The Eurovision Song Contest is an international song competition that takes place annually where representative of European countries come together and showcase their top musical talents to the world and decide which country has displayed the best talent. Debuting in 1956 (making it the longest running international televised music competition), despite how the contest parades diversity among ethnicities, cultures and even the LGBT community, it has been faced with criticism and controversies from other countries for their portrayals or inclusions of other cultures. Since it has been deemed a politically-based event, it raises the belief that political biases influence the voting and this proves to be a common threat that has impacted several of the events throughout the competition’s lifespan. So with that in mind, how does Eurovision as a concept teach people about the  spread of ideologies across cultural borders.

As a spectacle and as a viewing experience, Eurovision has been a growing project from when it started to how it has ended up. Originally it was just made up of seven participating countries, with two songs being performed between them to make up the event. But with the ever-changing world after 1956, like the deconstruction of the Soviet Union, the set-list of countries participating expanded and therefore grew to become a more diverse project. It sparked several covers of famous songs, as well as offering talent to the world which would lead to future careers and it would allow people from a variety of cultures view different forms of singers and dancers from different areas of the world. Being an event that is intently been watched throughout the years (2021 alone brought in over 183 million viewers across 36 markets, doing, as the statistics showed, 4% better than the previous year), the traction that this event gets worldwide unfortunately has its downsides as well. Since it’s an event that is shown between multiple cultures that don’t always share similar ideals or likes, it can cause a clash between what some want to see and what others don’t want to see.

On the less aggressive form of that statement, people’s personal taste in music can play a factor into whether or not they watch it, and Eurovision is known for picking songs that are not necessarily popular worldwide or even within their own countries, but rather ones that draw on a lot of cultural customs, which other countries may not connect with as much as themselves. Also, the more aggressive dangers of lacking similar ideas is on other countries’  stances of LGBT representation. Eurovision has a lot of LGBT representation among its contestants, but there are countries that aren’t as accepting of them as those who do allow it. An example of this was when the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) barred Mango TV,  one of China’s most popular TV channels, from airing the song contest after it censored LGBT elements within some of the performances. In a contest that features a lot of politics, ideologies are definitely going to clash. There was even debate that it influenced voting more than any cultural or talented reasoning, as mentioned in the ”The Eurovision Song Contest. Is voting political or cultural?”, written by Victor Ginsburgh and Abdul G. Noury.

Despite what Eurovision represents, there is always going to be a risk when combining cultures that everybody isn’t going to agree on the same thing. It runs the risk of when mixing ideologies that those against the other may ruin certain aspects of the event. However, it does still come with the positive side of those that are willing to accept the variety and diversity the contest brings.