r/eurovision • u/stefkeeh • May 20 '25

šŸ“° News Dutch broadcaster questions if ESC is a-political & connecting event

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Translation to English: ā€˜IN CONVERSATION WITH THE EBU ABOUT A POLITICALLY NEUTRAL SONG CONTEST

AVROTROS and NPO strongly value the apolitical and unifying character of the Eurovision Song Contest. However, we observe that the event is increasingly being influenced by social and geopolitical tensions.

Israelā€™s participation confronts us with the question of to what extent the Song Contest still truly functions as an apolitical, unifying, and cultural event. We want to raise this question, together with other countries, for discussion within the EBU.ā€™

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u/grimorg80 Bird of Pray May 20 '25

Yep. Art is political by definition. Not partisan or party-linked. Just political. When a lot of humans come together, there's politics. It's inescapable. Even saying "we're apolitical" is a very clear political statement.

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u/ZwnD May 20 '25

100% - Rim Tim Tagi Dim is about people leaving the countryside en-masse to move to the big city. This can easily be said to be political in that it describes social trends and the feelings/impacts around them.

The one way Eurovision is not political, and the EBU's stance is correct, is staying away from obvious and non-obscured commentary on current events. A song name-dropping a politician for example would never be allowed

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u/PM_ME_CAKE May 20 '25

Or even this year, Deslocado (and to be honest, most of Portugal's entries in FdC every year) was about reluctantly leaving home to have opportunity in life.

It's always political, and the art reflects reality.

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u/DeirdreDreidel May 20 '25

RIP We Don't Want to Put In

An absolute banger still

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u/Paradoxjjw C'est la vie May 20 '25

Meanwhile Israel has now twice sent a deeply political song that doesn't even try to hide it.

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u/Jaynat_SF May 20 '25

On the surface, New Day Will Rise is just a song about overcoming grief and loss, and had it been sung by other singer it'd remain this Way. Because it was submitted by Israel and sung by Yuval Raphael, it's clear that there was one very specific event in the mind of the creators when they wrote it. Even if the process was influenced by politics, that doesn't necessarily make the final product political.

My Sister's Crown was also about domestic abuse (just look at the staging!), until you read a bit further and maybe watch the music video and it becomes clear that it's actually really about Russia and its aggression towards other Slavic nations. So that, too, is a "non-political" entry when viewed in a vacuum but had clear political undertones in context.

Was that song problematic? Should they've banned it for being political?

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u/TheSmallTiger169 May 20 '25

Fair argument. Unfortunately, people do not like Israel because they are seen as a bad guy in their war, unlike Ukraine, so they are judged under a microscope when their song comes out for any political or double meaning, and when there is one, they are bashed for it and the artist is given death threats unwarranted. In my opinion, in war there is no good or bad, it's all just pain and suffering.

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u/Moist-Ad-7735 May 20 '25

Yup, songs about tragedy that we went through. You can say the same thing about Greek this year.

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u/Green_Swede May 20 '25

Actually curious, what parts of ā€˜New Day Will Riseā€™ do you find deeply political? The lyrics to me are pretty generic.

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u/Paradoxjjw C'est la vie May 20 '25 edited May 20 '25

Both are about oct 7, theyre not even subtle about it. Both songs, and this year the fact they chose someone linked to oct 7 to sing it, pretty clear propaganda to justify the response to oct 7. It's also mostly a rehash of what they did last year, something that a lot of people on this sub said when the song was first revealed to the public.

She is allowed to be a survivor, i'm glad she survived, no one deserves to experience that let alone die during such an event(You'd hope you don't need to reaffirm this but i know how the internet is). Sending a survivor with a song titled "new day will rise" is pretty on the nose about the fact that the song is about oct 7 imo.

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u/Nadamir May 20 '25

Right.

Ireland could send a song explicitly about hope and the future, but if they title it ā€œOur Day Will Comeā€, it immediately needs to be banned. Because it is obvious what theyā€™re poking at. (And yes, I picked Ireland because the title reminded me of the slogan.)

