Well, it's all over for another year. "Gay Christmas" came and went last night with 125 million viewers across the continent. Initial estimates suggest at least 126 million of these were gay men. Families at home, bars, and drunken Eurovision parties tuned in for the annual smörgåsbord of camp fabulousness. It's the yearly celebration of how deliciously bonkers we Europeans truly are.
It was a delight, for many reasons. One of these is that show has gone way past the stage of having only cult "irony" value for the sheer car-crash value of the horrendous acts and dreadful costumes. The Terry Wogan piss-take era is now firmly behind us, with some arguably very good chunes indeed. Heck, I wasted £4.74 on iTunes this morning frantically downloading some of them, so they must be good.
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Then we had the sets: Ukraine deserves a special mention inventing a whole new sexual fetish. This involves putting a totally fit guy dressed in a shirt and tie in a giant hamster wheel and asking him to run round and round for you. If you haven't yet tried it, I recommend you do. When gay Twitter discovered Hamster Man's amazingly sexy name was <ROMAN> it frankly imploded for several hours. Well, I had to lie down for a bit anyway.
TeamWurst
Eurovision 2014 will go down in history, though, for its result. Unless you're in some distant village in Outer Mongolia with yak mail being the only connection with the rest of the world, you'll know that a bearded drag queen from Austria, Conchita Wurst, took first prize. She didn't just win - she romped home with a massive 290 votes.
Conchita is exquisitely beautiful. She has a figure to die for. In her own words, she's a "singer in a fabulous dress, with great hair, and a beard." The new Queen of Europe is a bearded lady. Let's pause for a moment to consider her name: yes, it actually means "Pussy Sausage" in a combination of Spanish and German if you were wondering.
The person behind Conchita isn't transgender, unlike Sharon Cohen (Dana International) who took the Eurovision prize for Israel in 1998. Conchita is the stage persona of a 25 year old guy called Tom Neuwirth, who's from grew up in a provincial town of 3000 people in Styria. He's a gay man in drag. With a beard.
Russian politician Vitaly Milonov, one of the architects of the country's "gay propaganda" law last month called Eurovision a hotbed of sodomy and called for a Russian boycott of the show. He further called for the "pervert" Conchita to be excluded, and labelled her an "obvious transvestite". Regarding the latter claim, Vitaly, in other news bear shit was this morning discovered in the woods outside St Petersburg.
The Votes
Ten million people dialed in across the continent last night to vote in, to add their voice to the professional jury (since 2009 voting is 50/50 jury and popular vote). What they did was to confirm that this, our continent, is a far more liberal and tolerant place that many ever thought it was. Let's be honest: Conchita's song was fair to good. It wasn't a stand out winner if simply heard on the radio. It was the act that made this phenomenal: last night she looked a million Euro.
I watched a fascinating voting pattern: one after the other the ten countries with same sex marriage joined #TeamWurst, giving her full or nearly full marks. Belgium, Netherlands, UK, Spain, France, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Portugal: not one didn't do so. Countries where same sex is very much on the cards (Ireland and Finland) also joined them, as did some other countries you might not have expected to hand over the douze points: Hungary, Greece and Israel.
Moreover, if you strip out the jury votes and simply look at the popular votes, Conchita's popularity amongst the people of Europe was even more resounding. Her score goes up from 290 votes (a margin of 52 over the runner up, Netherlands) to 306 votes (86 votes clear). The juries are there for very good reason and the official score is all that matters - but what's clear from this is a reinforcement of the fact that people across Europe loved her.
Moreover, if you strip out the jury votes and simply look at the popular votes, Conchita's popularity amongst the people of Europe was even more resounding. Her score goes up from 290 votes (a margin of 52 over the runner up, Netherlands) to 306 votes (86 votes clear). The juries are there for very good reason and the official score is all that matters - but what's clear from this is a reinforcement of the fact that people across Europe loved her.
It just really struck me: is there anywhere else that would fall over itself to vote for a bearded drag queen if they had such a contest? I can't imagine this happening in a million years in the USA for example.
No Politics
The Eurovision Song Contest is older than the EU. It was created just 11 years after the Second World War. The armies of Hitler (that other Austrian whose facial hair is really rather famous) and Stalin had decimated Europe. It was set up to bring the people of Europe together: quite the tall order and amazingly idealistic given the time. Political statements are expressly forbidden.
2014 is the year of anniversaries. It's 100 years since the heir to the Austrian throne was assassinated at Sarajevo, plunging Europe into the hell of WW1. It's 75 years since Reichskristallnacht, when synagogues were burnt across Germany (and Austria): the precursor to both WW2 and the holocaust. It's 70 years since the D-Day landings and hope spread out over the continent like a slow-burning flame from the beaches of Normandy. It's also 70 years since the failed assassination attempt on Hitler by aristocratic German officers who paid with their lives. They had proposed a union of democratic European nations, with its capital in Vienna, the seat of the old Holy Roman Empire. It's 25 years since the Berlin Wall, the physical symbol of division across the continent, came crashing down, and Austria resumed its natural place at the cross-roads of a Europe that has been healing ever since.
WHAT symbolism then, that Conchita won this year, and next year Eurovision will take place in Vienna. Rainbow flags were flying everywhere in the audience last night. Conchita could not say what she wanted to because of the no-politics rule, but everyone knew exactly what she meant when she said:
"This is dedicated to everyone who believes in a future of peace and freedom. You know who you are. We are unity and we are unstoppable."
Yes, Conchita, we are. We are LGBT Europeans and the tens, if not hundreds, of millions of straight friends and supporters right across the continent.
So Proud to be European
What a different place this continent of ours has become. It's so easy to forget when you hear constantly the repugnant views of xenophobic, homophobic politicians reported across Europe and on our own doorstep (yes, UKIP, I'm looking at you).
The vote was a huge f*ck you of liberal values over the dying voice of social conservatism. It was an affirmation of anyone who has been different and been stigmatised because of it. It was the personal triumph of a schoolboy from Gmunden who grew up fancying other boys and wanting to wear frocks.
It was a peaceful, democratic, liberal Europe slowly but surely taking the lead dragging the world into a new century, exactly 100 years after it had plunged it into militaristic chaos and destruction. It's a new Europe that has voted for marriage equality in an increasing number of countries. It's by no means without its problems, but in so many respects, it's just such a great place to be.
I was so, so proud to be European last night. What a great side of people this brought out, and what an amazing, symbolically significant thing a camp song contest can be, particularly when a bearded lady wins it. Who'd ever have imagined it :-)
