Inside the raging debate to watch Eurovision 2024: “This feels bigger than the contest”
NME has spoken to fans, past performers and academics about their decision to watch or boycott Eurovision 2024.
This year’s contest has been dogged with controversy following the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and its decision to allow Israel to compete amongst the Israel-Palestine conflict. The move has been criticised as “cultural cover and endorsement for the catastrophic violence that Israel has unleashed on Palestinians” by organisations such as Queers for Palestine, who wrote an open letter to UK entry Olly Alexander to boycott the contest this year.
Last night (May 9), Israel’s entry Eden Golan qualified for Saturday’s grand final. In the hosting city of Malmö, protests by anti-war and pro-Palestinian voices included Greta Thunberg, while the entry’s dress rehearsal was booed by attendees.
Now, viewers have spoken to NME about whether they’ll be watching the contest this year, including Jay Aston from The Fizz (fka Buck’s Fizz). Aston was one of the original members of The Fizz, who won Eurovision in 1981 as the UK’s entry with ‘Making Your Mind Up’.
Aston told NME: “I’ll be watching it. I don’t suppose boycotting it is going to make any difference. Maybe the viewing figures might go down, but I don’t suppose it would change the outcome. Having been a winner and supported it for 43 years, I’m not going to change that.”
“It’s meant to be a bit of light-hearted entertainment,” she continued. “It’s been taken into a political arena. And it’s very sad because it shouldn’t be.”
When asked whether the EBU’s handling of the Israel-Palestine controversy has tainted her view of Eurovision, she responded: “I’ve never liked politics being brought into the competition. If you want to make it a political platform, then you should just cancel the show and never do it again. If that’s what people vote for, then that’s what will happen. But I suspect it will continue; you can’t possibly take Eurovision seriously.”
She also declined to comment on the EBU’s censorship of contestants such as Bambie Thug and Eric Saade, calling the situation “incredibly complex”.
Meanwhile, NME consulted Eurovision scholar Dean Vuletic, who has authored several works on the competition including Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest. He grew up in Australia watching the show thanks to his Croatian parents, organising Eurovision parties with his friends whilst studying at the Australian National University. He says he will still be watching the competition for research purposes: “Whatever politics there are, I’ll be there – I have to be a part of it for my research.”
Vuletic told NME that he believes the reason for Israel’s controversial inclusion in the competition this year is because the EBU “simply doesn’t have the political power to ban Israel.” The banning of Yugoslavia in 1992 for its role in the Yugoslav Wars, or Russia following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, occurred “in a broader context of international or European sanctions”, unlike the Israel-Palestine conflict.
“There are no international sanctions against Israel,” he continued. “This is why the EBU does not have any mandate to act – nor do its members, the public service broadcasting organizations. They don’t set the foreign policies of their countries, they follow the foreign policies of their governments. So they also don’t have a mandate to boycott the contest because of Israel’s participation.”
He also believes the calls to boycott won’t impact Eurovision’s future: “We have to also see how the situation goes in Gaza, how the war continues, the international reaction. That broader political context will determine Israel’s placing in Eurovision and in other international events, but for now, I don’t really see the situation changing.”
Comedian Sam Lake also voiced his decision to boycott to NME, having hosted Comedy Eurovision since 2020 and watched the contest since 2000. Lake, who also hosts his own podcast and is performing his new stand-up show Esmérelda, usually invites performers to submit comedy songs every year as an homage to the original competition.
However, Lake told NME there was a “collective” decision to cancel this year’s competition, saying: “We felt that was the best course of action for the show.” Lake is additionally boycotting watching the competition this year, adding: “I’m choosing not to watch just because I don’t think Israel should have been allowed to participate this year.”
“I find it really difficult to not see their participation as a form of propaganda,” he continued. “And I feel the way that the EBU has managed their participation has been very questionable. As much as a fan I am of Eurovision, I never want to lose the ability to criticize it. This year, it feels like the right thing to do to avoid watching.”
He said that although “Eurovision markets themselves as an apolitical event, and it’s trying to use music to unite all of these nations,” it was “hard to try and separate those two things” given the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict.
