Why I'm not watching Eurovision this year
The EBU's refusal to meaningfully change the voting rules has made the contest result feel uncomfortably pre-ordained to many fans. It's a tragic self-own against European soft power.
I have been following Eurovision for two decades, both as a fan and as a journalist. When I moved to Europe 20 years ago, I had little idea what the ESC was. I watched my first contest in 2007 at a viewing party in Munich, and I instantly became transfixed. It was wild, captivating and unlike anything I had ever seen before. The winning song was genuinely moving, and the runner-up, featuring a Ukrainian drag queen with a giant star on her head, was whimsical and hilarious.
Since then I have attended seven contests in person, covering them with a press pass. I like the contest both for the music (up to one-third of the songs each year are actually quite good) and for the politics. But most of all, I believe that Eurovision is incredibly important because it is the only significant example of pan-European pop culture with no involvement of the US. Normally it has more global viewers than the Superbowl, the Oscars and the Grammys combined (though this is unlikely to be the case this year). As I write in my book The Owned Continent, it is a haven in a continent otherwise dominated by American culture. It is truly European and, in a way, it is a cultural resistance.
That is why what is happening to the contest right now is so heartbreaking. For the past three years, the controversy over Israel’s participation has overshadowed Eurovision and become its defining characteristic.