Eurovision controversies

[Zinneke]

Almost at 5 pages now.

Edit : wahaaay

[LAKISYLVANIA]

https://twitter.com/ESCdiscord/status/1789958745272848668

[LAKISYLVANIA]

https://twitter.com/wiwibloggs/status/1790040968135143910

[LAKISYLVANIA]

https://twitter.com/ESCdiscord/status/1790055298465435809

[CumbrianLefty]

This is just sad. Eurovision should be a talents competition where people set aside their differences and go for the most fun and skill and recognize the skills of Europeans everywhere. This is sad.
#KeepPoliticsOutOfEurovision

Politics has been an inescapable part of Eurovision since at least the 1970s (amongst other things, that decade saw a Greek entry that protested the Turkish invasion of Cyprus)

[LAKISYLVANIA]

This is just sad. Eurovision should be a talents competition where people set aside their differences and go for the most fun and skill and recognize the skills of Europeans everywhere. This is sad.
#KeepPoliticsOutOfEurovision

Politics has been an inescapable part of Eurovision since at least the 1970s (amongst other things, that decade saw a Greek entry that protested the Turkish invasion of Cyprus)

Well, this year it was more political than ever, and well, everyone now also admits it's political, like our broadcasting channels used to think it was bullsh**t to say it was political, but they completely changed their stance and say it's very political now.

[wnwnwn]

Treat this as general Eurovision thread.

PD: The Code is such a new guilty pleasure of mine, even if it won for idpol factors.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

https://twitter.com/ESCdiscord/status/1790086938621341977

The Ukrainian participants are also complaining.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

https://twitter.com/wiwibloggs/status/1790388922117165486

Serbia's response

[LAKISYLVANIA]

https://twitter.com/Jelle_ESC/status/1790399498759426547

Eurovision participants from the past, also opening up and criticizing Eurovision/EBU. A former Dutch artist also opening up about how each ones boundaries aren't respected.

https://twitter.com/Jelle_ESC/status/1790393535943917669

The dutch delegation complained against EBU before the disqualification happened about an unsafe atmosphere on Eurovision.

[Zinneke]

First FIFA, now EBU....hoe about we stop putting federation bureaucracies in places like Switzerland where it naturally attracts the worst, greediest criminals and psychopaths. Oh but but they'll surely pinkwash their image now that NEMO has won...

[Agafin]

It's funny how absolutely butthurt some people are about Israel doing well in the televote as it goes against the narratives on Israel's popularity in Europe. Even in Ireland, they got 10 points which you wouldn't know based on online discourse. If I actually cared enough about this competition, I'd probably vote for her song too since while the song is generic her voice is nice and also because it must take a lot of mental fortitude to have such a good performance amidst a flurry of boos.

[crals]

I'm a proud Eurovision fan and think much of the criticism of the contest is unfair and rooted in xenophobia and LGBTphobia. Completely shutting out politics is not possible after all, everything is political if you dig deep enough, especially in a competition between nations.

That being said, the EBU fully deserve all the lashings this time, and I'm glad the Portuguese broadcaster is protesting the censorship of our contestant and other oddities. The disqualification of the Dutch artist while the Israeli delegation got away with harassment of other artists is ridiculous, and so is how easy it is to manipulate the televoting.

About the songs, Switzerland was actually my personal favorite and deserved the victory, but Croatia deserved it for winning the public voting against all odds. Top 10 for Portugal was a very nice surprise. Ukraine, Ireland, Armenia were lovely and deserved the good result. Norway was awesome as well and deserved better than last place, but at least it qualified.

[CumbrianLefty]

It's funny how absolutely butthurt some people are about Israel doing well in the televote as it goes against the narratives on Israel's popularity in Europe. Even in Ireland, they got 10 points which you wouldn't know based on online discourse. If I actually cared enough about this competition, I'd probably vote for her song too since while the song is generic her voice is nice and also because it must take a lot of mental fortitude to have such a good performance amidst a flurry of boos.

Let's be clear, these FPTP televote wins were often with 20-25% of those participating. Landslide!