“I would still call myself a fan of Eurovision and I do hope changes are made in the future so that I would feel comfortable watching again,” he said. “A lot of those people that are being silenced right now make up a huge percentage of Eurovision fans. There has to be some kind of review of how they address issues like this in the future.”
NME also spoke to Jasmine Valentine, a film and TV critic who has watched Eurovision every year since 2006; this is the first year she will not be watching.
“Eurovision has always picked and chosen when it was going to be political,” she told NME. “This feels like a movement that’s bigger than the contest. And it’s the first time that I’ve seen really broad agreement that if we move in bigger numbers, this could really change something.”
Valentine called the EBU’s handling of the Israel’s participation “dreadful”, pointing to their condemnation of Swedish entry Eric Saade for wearing a Palestinian scarf on-stage (Saade is of half-Palestinian descent): “They’ve immediately said ‘we really regret that’ – he was wearing things of his own identity and culture. It’s just going to be consistently badly dealt with”
Asked whether the controversy has tainted her feelings toward Eurovision, Valentine specified it was the EBU which was tainted: “I was in Liverpool last year. We were all there united for putting on this great show for Ukraine, and that was really impactful. If we think back to when it was created in the 1950s to unite a war-torn Europe after WWII, I still believe that the core principle is still there somewhere.
“It’s the corporate and higher-up element that is filtering down these issues. From the from the ground up, there’s definitely still a little seed of positivity and goodness.”
Finally, musician Jason Kwan has told NME of their decision to boycott this year’s competition. Kwan is part of queer Asian cabaret collective The Bitten Peach, who were one of over 450 signatories of the open letter to Olly Alexander; however, Kwan specified the opinions expressed below were their own individual beliefs.
Kwan opened up to NME about the decision to sign the open letter, writing: “As a music artist, I strive to use my voice to stand up for those who are being wrongfully silenced.
“In 2021, I headlined a Queer House Party show at The Garage with The Bitten Peach, and we brought out Olly as a surprise performer after my set; Olly has always been a staunch amplifier of the community’s voice, so it has been disappointing to see Olly not stand with his community during a very crucial moment in time where he holds a lot of power and influence,” they continued.
“Boycotting Eurovision is a matter of challenging the foundations of what we accept and reject as a community of people who make up the fabric of UK music and culture,” they added, claiming that the contest was “inherently and explicitly political” due to the EBU’s decision to include Israel and to censor “pro-Palestinian artists, and even outwardly using the official social account to like problematic posts and block accounts who have provided genuine critique and questions around the EBU’s decisions.”
Kwan also shared they individually have been discussing “how we can supporting grassroot communities who are standing up against genocide” with those such as The Bitten Peach, ESEA Music Group, and other independent UK organisations and artists, clarifying it wasn’t just a case of boycotting Eurovision: “We must continue to challenge the decision-makers who choose to fuel genocide. That’s the real work.”
As such, Kwan will “absolutely be boycotting Eurovision this year”, adding: “In the past few days, we’ve seen the EBU censor performers like Bambie Thug and Eric Saade because of the performers’ pro-Palestinian messaging. Like a lot of mainstream media outlets, the EBU are continuing to silence pro-Palestinian voices and dehumanise the reality that people in Gaza are experiencing. It is inconceivable to me that people who say they support Palestine and are against genocide, are still flying out to watch Eurovision live or are posting in celebration of the contest, consciously accepting the EBU’s censorship and turning a blind eye to the atrocities being inflicted on Gaza.”
They added it was “very disheartening and infuriating to see how Eurovision has been handling this situation,” saying: “Eurovision will no longer be a home to the camp, the queer, and the vibrant performers of the world because they’ve chosen to silence the artists they previously sought to uplift. Eurovision’s allyship to the LGBTQIA+ community has become purely performative. The EBU’s actions, alongside all of their sponsors, have decided to permit pink-washing and enable genocide.”
Kwan concluded: “We must continue to call out organisations and individuals who hold privilege and power to be braver and stand up for Palestine in the midst of a humanitarian crisis. I still hope the artists competing this year will collectively take a stand and boycott the competition until our demands are met by the EBU.”
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Alex Rigotti
NME
