„ESC2014 – Austria 02“ by Albin Olsson – licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 Wikimedia Commons

Europe goes Austria, at least in terms of music. After Austria won the Eurovision Song Contest 2014, it is now our turn to host this year’s musical event on its 60th anniversary. And Austria is excited about it, ever since the bearded lady with the gorgeous voice took home the title.

The ESC

The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) is an annual song competition between the countries of the European broadcasting Union since 1956. In 2015 the ESC will take part for the 60th time and the event night in Vienna will be broadcasted all over the world. Originally the ESC was invented, to bring a sense of unity to the war-torn Europe of the 50ies. In the age of casting shows, the format doesn’t require much explanation: Each participating country submits one song, which will then be performed live, and voted on by the other countries. The song with the most votes takes home the title for the next year and receives massive international publicity. In the prematch of the main event many countries hold national competitions, to let the audience decide, who is going to represent their nation.

Eurovision Song Contest 2015 in Vienna

With the Slogan “Building Bridges” Vienna is going to be the host of this year’s competiotion and has invited Europe to compete under the banners of partnership and tolerance. The whole event will take place from 19th until the 23rd of May, when the competitors will face each other in the finale. Austria has chosen The Makemakes to represent the country with their song “I am Yours”.

Vienna in the meantime has been preparing for weeks to host a glamorous spectacle and to follow up the huge success of Copenhagen in 2014 with the fabulous win of Conchita Wurst. And Conchita?

Conchita Wurst

It has been a while, since the whole world was looking at Austria with honest pride, but Conchita Wurst managed to set an international example for tolerance towards transsexuals and shed a bright light on Austria, that no one expected to ever shine brightly, not even Austrians. Once an Austrian citizen manages to gain worldwide recognition for his or her achievements, Austria tends to hype this person, regardless of what was said and written about that person in the past. No matter if that is an actor, sportstar or a bearded lady, like Conchita Wurst. The disputes and public agitations about a bearded woman representing our conservative country were loud in the prematch of the event and soon forgotten after. Conchita Wurst, literally “rose like a phoenix” and brought colour to Austria, she succeeded not only musically but also as an ambassador of tolerance. Today she is put on screen whenever possible and luckily beyond critique. When people consider a beautiful women with a beard on their television screens as totally normal, they may tolerate other issues in society also more easily.
And Conchita? Conchita Wurst is just a pseudonym, but one that seems comfortable in the spotlight. Conchitas career just kicked off last year and the status as a national symbol fits her very well, she plays her part in the public business as smartly and willingly as ever. By winning the contest Conchita managed to kick-start her career and has the chance to walk in the footprints of superstars like ABBA, Céline Dion or Julio Iglesias, who all share her fate as ESC winners.

Author: Stefan Schallert