For s legn of gay fans, Eurovisn has long been more than a song ntt.
Contents:
- HOW EUROVISN BEME A GAY-IENDLY NTT
- MAE MULLER ON ‘I WROTE A SONG’ ORIGS, RA SAWAYAMA, AND BEG A ‘GAY IN’
- IS EUROVISN A GAY EVENT? LGBT PERFORMANC THROUGHOUT THE HISTORY OF THE NTT
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… * eurovision gay icon *
Subwoolfer performs Tuday on behalf of Bertorello / AFP - Getty ImagHostg the extravaganza will also be two beloved out gay stars: sger Mika, who’ll be live om Tur as an onse host for the global dience, and Olympian turned NBC mentator Johnny Weir, who’ll emcee the exclive Amerin feed of the broadst on Peack. Mar Bertorello / AFP - Getty ImagSystur’s folk ballad Eurovisn entry, “Með hækkandi sól” (“Wh the Risg Sun”), is an o to the promise of the sun’s warmth and light overg the ld darkns of lyrics of Atralian nttant Sheldon Riley’s song, “Not the Same, ” also celebrate light shg through a broken darkns — and have ronated so strongly wh some LGBTQ fans that the song is beg hailed as a gay anthem.
“So the ia of beg gay and beg all of those thgs that Eurovisn is so proud of beg wasn’t acceptable for me, was jt this thg that was nstantly prayed over.
‘We pray that Sheldon will be a real man; we pray that Sheldon won’t be gay, will be straight, will have a wife, will have kids. Loreen speaks exclively wh GAY TIMES about her Eurovisn experience – past and prent – and how the LGBTQ+ muny weled her after g out as bisexual. Eleven years ago, Loreen stormed the Eurovisn stage wh her ld sg-along smasher and gay favoure Euphoria.
MAE MULLER ON ‘I WROTE A SONG’ ORIGS, RA SAWAYAMA, AND BEG A ‘GAY IN’
'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 * eurovision gay icon *
While Loreen don’t necsarily believe “wng”, she tells GAY TIMES that if Tattoo reigns supreme, would “mean that [the world is] headg the right directn” as a rult of s universal them of ‘strength and love’. Ahead of the Eurovisn Song Contt – which airs s fal on 13 May – we ught up wh Loreen to discs the track (the favoure to w this year, jt FYI), how the LGBTQ+ muny “accepted” her after she me out as bisexual and her pick for Eurovisn’s gayt ever song. Eurovisn is also our home bee ’s such a gay, mp event.
Loreen, tell me this: what do you thk is the gayt song Eurovisn history? The gayt song? This terview featur the May 2023 edn of GAY TIMES Magaze.
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.
IS EUROVISN A GAY EVENT? LGBT PERFORMANC THROUGHOUT THE HISTORY OF THE NTT
Pl Barn, a gay Brish man his fifti, has been a fan for s. “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.