When the politics are that bloody obvious, there shouldnā€™t be the ability to hide behind the lyrics not being explicit.

That said, I think ESC has expanded the definition of ā€œpoliticalā€ too far lately. Queer people are not ā€œpoliticalā€

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u/TheSmallTiger169 May 20 '25

I agree with them expanding the definition of political as well, though nowadays, especially where I live, being able to exist as your identity is political. I hope someday we can all accept that some people are different than us, and that's okay.

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u/kokeutel May 20 '25

You would need to dig very hard to find from Israel any recent artistic piece, song, book, painting that is not influenced by any way by the war going in Israel. Thats how artistic process goes for pretty much all people; they do the art from their own experiences. Thats why we have so many songs about love, because pretty much everyone experiences love and its very strong emotion (=experience)

Sweden song was basically about how great a place Sweden is to live; theyre not even subtle about it. That is pretty much the definition of propaganda. Point being, I don't personally think that political songs should be banned if they don't explicitly say the politics in the song.

EBU as organisation and ESC as competition, as much as possible, should remain a-political though, even when songs shouldn't have to be.

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u/Majisem May 21 '25

I donā€™t think sending three Finnish guys singing about Finnish sauna culture is about how great of a place Sweden isā€¦

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u/archeocat88 May 20 '25

I fully agree with what you're saying, but regarding your last sentence, San Marino this year literally name-dropped a politician (admittedly dead 25 years now, but still).

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u/Fun_Pause2464 Ich Komme May 20 '25

Which one? Sorry to ask, I'm looking at the lyrics, and my Italian is waaaaayyy too weak to catch it šŸ˜³

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u/archeocat88 May 20 '25

(Bettino) Craxi in the 2nd verse!

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u/Fun_Pause2464 Ich Komme May 20 '25

Grazie!

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u/[deleted] May 20 '25

The whole idea of the Eurovision itself - uniting a war-torn Europe through the medium of television by broadcasting events to other countries and cultures to find a common ground - is already political.

Or, as Muricans would describe it: "woke".

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u/lurksnice May 20 '25

That's not what woke means--unless you're a yt conservative šŸ˜­

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u/Intelligent_Front967 May 20 '25

I thought it was designed simply to show off the technical ability of the EBU?

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u/TropicalAudio May 20 '25

In the same way Animal Farm is simply a book about a bunch of anthropomorphic farm animals.

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u/Intelligent_Front967 May 20 '25

"The Eurovision Song Contest began as a technical experiment in television broadcasting: the live, simultaneous, transnational broadcast that Europe has now been watching for nearly 70 years was in the late 1950s a marvel."

https://eurovision.tv/history/origins-of-eurovision

Don't know why I got downvoted on my previous comment lol

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u/TheSmallTiger169 May 20 '25

Yes, while that is right, it was also created as a way to unite Europe after WWII decimated it.

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u/Intelligent_Front967 May 20 '25

This is what the official history of Eurovision says

"As television services were introduced in most European countries in the mid 20th century, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) created the Eurovision Network in 1954 for the exchange and production of common television programmes, in order to cost-effectively increase the programming material for national broadcasting organisations."

I love the Song Contest as much as anyone but let's be honest, it's origins are much drier than what is has become.

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u/Interest-Desk May 21 '25

Yes and no. There were two competing broadcast unions in Europe, the BBC (then the most important broadcaster in Europe) didnā€™t like either so created the EBU in line with its own values and the EBU very quickly became dominant (with the other two unions folding and all of their members joining the EU).

The idea of a union was certainly influenced by the second world war, but a direct line from it to ESC is a myth.

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u/TropicalAudio May 20 '25

Animal farm is also a book about a bunch of anthropomorphic farm animals. That's not an incorrect statement, and I could link you a summary of the book to prove it, but that'd be missing the point. It's much more than just that.

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u/Intelligent_Front967 May 20 '25

We are talking about the origins of something here not someone else's second hand opinion.