Nobody serious has ever claimed that Israel has *no* supporters in the West - of course they do, and (without getting into conspiracy stuff at all) they are often notably vocal and well organised.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

https://twitter.com/wiwibloggs/status/1790631160042729555

[LAKISYLVANIA]

It's funny how absolutely butthurt some people are about Israel doing well in the televote as it goes against the narratives on Israel's popularity in Europe. Even in Ireland, they got 10 points which you wouldn't know based on online discourse. If I actually cared enough about this competition, I'd probably vote for her song too since while the song is generic her voice is nice and also because it must take a lot of mental fortitude to have such a good performance amidst a flurry of boos.

It's not like there was a Palestine that participated in Eurovision so that we can compare how many votes both countries had...

There was no anti-Israel option, or well 23 countries perhaps (vs 1 for Israel). In a FTFP it always was going to do well, and it's actually surprising it didn't do better. This doesn't say anything about the narrative, and it also proofs why including Israël to Eurovision this year was a political decision as well.

[Agafin]

It's funny how absolutely butthurt some people are about Israel doing well in the televote as it goes against the narratives on Israel's popularity in Europe. Even in Ireland, they got 10 points which you wouldn't know based on online discourse. If I actually cared enough about this competition, I'd probably vote for her song too since while the song is generic her voice is nice and also because it must take a lot of mental fortitude to have such a good performance amidst a flurry of boos.

Let's be clear, these FPTP televote wins were often with 20-25% of those participating. Landslide!

Nobody serious has ever claimed that Israel has *no* supporters in the West - of course they do, and (without getting into conspiracy stuff at all) they are often notably vocal and well organised.

Didn't the italian vote leak show almost 40% support for Israel? Do we have detailed results for every country?

[Agafin]

It's funny how absolutely butthurt some people are about Israel doing well in the televote as it goes against the narratives on Israel's popularity in Europe. Even in Ireland, they got 10 points which you wouldn't know based on online discourse. If I actually cared enough about this competition, I'd probably vote for her song too since while the song is generic her voice is nice and also because it must take a lot of mental fortitude to have such a good performance amidst a flurry of boos.

It's not like there was a Palestine that participated in Eurovision so that we can compare how many votes both countries had...

There was no anti-Israel option, or well 23 countries perhaps (vs 1 for Israel). In a FTFP it always was going to do well, and it's actually surprising it didn't do better. This doesn't say anything about the narrative, and it also proofs why including Israël to Eurovision this year was a political decision as well.

The bolded is just untrue though. If I understand the rules correctly, no country can get more than 12 points from a country no matter how many votes they receive (be it in % or raw votes). For all we know, a pure FPTP sytem with winner-take-all or a proportional system would have led to an even bigger score for Israel. And this is even truer when considering that the biggest most populous countries on the continent pretty much all had Israel at the top.

And politics works both way. It's almost certain that Israel was penalized by the judges. I guess that evens things out.

[crals]

It's funny how absolutely butthurt some people are about Israel doing well in the televote as it goes against the narratives on Israel's popularity in Europe. Even in Ireland, they got 10 points which you wouldn't know based on online discourse. If I actually cared enough about this competition, I'd probably vote for her song too since while the song is generic her voice is nice and also because it must take a lot of mental fortitude to have such a good performance amidst a flurry of boos.

Let's be clear, these FPTP televote wins were often with 20-25% of those participating. Landslide!

Nobody serious has ever claimed that Israel has *no* supporters in the West - of course they do, and (without getting into conspiracy stuff at all) they are often notably vocal and well organised.

Didn't the italian vote leak show almost 40% support for Israel? Do we have detailed results for every country?

Only for Italy. Israel got 36% of their televotes in the semi-final and 26% in the final.

You can vote up to 20 times per phone though, so it's not quite comparable to FPTP. Israel supporters were very organized and willing to spend money to make a statement, and we know this because they were also very vocal in gloating about it. I'm not sure much can be concluded about Israel's popularity in Europe from this result.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Agafin isn't even sure if he understands the rules correctly but assumes he knows it better than all other people responding in this thread.

Secondly, not proven that the jury penalized Israël, that's also fake news.

The 1 country to choose from for ppl who support Israel to basically everyone else for who don't want it makes this essentially FTFP even if it obviously isn't exactly the same. It's why Israel always was going to get 12 points in every western european country, because there is no country to vote for if you were pro-palestine and wanted to express support for palestine or if you wanted to vote for music there were like 23 other countries one could vote for. That's the point we are making.

[ingemann]

There’s two far better reason for why Israel did well.

