No one is immune to propaganda, and all artistic expression is inherently political. These are two statements to keep in mind, as we approach this year’s eurovision song contest, and examine what choices were made, and which were not. There is much we can learn, simply from the roster of this year’s competition, as well as what arguments have been used where.
Each message has a meaning, and a purpose, even if that purpose is to have no meaning. This is particularly true in the measured and planned messages that are art, public speaking and entertainment. Deliberate choices have led to this year’s European Song Contest looking the way it does. Many are aesthetic, or economical, or even made due to crass necessity, but all of them were made in a direct or indirect political context.
Russia has been excluded from the ESC due to their invasion of Ukraine, and been condemned for their war crimes against the people of Ukraine. The exclusion is an act that is hard to see as anything but political. Israel, another state that has invaded its neighbor, and committed well documented war crimes against its civilian population has been allowed to participate on the basis that The Eurovision contest. This decision has loudly been defended on the base that the ESC has is, and has always been an apolitical contest.
But, keep in mind what I mentioned before, with this statement in mind about messages and art. Is it possible to have an apolitical musical competition, especially one that has as many politically charged entries as the ESC. I want to argue in this text that there is a distinct difference between apoliticality and politics so agreed upon it becomes invisible. Expected truths, the statue que, and ofcourse, successful propaganda are often seen as apolitical, but are in fact, simply invisible.
In Sweden the ESC is exclusively played on SVT, Sweden’s state television, as is the national competition leading up to the ESC. The competition is touted and lauded as the people’s contest, by everyone and for everyone. Is it then possible to understand the directions that are made in the name of the ESC as anything other than political? To be of the people, and indirectly, of the nation, is to be explicitly political.
I would argue that it is easy to see things that we agree with as apolitical, especially if these things happen to fall within the purview of the statue que. Media becomes political in the mind of many viewers once it expresses opinions or emotions that goes against this status quo, or for that matter when the nature of the subject as political becomes unavoidable, or impossible to ignore.
Representation of minorities, such as POCs and queer individuals is a good example of this phenomenon. Their absence is part of the status quo and as a result, not political, and their inclusion, as a result is. This would be a great example of subtle biases, of expectations and what breaks with these expectations. For a long time have the explicit or implicit exclusion of the queer community been almost a given, at least until the monetary value of these groups became apparent. The same exclusion has been, until fairly recently, set on Russia and many of the former eastern bloc countries, on the not so subtle grounds on political affiliations with the former USSR.
The Russian revolution was clearly done on explicitly political grounds. More precisely as a punishment and statement of Russia’s invasion of their neighbor Ukraine. This is an invention that has recently been subtly reframed to be an Unlawful invasion, in contrast to Israel’s Lawful retaliations against Gaza.
This distinction makes Israel’s war seem, part of the common narrative in the west, as a simple fight against evil insurgents. The decision to include them seems to be apolitical as a result, while Russia’s actions so infidelity aberrant, and their exclusion as apolitical, or at least, understandably political.
Apoliticallity is always a choice, and it is a choice that very few of us have the privilege to make. Keep in mind that if a subject seems apolitical to you, it is more than often that you are blessed to not experience the negative part of said topic. Propaganda and bias is a lot easier to miss, if you have the option to be blind to the problem to begin with.
An Unused Frequency 