#But that doesn't make Stefania the greatest song ever made by European hands

[docholligay]

I guess I want to get murdered for my birthday

Do me a favor and read to the end of this before you lose your mind. Maybe go take a walk. I certainly took my time. 

Now that three months have passed, and we’ve calmed down some, I hope we can all admit that Ukraine’s Eurovision win was a political one, unattached from the merits of the song. There was a LOT of feelings in the air right after the win, and there was some severe lack of critical thinking skills going on. 

“I liked the song” “I want to feel like Ukraine is being supported” and “They won because of the political situation, and would not have otherwise” are not COMPETING or EXCLUSIVE thoughts. They can all sit on the plate together just fine. There is not a single thing wrong with any of those thoughts. 

They got something like 96% of the available televote, I think. Wacky numbers. We all know that was not sheerly out of a deep love of sopilka and hip hop. You are not stupid people. They could have sent Embers, and won. Even more shocking is the jury vote--juries traditionally HATE this stuff, and that was also more a show of political support than anything. In normal times, they would have eaten Stefania for breakfast. The fact that Eurovision fanblogs and forums have dozens of posts about how the results might have gone if there wasn’t a war on Ukraine, with statistical backing a different formulae--a whole category of discussion--shows this point pretty clearly. 

There are a couple questions that came up and retorts offered in the immediate after, and I think now, when we’ve all had a breather, is a better time to talk about them. 

Was the result FAIR? In the sense that I think absolutely no cheating went on, yes, it was fair. Now another meaning of fair is “Did it deserve it?” and that goes onto all the questions above--I don’t think that’s answerable, I think it’s too slippery. But going from a sheer “was there funny business?” no, it won fairly. 

I think for me the more compelling question is: Was it SATISFYING? I’ve tried to think about this as if it had been Shum, a song I fucking LOVE, and not Stefania, which in full fucking fairness, I DO hate. If it had been Shum, I would still be disappointed, because I know for the rest of Eurovision history, it would never be thought of as a song that won in its own right. Stefania will NEVER be able to come up without the contextual discussion of the war and how it won. And anyone who tries to assert that the song was “just that amazing” is going to sound sillier and sillier as we go down the line. It almost immediately started to get whupped on by Space Man and SloMo in the streaming stats. SloMo has more than twice the streams. And I HATED SloMo, this is not me trying to elevate Spain here. It’s just the accurate numbers reflecting people’s actual attitudes. 

But mostly I’m frustrated that it made Eurovision boring. The winner was chosen the second the news rolled out. 

It can be frustrating to see a song crush before the competition even starts, and I don’t think it was very fair the way anyone who was annoyed and frustrated by the domination was shouted down as some kinda pro-Russian bot. Obviously this is part and parcel of the internet problem of thinking of things as binaries but come on now. Use your heads for something other than a hatrack. Being frustrated that what is at least OSTENSIBLY a song competition became some classically social way of ‘showing Russia’ without actually having to DO anything for Ukraine, is not an anti-Ukraine stance. 

UKRAINE won, but Kalush Orchestra didn’t, you know? I think it’s okay to support Ukraine and find that deeply frustrating. Eurovision has always been political, of course--who knows how the fuck Greece decided to allocate points this year, I’m sure it kept them up at night--but it’s usually not so NAKEDLY so, and I, as a long time and fairly invested fan, found it unsatisfying to try and engage with a decided contest. 

But much worse than that was the denial that it was a decided contest. I much prefer someone say, “It was a known game, disconnected from the song, and I am fine with that.” Fantastic. I have no argument with that! How could I possibly? Fair enough. My only hope is that we can hold with two hands, “I am fine with Ukraine’s political win” and “people who were irritated by it are not necessarily pro-Russia.” 

Thank you, and goodnight. 

#I mean I fucking hate Russia for a MYRIAD of personal and political reasons #But that doesn't make Stefania the greatest song ever made by European hands #Doc isn't your family of Ukrainian descent? #YES AND NO #Yeah my great grandparents came over from Ukraine #but we're Jews and so weren't really considered Ukrainian by Ukraine #PALE OF SETTLEMENT JEWS FOR LIFE #You know initially I was disappointed that this years hosting is gonna be such a MASSIVE shitshow #but I'm leaning into the 'I just love mess' idea about it