Eurovision Rants

Rules are rules... right? (ESC/JESC)

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Well, as every major event, Eurovision has its own rules, and we all know them to some extent or the other. However, as much as Eurovision is still, as the name might say, a song contest - you still need to remember that it's a competition anyways, not every participants gets awards for participations like when we were children.

There's been several times when even the biggest of the people can by mistake or simply by forgetting - to break the rules once every so often.

Today we're talking about the EBU and how they seem to kinda overlook in the recent years several rules in both the actual Eurovision, but also in its much, much smaller spin-off - the Junior Eurovision.

Now, I must say firstly that it's not only the case in the recent years when this happens. Even if they weren't that huge back in the day (I mean, the fandom became pretty huge only in the 2010's period), it's still worth a mention.

Alright? Alright, let's just start.

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1. Foul language 

I think you're all aware of the ban of the foul language in Eurovision - it's been often done to censor several offensive words and replace it with something much accessible and... not offensive, obviously.

Like Sweden 2017 being requested to change "fucking beautiful" with "freaking beautiful", to give an example. Or in Czech Republic 2018 to replace "plenty motherfuckers" with "plenty of these greedies". Stuff like that.

However, there's quite been several acts which seemed to escape this rule by a long shot.

Russia 2007 is pretty much notorious for its vulgarity - yet Serebro kept it the exact same way, without any kind of replacing words or making the song any more "appropriate", to be precise. EBU let them pass either way. ("I've got my bitches standing up next to me.", as they would say.) 

And, I don't know if interval acts are worth a mention in this case, but let's say that Aqua's performance back in 2001 wasn't that child friendly when it comes to language. I'm dead serious.

2. The (in)famous September 1st deadline.

Usually when September begins, so does the opening of the submission list. Basically after September 1st, any song released can be eligible for Eurovision as long as they're under 3 minutes still.

Basically this rule mentions that "anything submitted or performed publicly before September 1st is prohibited from competing in Eurovision.

There's also been small leaks (like the demo of Belarus 2013 on MySpace).

It's easier when it's in a national selection though, the songs can be easily disqualified and no drama is made. Tayanna's original song for Vidbir 2018 wasn't eligible because she performed it publicly before the date of September 1st. Therefore, she used "Lelya" instead.