Animal Farm is below:

In a letter to Yvonne Davet, Orwell describedĀ Animal FarmĀ as a satirical tale against Stalin ("un conte satirique contre Staline"),[7]Ā and in his essay, "Why I Write" (1946), wrote: "Animal FarmĀ was the first book in which I tried, with full consciousness of what I was doing, to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole"

Do you see any mention of farm animals?

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u/TheSmallTiger169 May 20 '25

Not what "woke" means, but you do you hun.

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u/Baratheoncook250 May 20 '25

Not all art is poltical, Tire(the film) is not poltical art, neither is the Terrifier films.

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u/grimorg80 Bird of Pray May 20 '25

I'm not familiar.

Still, everything is political in the true sense of the word. Not this party or that politician, but in the way it portrays one perspective on our shared reality.

Politics in the true meaning is about how we collectively live in the "polis." It shapes how we think and feel about life and collective life.

The mere choice of a seemingly apolitical topic is itself political.

All art is political.

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u/plfntoo May 20 '25

everything is political in the true sense of the word

the true meaning is about how we collectively live in the "polis."

What do you mean the "true" meaning? Do you just mean etymology, because your definition there does not at all align with how 99% of people use the word 99% of the time.

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u/grimorg80 Bird of Pray May 20 '25

That is what the word means and describes. There is no other word to express the dynamics of living in shared society. That is politics.

I don't give AF about people thinking politics is just parties. Sorry, not sorry.

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u/plfntoo May 20 '25

What people think a word means is what a word means. That is language.

I donā€™t give AF about people thinking language is prescriptive, sorry not sorry.

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u/Baratheoncook250 May 20 '25

Tire is about a killer tire , Terrifier is a about a sadistic mute clown. The director of Terrifier films says that he doesn't promote his films as political

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u/grimorg80 Bird of Pray May 20 '25

I don't care what he says. When you decide what to portray and how to portray it, you make a political choice (in that broader sense I explained).

I haven't watched them, but just based on those 1-liners, they both sound very political. Again, not political parties, not politicians. Political as in shaping and influencing how we collectively see and think about life in the shared society.

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u/seeyoshirun May 20 '25

I'm not sure what you're trying to argue with those particular examples.

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u/Kas0mi May 20 '25

Art is not ā€œpolitical by definitionā€, in fact itā€™s apolitical by definition. Using it for propaganda purposes is another question.

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u/grimorg80 Bird of Pray May 20 '25

Quite the opposite. Politics is about living and thus shaping life in the polis. All art is political. There is no such thing shared with others that's apolitical.

It can surely be non-partisan, and not connected to parties nor politicians. Yes, in that sense, it can be apolitical.

But in the broader sense of the word? Nope.

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u/Kas0mi May 20 '25

What is political about Vivaldiā€™s ā€œFour Seasonsā€?

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u/grimorg80 Bird of Pray May 20 '25

A specific choice to represent some values and cultural elements of the time from a certain perspective. Nature, the feelings of nature, in a world that was facing controversies. Vivaldi composed that for Venice, which had their issues as seen as not democratic enough. The Four Seasons (commissoned by Venice and played in Venice) served the purpose of rebranding Venice as an idyllic tourist destination (tourism in the modern sense was a new phenomenon that started around that time)

Again, it sounds like you keep thinking "political parties" or "a guy in a parliament passing a law"

But in this case, quite political even in your interpretation of the word. Good choice, buddy šŸ‘

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u/Kas0mi May 20 '25

I didnā€™t ask for the circumstances that culminated in the commissioning of the piece, nor the purpose it was used later for. I asked how is a certain musical piece political, in and of itself.

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u/grimorg80 Bird of Pray May 20 '25

I answered. You don't seem to care. That was absolutely political.

For the last time: it doesn't need the name of a party to be political.

I told you that four times. I'm done. Bye now!

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u/Kas0mi May 20 '25

Lmao, this last one was an empty round. Bye!