Girl in tutu groped by green sequinned Spiderman; stripper in oversized hamster wheel, towed by sequinned Roman centurions; woodland nymphs, cruise entertainers, the odd howling banshee, celebrity lookalikes, an over enthusiastic wind machine, lots of dry ice, masses of hair and oh did I mention the sequins? Yes it's that time of the year again.... Moscow will explode onto our tv screens tonight in an orgy of kitsch with this year's Eurovision Song Contest. Apparently, they've thrown so much money at the event, it's being called the Beijing Olympics of Eurovision. The other rumour doing the rounds is that western Europe is starting to take the event very seriously after some humiliating capitulations to Eastern Europe entries over the last few years. France is fielding international selling artist, Patricia Kaas, the UK is fronting Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber and Israel has slipped in Noa. Whilst they undoubtedly have musical talent, they also show too much good taste and I fear this will be their downfall as tacky, kitsch and bing bang a bong lyrics are vital prerequisites for validating this particular module. Germany makes a valiant attempt with a Dita Von Teese look alike, wearing the obligatory sequins and falling out of her corset to mindnumbing lyrics: skiddly, skiddly bo, dip dip de de.. etc. For anyone wanting a run down of all 25 candidates, David Sim in the UK Daily Telegraph provides an excellent tongue in cheek photo analysis. I'm looking forward to seeing Armenia, now they look scary.....
1 commentaire:
Hi !
Ah, the Eurovision Song Contest. Every year, it is the same thing : a bigger event. This year, we could smell the money through the telly.
The aim was clearly to show that Russia CAN organise such a big event. That is why the analogy with the Beijing Olympic games is justified. And it clearly led to one of the biggest international event, seen by hundreds of million of people.
So here, money created the 'buzz'.
But what I find interesting, is that a 'buzz' can also come from something unexpected.
And by unexpected, I am clearly talking about the buzz that Susan Boyle (called SuBo in the British papers) received.
Thanks to this very woman, who was seen as an untypical contestant for such a show, Britain's got talent received a huge amount of coverage, and was the center of the attention of the previous month. And it did not cost a penny. Youtube, blogs and of course, the Internet users helped to create this enourmous coverage.
And it was a success ! The final night of BGT gathered 19 million people, and 72% of British audience. 19 million in Britain... But 200 million around the world, thanks to Susan Boyle's videos ! After only one month, the SuBo vids were ranked in the top ten of the most watched videos ever in Youtube. A record, comparing to the other videos that were uploaded several months or years ago.
As if the most important today for an international success could only be engendered by the Internet.
So, I guess that ITV can thank Susan Boyle for ensuring the show large audiences for the next few years !
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