U.K. Eurovision entry! A lot of pearl clutching

[Colourofspring]

The outrage and comments I have seen about Olly Alexander’s performance is baffling to be honest. So much pearl clutching! Eurovision has always been completely camp and outrageous and yet suddenly he has been portrayed as some kind of disgrace and not representative of the UKs ‘values’ (what the fuck does that mean anyway?)

I like the song, I have seen him perform live at Glastonbury with years and years, he’s good live. Yes he’s openly gay - so what? Surely UK values should be based around tolerance and acceptance and not hysteria because his performance is considered risqué. Would it be considered the same if it was a load of half naked female dancers?

I am heterosexual but not offended by it - it’s just a performance - I hope he wins as he’s a nice guy!

So much pearl clutching!

If the female dancers were simulating scissoring or a similar sex act then yes I am sure there would be complaints. As in my own comment on this thread, even if it was a heterosexual dance routine, people still don't need to see it especially not when children across the world are watching.

I initially read the intro to this thread pre-Eurovision watching. Was disappointed he had faced homophobia etc.

His routine (and others!) were unnecessarily sexual though. Finland’s was also weird, and Spain’s dancers…!

Camp is fun, overtly sexual I dislike more.

I am the only straight girl in my friendship girl with the rest comprising of gay, lesbian, trans and pan. Their experiences have for the most part been accepting bar the odd one or two. A lot less than abuse I have received off straight men, but that is a whole other issue. If I said from my experiences through my friends it seems accepting, would I also be incorrect?

I am simply relaying mine and my friends experiences. I know that my area is quite tolerant and I accept that it's not the case everywhere, but straight or gay this person is allowed their opinion whether it agrees with yours or not!

I would have found it just as distasteful if a man was hanging out the back end of a woman on global supposedly family friendly tv. I have no issues to exposing my children to all the sexualities but soft porn is a hard no for me, no matter the genders/sexualities involved.

I can control what music videos my children can watch with age restrictions and monitoring their Internet use. However there were no warnings that this show may no longer be suitable for younger viewers

Ultimately people made their feelings clear through voting so any country that enters with any hope of winning needs to take note.

Eurovision loves camp. But they love family friendly camp. No overtly sexual performance has ever won the contest.

I suspect Olly didn't give a shit. He said he entered to promote his new album. I suspect that's somewhat backfired in that he hasn't probably gained as many fans as he'd hoped. But my impression is he was in it for self promotion. Nothing else.

Before anyone says well that's why everyone enters. No it's not. For many there is a genuine pride in representing their country and appearing in eurovision. Which is why Sam R did so well. He was genuinely chuffed to bits to be there and it showed and won him fans and a good score.

Yes definitely also Linda Smith as well.
Just laughed at your username. Friends reference?

Is it really homophobic to find obscene gyrations in what looks like a public toilet or locker room distasteful?

This comment is quite ironic given that seconds into a song OA simulated deep throat with the microphone.

As an aside, how is the singer for Eurovision picked? I could have swore it used to be a public vote? Was it a public vote this year?

or have I made it up and there’s never been a public vote?

Some years they do a public vote and some not. Think it depends on what the powers that be choose for that year

I don’t remember there being a public vote for years though.

Thank you. I thought there used to be. I, vaguely, remember a family member having people over for the vote and show. She loves Eurovision. But I thought I might be confused and it was just for the show.

I remember being in labour through one of the 'song for Europe' type shows, and thinking ' this is crap' while DH was trying to stick the tens machine pads on! So they had one 16 years ago. I think they should do it that way again. Clearly whoever is choosing now has no idea what the public wants to vote for!

It used to be a family show a bit cheesey but good for all ages. Now that definitely isn’t the case.

All of this.

It showed a massive lacking of self awareness on OA behalf and a misplaced sense of his level of fame / popularity.

For the first forty plus years it was judged by a jury of music professionals from each participating country. It had to be structured that way from the start as in 1956 lots of households couldn't afford a phone and even those who had one, didn't have money to piss away voting on a tv contest. And even as phones and more disposable income became completely standard in richer western countries, it wasn't the case among all newer entrant countries.

By the millenium that had changed, telecommunication devices were the norm and tv shows like Big Brother had shown the massive amount of money to be made from phone in voting. So the Eurovision turned to a public phone in vote. Which was ultimately a bit of a shit show. It was common for national publics to vote either resoundingly for or against neighbours depending on current politics. Or countries with large immigrant populations from one country would vote massively for their home country.

After about a decade of that, they came up with the current system, which is a 50/50 split between a jury vote and a public vote. Though there has been criticism of that system too. I actually think Ukraine's Mama Stephanie was a very good song, mainly for the really cool flute part. But realistically, they won in 2022 as a sympathy vote. There was a lot of controversy last year that Loreen scored so highly with the judges because the EBU really wanted to have Sweden win for ABBA's 50th anniversary. Which rumoured to be why the Finnish guy ran around the stage with his dick out at this years competition. And we've already had a Norwegian judge this year saying he wouldn't vote for Hurricane due to the conflict in Gaza, which completely defeats the purpose of the professional judging.

Aaaaannnnddd, I read back through half the posts there, missed the original question and posted a load of irrelevant shite.

As you were.

i loved your so called irrelevant shite and found it very interesting!

Probably choose whoever’s matey and hanging around coked up with the BBC producers at the time.

They should get whoever left of stock, Aitken and Waterman to write a song!