1: They had one of the better songs.

2: The booing almost certainly drove up their vote.

All the drama around Israel from some countries likely also drove some to not vote for these countries, I think that especially Ireland and Greece underperformed compared to how good their songs were.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Not a big Israel enjoyer here, but here's why some of this rubbed me the wrong way (and probably a lot of others, possibly why Israel did so well in the televote)

-The reason most Jews in America and Israel don't live in Europe anymore was not a decision we made. The Europeans protesting this and booing this may well have had ancestors that participated in those pogroms.

-Nobody said sh**t about Azerbaijan's participation. There were no pro-Armenian protests outside their contestants hotel, Laki didn't post incessantly about the topic, etc. That naturally leads me to ask "why do people care more about Palestinians than Armenians"?

I suspect I'll be crucified for this take, but I've never gotten a good answer on either of these counts.

[AtorBoltox]

Not a big Israel enjoyer here, but here's why some of this rubbed me the wrong way (and probably a lot of others, possibly why Israel did so well in the televote)

-The reason most Jews in America and Israel don't live in Europe anymore was not a decision we made. The Europeans protesting this and booing this may well have had ancestors that participated in those pogroms.

-Nobody said sh**t about Azerbaijan's participation. There were no pro-Armenian protests outside their contestants hotel, Laki didn't post incessantly about the topic, etc. That naturally leads me to ask "why do people care more about Palestinians than Armenians"?

I suspect I'll be crucified for this take, but I've never gotten a good answer on either of these counts.

I'd usually agree with the idea that 'why aren't you protesting this' isn't a good argument but I think in the case of pro-Palestine activists it really is. If Greta Thunberg wants to start saying 'climate justice and political freedom' are inseparable or whatever then she does have to explain why Israel seems to be the only case where that 'intersectionality' is actually applied

[OSR stands with Israel]

Not a big Israel enjoyer here, but here's why some of this rubbed me the wrong way (and probably a lot of others, possibly why Israel did so well in the televote)

-The reason most Jews in America and Israel don't live in Europe anymore was not a decision we made. The Europeans protesting this and booing this may well have had ancestors that participated in those pogroms.

-Nobody said sh**t about Azerbaijan's participation. There were no pro-Armenian protests outside their contestants hotel, Laki didn't post incessantly about the topic, etc. That naturally leads me to ask "why do people care more about Palestinians than Armenians"?

I suspect I'll be crucified for this take, but I've never gotten a good answer on either of these counts.

I'd usually agree with the idea that 'why aren't you protesting this' isn't a good argument but I think in the case of pro-Palestine activists it really is. If Greta Thunberg wants to start saying 'climate justice and political freedom' are inseparable or whatever then she does have to explain why Israel seems to be the only case where that 'intersectionality' is actually applied

Cause the left is useful idiots for Islamists (see how some of the protests had free Kashmir as a demand too).

Anyway if you think this is bad , imagine how bad things will get if the CCP ever strikes as the left is closer on the political spectrum to communism than it is to Islamism and you know the CCP is learning how to exploit these intersectional/anti west grievance politics as well.

[Zinneke]

Not a big Israel enjoyer here, but here's why some of this rubbed me the wrong way (and probably a lot of others, possibly why Israel did so well in the televote)

-The reason most Jews in America and Israel don't live in Europe anymore was not a decision we made. The Europeans protesting this and booing this may well have had ancestors that participated in those pogroms.

-Nobody said sh**t about Azerbaijan's participation. There were no pro-Armenian protests outside their contestants hotel, Laki didn't post incessantly about the topic, etc. That naturally leads me to ask "why do people care more about Palestinians than Armenians"?

I suspect I'll be crucified for this take, but I've never gotten a good answer on either of these counts.

You're absolutely right re Azerbaijan

The reason  why Israel is different to Azerbaijan when it comes to this specific case and this specific year though is that Israel blatantly sent a young woman to sing an initially political song that had to be modified and she was flanked by the usual Likudnik strong men harassing and barracking anyone who merely breathed in her direction. Everything about Israel's participation was about the endless PR war that parallels the real one back home. It's just so nakedly cynical that in my opinion they should be left home, like a child that can't behave. Azerbaijan can behave.

But I would really like Laki to do a five page thread on the Tigray genocide. Not holding my breath though.