Tuesday, March 6, 2007
In case you haven't been following this story...
An Israeli musical combo called the "Teapacks" have been selected to represent Israel at some Euro-gala called the Eurovision Song Contest -- sort of a big battle of the bands thing -- with their song, Push the Button. The weenies who run the thing are considering banning them since their song has some political content -- you know, about not wanting to be nuked or something. Now I don't think much of the "song," but hey, kids and their music these days...
Tundra Tabloids has discovered that this isn't the first time a political song about nukes has been allowed in the competition ('80's fashion warning)...but, y'know, these are Israelis ('nuff said), and those guys were singing about American nukes.
Look at it this way -- if Israel successfully increases the politicization of Eurovision (25 year old counterexample notwithstanding), what do you think *next* year's songs are going to be? It's not in Israel's interest to open this can of worms, especially given the lousiness (even by Eurovision standards) of the song.
Anyway, a more amusing Eurovision story is the Bulgarian entry that was disqualified for ripping off a Subliminal song, down to the chorus in Hebrew.
Well John, you can't imagine that that one previous example was the single song with some sort of political content in it...it's just one very parallel example. And it's not like the Israeli song is saying "Fuck Iran" or something.
I don't follow Eurovision closely, but I don't think even this level of politics is common. (Certainly, if criticism of Israel with a similar tone were making it in, I'm sure it would have been a prominent story in Haaretz.)
Anyway, to the degree that there is a double standard against Israel, that seems all the more reason for Israel not to demand more politicized content! Again, what do you think next years entries would be?