Country branding is integral to a countries prosperity, economy and
diversity. With our ever-globalized world, countries rely on setting forth a good
image to excel in trade, investors, consumers, tourism, etc. Merriam-Webster defines a brand as “a public image,
reputation, or identity conceived of as something to be marketed or promoted”
(“brand”, 2010). Finland as any other country does, engages in nation branding
in some way. To apply Merriam-Webster’s definition of brand with nation added
in front, it could be described as the public image a nation as a whole puts
forward with the use of national identity as a cornerstone. Some countries take
Eurovision seriously by the fact that they carefully select songs that will
represent their country ideally on the stage, but others who don’t particularly
need to engage in nation branding won’t be so serious. My first blog post
didn’t do the best job at identifying Finland’s national identity, I just
scratched the surface of what it meant to be Finnish.
Going back to my
first blog post, I want to touch on the facet I discussed most which was the
importance of Finnish history to its national identity. Even though many
discussions of nationalism accredit education as a key factor, most don’t go
into depth about the “spatial and social experiences and the roles of the
generations in nation-building”(Paasi, 1997 p.48). An example of this would be
Finland’s history of conflict. With The Winter War of 1939-40 in perspective,
the historical consciousness of the people was affected greatly, uniting the
country against Russia, and muddying the lines between the Red and White Finns who
fought each other during the civil war of 1918. “The fact that Finland’s
history has been a history of conflict puts emphasis on military aspects as a
source of national identity”(Paasi, 1997 p.48). This sense of unity can be
carried into the Eurovision Song Contest.
Another
characteristic of Finland that I should have gone in-depth in was the LGBTQ
friendliness as a country. Finland ranks 5th on Rainbow Europe’s
list of LGBTI friendly countries based on the social climate and an annual
review of the human rights situation (Rainbow Europe, 2015). Being a very
inclusive country when it comes to sexual orientation and LGBTQ rights, there’s
no reason why they shouldn’t brand themselves as such in the Eurovision Song
Contest. That kind of approach was visible in their 2018 entry of Saara Aalto’s
Monsters which I analyzed in my second blog post. The ESC became a site for
LGBT politics in 1997 with the first trans woman (Dana International) to
perform on stage at the ESC. The contest could not have become a site of these
politics without the growth of “a narrative of progression in terms of sexual
citizenship linked to European liberalization”(Baker, 2017 p.99). European
liberalization refers to the time frame that many European countries made LGBT
inclusivity a part of “European Identity” during the 1990s and 2000s. Finland’s
actions fit in this time frame regarding legal rights for the LBGT community
such as the right to change gender instated in 2003, or making it illegal to
discriminate against in 2004. One can see that Finland is pretty progressive in
that sense. So how does that translate over to their Eurovision performances
specifically in the years 2017 and 2018?
First it is
important to understand whether art should be separated from the artist, or in
the ESC’s case, the artist from the country. The Eurovision Song Contest is
clearly more about the country than the artist. That is evident from how the introduction
of the acts are set up, with the countries name in bold and center, and the
artists down below in a smaller font. When the audience is watching they have
that country in mind, and when they vote they vote for a countries name, not
the artist. With just those small factors the emphasis is placed on the
country, and how the country is represented through the performance. From when
they are chosen to represent their country to when they perform, they are
mainly a face for the country they are performing for. Sometimes the performers
ideals and message of that performance aligns with the nations brand, and
sometimes it doesn’t. When looking at
Finland’s 2017 entry, Norma John’s Blackbird, it doesn’t seem to have a
particular message that would be essential if they were partaking in nation
branding. In my second blog post, I looked at how Blackbird acted as a simple
love ballad with great staging and singing, but offered no deeper meaning when
relating back to Finland (Eurovision Song Contest, 2017). That song sadly
didn’t make it into the finals, so Finland comes back in 2018 with a stronger
contender.
Saara Aalto’s
Monsters is a perfect example of nation branding on the Eurovision stage. It is
clear that in this day and age, the submissions should be inclusive and
progressive for the global audience. Finland didn’t do so well in 2017, so they
come back the next year with a strong song about the LGBTQ community overcoming
insecurities and letting go of their demons. This performance would be seen as
homo-nationalism, the way nations have made queer politics mainstream to
promote their nation as progressive. Monsters isn’t seen as pink-washing which
is the insincere use of LGBT narratives to appeal to a more liberal audience
because Finland is actually very inclusive and can promote these messages
because of that. It doesn’t seem like it was forced at all. The change in songs
from 2017 to 2018 could be a sign that Finland wants to take Eurovision more
seriously, and employ the strategy of nation branding through Eurovision.
One would think that such a strong
and important message would be received with great applause, but that isn’t the
case looking at where Finland scored in the final. Coming in second to last
place it’s bewildering because the song is not terrible, the message is clean
and powerful, and the staging is great. So why did the song do so terribly? Looking
back at the staging, the first full minute of the song, she isn’t facing the
audience. She starts to sing and rotates in the wheel, but not while facing the
audience and the jury. This could create some disconnect with the people. Another
aspect of the performance that could have possibly contributed to its downfall
was the sexual nature of the dancing and costumes. Some viewers or jury members
from more conservative countries may not have voted for Saara Aalto after
seeing the fetishistic leather harnesses on the backing dancers, or the sensual
dancing at the timestamp 1:24 (Eurovision Song Contest, 2018).
It seems that Finland took 2018’s
contest more seriously and decided to showcase their progressiveness in the
performance, but to some it may have been too much. They clearly employed
nation branding with her performance, and for some reason it didn’t work out. I
certainly think it was an amazing performance by Saara and deserved higher up
in the rankings, but that doesn’t matter at this point. Looking at the song
chosen for 2019, just by reading the lyrics I think it is about climate change.
So they will try again this year with another social message to the world,
hopefully this time it lands with the audience.
Word count: 1216
References
Aalto,
Saara. (2018). Monsters (Finland). Eurovision
Song Contest Lisbon [DVD]. NYC, USA: Warner Music Finland.
Baker, C. (2017). The ‘gay Olympics’? The Eurovision song contest and
the politics of LGBT/European belonging. European Journal of International
Relations, 23(1), 97-121.
brand.
(2019). In Merriam-Webster.com.
Retrieved March 18,
2019, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/brand
Country Ranking. (2015). Retrieved from https://rainbow-europe.org/country-ranking
Norma
John. (2017). Blackbird (Finland). Eurovision
Song Contest Kiev [DVD]. London, UK: EMI Finland.
Paasi, A.
(1997). Geographical perspectives on Finnish national identity. GeoJournal,
43(1), 41-50. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41147118
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