Eurovision: Is It Kitsch To Go For A Pretty Ditty?
- May 27th, 2009
- Posted by 7thmin
Norway’s Alexander Rybak had no qualms about name-calling against the Eurovision Song Contest, as he fiddled his way to a record victory (17.5.09) in this year’s event; flanked by gymnastic dancers, and crooning to the crowd: “I’m in love with a Fairy Tale!â€
The 23 year-old, classic trained performer, born in Belarus, earned 387 competition points to win the 54th contest in the series, in Moscow – the biggest-ever winning margin.
What could be kitsch about gaudy, nay voluptuous staging, silly songs, 100-million viewers (world’s largest non-sporting audience), and competitive telephone voting across the regions of Europe?
Encarta is unkind, naming the phenomenon as “artistic vulgarity†– hardly fair to Europe’s so-much-loved.
Synonyms run to “tastelessnessâ€, “sentimentalityâ€, “ostentationâ€, “showinessâ€, “brashnessâ€, “tackinessâ€.
That’s alright then; happy with that; getting more like it, alright?
There are more abstruse definitions, finding kitsch to be, for example, a counterfeit of something else – pretend Roman statues, pretend Baroque interiors, pretend model gondolas, and so on.
Nothing pretend about the Song Contest though, surely; there could only be the original.