Are You Watching It Right? (Eurovision Song Contest)

Member Name: shewhoguards

Product:	Eurovision Song Contest
Date:	06/05/08 (95 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Silliness is to be celebrated!

Disadvantages: People who want to take it seriously will be upset

For anyone who has lived under a rock for the past few decades, the Eurovision song contest is a competition among the countries of Europe as to who can enter the best song. This is known mainly for Terry Wogan's wonderfully snarky commentary, and hilariously bad songs.

There are two reasons why wonderfully awful songs end up in the Eurovision Song Contest.

1. Germany, France, the UK and Spain have untouchable status due to the amount of money they throw at the thing. This means no matter how badly they did in pre-selection, they will still feature in the same program.

2. The winning country gets to host the next year's contest. This costs a lot of money, and provides a decent incentive to try hard not to win (Father Ted did a very good episode mocking this part).

I have always suspected that there are two types of people watching Eurovision. There are those who take in seriously, frowning at the obvious politics in the voting, and complaining about the badness of the acts. And there are the rest of us, who are trying not to wet themselves laughing. Seriously, last year's entry for France involved a male band dressed in pink with angelwings and a singer who, for reasons I STILL don't understand, had a cat sewn on his shoulder. (I am completely serious about this, and if you have not seen this you NEED to watch it on youtube. You can find it at http://youtube.com/watch?v=P4VcSQE7DXg Go on, I'll wait.) There is NO WAY I can take that seriously.

If you have not discovered the True Secret of Eurovision of Eurovision it is this: you need to watch it with friends. This may be an group you pull together on AIM; where people alternately hide their faces as their country's acts come on and the poor Americans stare in confusion at what the crazy Europeans are doing now, or it can be a group of real life people you gather around the TV to giggle together. I even know people who throw little parties for Eurovision, with different European foods and drinks to munch on as they watch, and bets placed as to who will win and who will be the last to lose their "null points" status. Treated the way it should be, the Eurovision Song Contest can be an event of the BEST type.

So, that settled, I'll see you the last weekend in May. You bring the tiramasu, I'll supply the tapas, okay?

Summary: Watch it properly, and it's something to look forward to.