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!”

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 “tastelessness”, “sentimentality”, “ostentation”, “showiness”, “brashness”, “tackiness”.

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.

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