'It's like a big, gay, not-sportg event... wh song and dance,' that's how one LGBT+ fan scribed Eurovisn - but why this cult followg? | ITV Natnal News
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HOW EUROVISN BEME A GAY-IENDLY NTT
The LGBT muny’s passn for the Eurovisn Song Contt hardly began wh Concha Wurst’s triumph last year. The ternatnal TV and rad ntt has long been embraced by gay, lbian and transgenr… * gay eurovision contestants *
The ternatnal TV and rad ntt has long been embraced by gay, lbian and transgenr people tuned to s msage of uny.
Slowly, but surely, the LGBT (lbian, gay, bi and transgenr) muny found a welg home Europe’s annual mil extravaganza.
“We want to produce great TV shows that appeal to the greatt number of people: No matter where they are om, no matter if they are men or women, young or old, Europe or out, whe or black, homosexual or straight, ” Bakker poted out that Eurovisn remas a global event, watched by more than 180 ln viewers worldwi, om Portugal to Azerbaijan, and even Atralia, which was ved to participate this year’s edn. Pl Barn, a gay Brish man his fifti, has been a fan for s.
* gay eurovision contestants *
“Last year Concha Wurst was the perfect diva for gay people. Profsor Brian Sgleton, who holds the Samuel Beckett Chair of Drama and Theatre at Try College Dubl, and who wrote an article on the soclogy of Eurovisn for the Society of Queer Studi Journal 2007, said gay men growg up the 60s and 70s gravated toward the event while watchg at home wh their a time when social nventn told men to show extreme emotnal rtrat, Eurovisn was a wele breath of h air, acrdg to Sgleton. The glamour, the spectacle, ’s all those thgs that gay men vt to get away om the norms of masculy, ” noted on the worldIn the 60s and 70s Eurovisn was also a rare wdow on the world for Europeans still largely isolated om one another.
Sgleton, who remas a big Eurovisn fan to this day, argu that the opportuny to see people on TV who were different helped gay men accept themselv as beg outsi the norm, and even to celebrate that difference – a procs many gay men go through. “The people who take part Eurovisn don’t see each other as gay or straight. It’s jt one big meltg pot of var different backgrounds, and beg gay or straight is jt part of the mix.
“In the late 90s, there was already this well tablished associatn between Eurovisn and gay inti terms of fandom, ” said Cathere Baker, a historian at the Universy of Hull whose rearch foc on the 20th year 1998 marked a change for the televised ntt, one that would make evint s LGBT magism. “It was very obv that [the dience] was posed mostly of gay men, really sent a signal across Europe, ” Sgleton were also changg on stage.