Confederate (or ally) at a Slave Auction" was exactly the look they were going for.

In the promotional photographs in support of the entry the Netherlands were tying very hard to make Waylon resemble the "Hector Escaton" character from the US TV; "Westworld." Played by Rodrigo Santoro.

In an interesting bit of trivia the 1973 movie "Westworld" is actually heavily inspired by the so-called "Spaghetti Westerns" of Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood. Many of them were filmed in Portugal, Spain and Italy. So in Portugal you actually have a number of Westworld-style Wild West tourist parks. 

In both the movie and the TV series the Westworld tourist parks are populated by Artificially Intelligent (AI) robots known as "hosts."  So you could legitimately take these references as a contribution to the discussion about AI.

However I think the Dutch were more specifically referencing the "Man In Black" character from the TV Show played by Ed Harris. As part of the discussion about expanding the Song Contest to include associate members of the EBU such as Brazil.

The Man In Black character has been visiting the Westworld park since it opened. On his first visit he did all the touristy things like marvelling out how lifelike the hosts were. However on subsequent visits he noticed there are many levels to the game. He keeps revisiting in the hope of finding this game called; "The Maze" which is hidden right at the heart of the park.

You can actually treat the Song Contest in much the same way.

You could do the very touristy thing of just watching the Grand Final and choose the song which you think sounds the best. Or you could go deeper by watching both of the Semi-Finals and choose the song you think sounds the best from all of the songs.

You could go even deeper by using the Eurovision.tv website to read up on the entire package of each entry. Including the artists biography, the promotional photographs, the promotional video and the song lyrics.

For me that is really a job of work. So I like to block off 2-3 days and just get it done. If one of the songs references at the bottom of the list references one of the songs at the top of the list it's easier to spot if it's all fresh in the memory.

However the songs start appearing on the website in late-March/early-April. So it's not hard to go through one or two on your lunch break or when you're bored at home of an evening.

This year I'm on course to produce something in the region of 80,000 words on the Song Contest. When I've finished I'll still only be around two thirds of the way in.

There is still the matter of the voting. Both by the expert panels and by the public. These can be analysed in exactly the same level of scientific detail as any political election anywhere in the World. Ahead of this year's contest the "Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation" published an academic paper on the pattens of "Collusive Voting Partnerships" within the Song Contest.

Increasingly Eurovision viewers are being asked to vote using a dedicated App. Even before the Cambridge Analytica scandal that provides plenty of scope for discussion about who is allowed to use the data collected by that App and whether people can and have been using that data to target specific voters.

I think this reference to Westworld might have backfired on the Netherlands slightly. Knowing they were doing something very inflammatory I think the Dutch would have been happy not to have made it through to the Grand Final. 

If you're doing a rebel anthem for the ethnically Russian forces in Shamali Provinces civil war you don't want it played too loudly or too often. Lest it inspires either side to break the very fragile ceasefire.

One of the things the TV Show Westworld makes a big contribution to is the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) absurd "No Nipples Rule." Mentioned frequently at previous Song Contests this defines content as either sexual or non-sexual entirely on whether it features exposed female nipples.

A cable show which is not bound by the FCC's rule Westworld has quite a lot of (pretentious) fun with this. So it has sex scenes where there is no nudity. It also has scenes where it has a lot of nudity but no sex. When the hosts are in the workshop they're often standing around like nude furniture. Thandie Newton is very nude in this show.

One of the main things visitors to the park use the hosts for is sex. The maintenance staff also sometimes illicitly use the hosts for sex. One gay male employee is particularly enamoured by Hector Escaton. There is one seen where he is shown preparing to take advantage of Hector.

Although the scene does not show gay sex it doesn't require you to use a lot of imagination to work out what the employee is planning to do to Hector. Given how difficult it is to get any sex, let alone gay sex, onto US TV shows this scene seems to have picked up iconic status against gay men.

That thought seems to have lifted the Netherlands into a Grand Final even Waylon seemed a bit embarrassed to be performing in.

Serbia:  They were represented by Sanja Ilic and the band; "Balkanika" with the song; "Nova Deca (New Children)."

In actually not that complex an in-joke this entry referenced the 1982 Eurovision Song Contest held in Harrowgate, UK. There as here the band leader Aleksander Sanja Ilic represented his nation.

Obviously though in 1982 Aleksander Sanja Ilic did not represent Serbia. He represented Yugoslavia. As I'm sure you've heard in the mid-1990's NATO decided to tear Yugoslavia apart through a series of genocidal Balkan Wars.

The dozen or so performers that make up the performance represent the seven nations which now exist where Yugoslavia used to stand. NATO's new children as it were.

In 1999 NATO decided to go even further. Tearing away Serbia's southern province of Kosovo. 

This was done in support of the so-called; "Greater Albania Movement." That is dedicated to unifying breakaway Muslim populations across various Balkan nations - particularly Macedonia - into a Greater Albanian Empire. It remains active.

By urging people to look towards the sun and grab it through this song Serbia were daring the Greater Albania to come and have a go if it thinks its hard enough.

Apparently the tattoo that got Albania's performance banned from Chinese television read simply; "Xinjiang." 

Montenegro: One of NATO's new children they were represented by Vanja Radovanovic with the song; "Inje." In the language of another one of NATO's new children, Slovenia this translates as; "And Is."

Using the metaphor of frost this song mourns a lost relationship in which a former lover has grown distant. The video in support of the song seems set in the time of the Russian Empire. As depicted in popular stories such as; "War and Peace."

As such it protests the deteriorating relationship between NATO and Russia. A relationship which is said to have grown frostier than it was during the Cold War. 

By using Slovenian rather than Montenegrin it blames NATO for that deteriorating relationship by reminding it of the Balkan and Kosovan wars. 

At one point in the video Vanja Radovanovic seems to resemble the "Jean Valjean" character in "Les Miserable." Particularly when he is a prisoner. Sort of making Serbia/Russia the victim cruelly jailed for stealing bread to feed his starving family

However by invoking the imagery of; "Beauty and the Beast" it stops short of demanding a reunification with Serbia as part of a restored Yugoslavia. 

18:35 on 22/5/18 (UK date).