Australia’s participation in this year’s Eurovision song contest has raised a lot of questions, not least about Australia’s place in a modern Europe, but most of those doubts were eliminated at about 7am local time when Jessica Mauboy got into the competition’s grand final with a barnstorming version of ‘We Got Love’.
And it’s great to see Mauboy respect the traditions of the competition by incorporating hand gestures, a big hair-flick nod and some mad pelvic work to her performance, not to mention some strong pointing-down-the-barrel-of-the-camera-to-you-the-voting-public, which at least partially overcame her song’s inexplicable failure to have an uplifting key change. Seriously, Mauboy, you’re bringing a knife to a gun fight here.
And we know how that works.
Anyway, the important thing is that she’s in the finals and therefore all Australians are obliged to support her blindly and fervently, in the tradition of any Australian in any type of competition anywhere.
Don’t care about singing competitions? You do now. ‘We Got Love’ not really to your taste? It’s now your favourite song ever, even more than ‘Khe Sahn’ or ‘Down Under’. If Australia could suddenly discover a deep passion for soccer when the Socceroos unexpectedly found themselves in World Cup contention, then our front bars should now be filled with middle aged tradies earnestly discussing the challenges of a bloc-based voting system and the odds of another English-language song winning the competition.
“Whooo! 12 points from Estonia!”
And while Mauboy is one of the hotly tipped performers, its worth remembering that Australia won’t even get to host the event if we win – competition rules state that Eurovision must be held in a European country, if only to avoid the risk of crippling time differences.
Mind you, Australia would be up for filling an auditorium with hysterical Eurovision fans at 4am local time, right? Again, NATIONAL PRIDE, people.