{"id":834,"date":"2016-03-15T21:41:06","date_gmt":"2016-03-15T21:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chgs-blog.org\/?p=834"},"modified":"2016-03-15T21:41:06","modified_gmt":"2016-03-15T21:41:06","slug":"eurovision-genocide-comes-to-pop-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/eurovision-genocide-comes-to-pop-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Eurovision: Genocide Comes to Pop Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"esc-2016\"Eurovision Song Contest has served as a platform to strengthen both national and European identities and embrace diversity throughout every nation for over 60 years. \u00a0The show\u2019s vast influence expands to an audience of approximately 180 million people all over the world. Its expansive reach has not only sparked the careers of various performers, it has also allowed for the television program to have social, political, and cultural influence.<\/p>\n

The televised contest does have strict rules; songs that promote political messages are disqualified from entry. \u00a0In 2009, the song \u201cWe Don\u2019t Wanna Put In<\/a>\u201d was the Georgian entry. The song contained negative political references to Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister of Russia, and provided a critical Georgian perspective on the war between Georgia and Russia in 2008. Because of the song\u2019s strong political message and references, the European Broadcasting Union ruled that the song would have to be rewritten or a new song would have to be chosen. Georgia did not comply with this ruling, and therefore withdrew from the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Despite this, many countries have still used songs to indirectly address political tensions and social issues and catalyze activism. In 1998, a transsexual Israeli, Dana International, won the Eurovision Song Content. Her win was seen as a victory for human rights and equality and a huge breakthrough for trans visibility. Dana International<\/a>\u2019s performance was important not only because of its impact on LGBT issues, but it demonstrated the power the Eurovision competition could have to sway public opinion on social issues in a wider context.<\/p>\n

\"2016-03-15_1635.png\"Last year, Armenia\u2019s entry was a power ballad entitled \u201cDon\u2019t Deny<\/a>.\u201d The 2015 Eurovision Song Contest coincided with the 100-year anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. While the head of Armenia\u2019s Eurovision Delegation, Gohar Gasparyan, said the song was \u201cabout love, unity and peace: the family as a symbol of humanity, alternation of generations, the bird as a symbol of peace, the keeper of the national values and tradition,\u201d many speculated that the song was aimed at Turkey, who continues to deny the Armenian Genocide. While the song drew some controversy due to its political interpretation, the Armenian Delegation chose to keep the lyrics to the song and changed only the title to \u201cFace the Shadow.\u201d This decision was a response to Turkish and Azerbaijani claims that Armenia was politicizing the music contest. A petition had been launched by Eurovision\u2019s Turkish fans calling for Armenia\u2019s disqualification. The Armenian performance kickstarted an international conversation about the Genocide and Turkey\u2019s continued denial.<\/p>\n

\"2016-03-15_1634\"This year, Ukraine\u2019s entry has raised controversy. The song \u201c1944<\/a>\u201d addresses the deportation of 240,000 Crimean Tatars to Central Asia by Joseph Stalin in 1944. Between 20 and 50 percent of those deported died within the first two years of deportation. On November 11, 2015 the Ukraine parliament adopted a resolution that recognized the mass deportation of Crimean Tatars to Central Asia as genocide and declared May 18 as a Day of Remembrance for victims. The song opens with the lyrics: \u201cWhen strangers are coming. They come to your house, they kill you all and say \u2018We\u2019re not guilty. Not guilty.<\/em>\u2019\u201d Despite this unequivocal message to Russia, the European Broadcasting Union has decided that the song\u2019 content is historical rather than political and does not break any rules.<\/p>\n

While \u201c1944\u201d does not directly address recent tensions between Russia and Ukraine as a result of Russia\u2019s 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula, the song certainly creates a space to discuss human rights violations on the peninsula and resulting consequences. The song also creates a dialogue to discuss the relationship between pop culture and traumatic memory. How soon is too soon? The withdrawn Georgian entry from 2009 was seen as too political, likely because it addresses an event that happened the previous year and current tensions. Pop culture has been a growing platform to discuss human rights abuses and has made the conversation more accessible to an increasing number of people around the world. Can it be used to discuss recent and ongoing atrocities? Eurovision Song Contest creates a unique platform where it lets contestants paint an entire picture through song. Can and should other pop culture mediums replicate this?<\/p>\n

Alexandra Steinkraus is an undergraduate student at the University of Minnesota, pursuing a degree in Global Studies with concentrations in East Asia and Human Rights and Justice. Her areas of academic interests include media representations of crimes against humanity, global refugee policy, sociology of foreign media in North Korea, and the United Nations.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eurovision Song Contest has served as a platform to strengthen both national and European identities and embrace diversity throughout every nation for over 60 years. \u00a0The show\u2019s vast influence expands to an audience of approximately 180 million people all over the world. Its expansive reach has not only sparked the careers of various performers, it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2081,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[142],"tags":[51251,52437,2694,65445,263,1134],"class_list":["post-834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-alexandra-steinkraus","tag-armenia","tag-eurovision","tag-georgia","tag-israel","tag-ukraine"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/holocaust-genocide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}