I've seen a whole host of outrage on my newsfeed this weekend about Russia's placing in
the Eurovision Song Contest from friends in the UK and Western Europe. When it looked like
they might win, there was a stream of updates about homophobic Russia and how terrible it
would be for them to take the trophy, all willing Sweden on to pip them at the post. Yet
in 2014, Sweden's winner Måns Zelmerlöw said on national television that it wasn't natural
for a man to sleep with another man. In fact, he called homosexuality 'avvikelse' - which
is a deviation, or an abnormality. You can watch it here if you understand Swedish. Call
me esoteric, but it's almost like its been set up for me to write a rambling blog post
about nationalism, queerness and popular music. Given Zelmerlöw's frankly bizarre personal
politics making not much of a dent in a public outraged by Soviet victory on the day of
Ireland's historic marriage vote, lets ask, "Why specifically Russia?" Is it because of
high levels of public knowledge around their anti-queer laws, or is it something a bit
more complicated or maybe even more sinister than that?
Obviously, I think it's something more complicated than that, or I wouldn't write a blog
about it. I don't think that, from the viewing public at least, attitudes towards Russia
are based on conscious discrimination or anything much beyond what seems like genuine
solidarity with the queer community. But we have to be critical and self reflective when
we're being political, and when it comes to Russia - well, we're not. Oh, for a world
where because people were homophobic we shunned them. I might not have to listen to that
sub-rate mock Swedish country song for the next 6 months in gay bars. We don't though, and
we don't even apply this narrative equally so much so that we criticise the 2nd placed
Putin-critical Russian entrant for the actions of her country whilst waving on through the
knuckle dragging 1970s retro show of Sweden's winner, not so much as holding him
personally responsible for his own actions. What we actually live in is a world where gays
boycott Latvian vodka because of Russian laws - you know, Latvia. That country that has
been at odds with the Kremlin for two decades. What we actually live in is a Western
Europe with an ignorance and a racism problem, and a British Isles struggling with an
islander mentality and a current love affair with nationalism - and one of those
flashpoints where this is highlighted most pointedly is our attitude towards Eastern Europe.
In 2003, the woefully abysmal nil points UK entry Jemini accused Lena Katina, ginger queen
of my heart and one half of Russian entry t.A.T.u. (oh come on, you were all waiting for
it), of stalking her in the Eurovision village and sending her unwanted love letters. Not
only did her queerness mean she couldn't control her loins, but that added savagery of
being a simple Russian peasant meant she just couldn't help herself. This narrative dogged
the entirety of t.A.T.u.'s career, with them characterised in turn as abused, manipulated,
manipulative and fake. Meanwhile a slew of movies were released portraying Eastern
European women as fragile, broken and hypersexed, with mysterious Russian gangmasters
their captors. That the UK had been involved in extensive military intervention across the
Balkans was no coincidence, because as well we all know, where UN Peacekeepers go, so does
the forced sex trade and human trafficking. Eastern Europe was marked as 'other' - savage,
regressive, unintelligent - across the media, popular culture and in the British cultural
psyche, with Russians - as a long standing impact of communism and the Cold War -
constructed as their evil overlords. Meanwhile. increased immigration from Poland and from
Baltic states to the UK was welcomed by a new wave of nationalists who could wave their
little England flags loud and proud thanking their lucky stars that they could claim not
to be racist because these people are white.
But what does this have to do with Eurovision? Well it is reflected in the very simple but
dangerous logical step we take when we go Russia = Putin = Anti-gay laws = the Russian
people. When we other a people, it makes it very easy to imagine them as a conglomerate
mass. To reject anything created culturally by artists who may well be at odds with their
state, not as we suggest because we don't approve of their state, but in reality because
we map their government on to them, and hold them personally responsible for their
actions. If you're down with that UK people, you're going to have to be the personal
embodiment of David Cameron, so have a proper think about it.
The reality is that music has always been a radical and subversive force in Russia, and
music is one of the most powerful mediums of subversion. Not only because it appeals to
young people but also because its nuance and complexity means that you can interweave all
manner of meaning and codes that are understood by some people and read as a call to arms
whilst simultaneously flying over the heads of the people you don't want to arouse the
suspicion of. This is why homophobic guys in the 1980s were screaming out the chorus of A
Little Respect by Erasure in bad sexist clubs while queers were using it as an anthem of
empowerment. In actuality, Russia's continued role in Eurovision is very heavily frowned
upon by the right wing law makers in the country, and for this very reason. Vitaly
Milonov, the architect of Russia's anti-queer laws, has repeatedly lobbied for them to
withdraw entirely from the competition because it exposes Russian youth to all that queer
filth and depravity from Europe. It represents a frontier to a different politics for many
Russian youth and since they entered the competition in 1994, lots of the Russian
political left have used it as a vehicle to bring about a very different message for
Russia's future than the government would like to see. That is seen and heard by its young
people, and it is a vehicle for change.
The producers of the 2009 show in Moscow put on a show mixing their Soviet history with
their modern culture and community (watch it, it's pretty queer), which led to the
reintroduction of an internal selection process by the state, but still Milonov and his
bigots can't stem that their artists and cultural producers load their messages and songs
with deeper levels of meaning that speak to their youth. The problem on the left is we're
only really interested in subversive vehicles for change if they align neatly with what we
like to believe radicalism is, so yes to women screaming punk songs in balaclavas in a
Catholic church, but less so Russian synthpop with coded messages about the million voices
of Russia that are "different but the same" united in love as the world is listening. It's
almost like its trying to say something.
OK, so you might say that you don't care about the attitudes of the people living in a
state in a song contest won by a popular vote. Each to their own, but, you're interested
purely and solely in the attitudes and legislation of the state. OK then. That's why
you're outraged at Australia turning away boats of dying immigrants, Lithuania where
queers are also beaten by their state and banned from holding Pride marches, Slovenia
where changes to grant queers more family rights were rejected by popular referendum. I
could go on, you get my point. Let's look at our EU as a whole, where the largest EU wise
survey of LGBT rights of recent years showed that 25% of queers had suffered physical
violence of threats. Let's look back at our liberal bastion of Sweden, where they entered
a noted homophobe. It all pretty silent to me.
https://sarahkerton.wordpress.com/2015/05/24/from-russia-with-love/
https://glasgowanarchists.wordpress.com/2015/05/24/repost-from-russia-with-love/
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