Spain: Destined to Lose Eurovision Once Again

Ah, Eurovision: the world's longest-running TV contest not solely for European countries. Recent participating countries include Australia and Israel. As an American, I just don't get what all the fuss is about for Europeans. One year I watched the international singing contest with my roommates. That was because I had no other plans, not because I was actively interested in seeing it. It also makes for a good topic to discuss the week after with some of my young students who are fans. We watch the best and worst performances and comment. 

While Eurovision itself is in late spring, the countries' internal competitions to choose a representative are well underway. In Spain, that task is relegated to the Benidorm Fest. Fourteen artists from around Spain were semifinalists, performing in the two concerts this past Wednesday and Thursday night. Way too early in the game for my interests to be piqued, but this year, like many other Galicians, the finals were personal. We were all rooting for our very own Tanxugueiras. 

As Tanxugueiras are a trio of Galician women who play the tambourine (traditional Galician instrument) as well as sing. Their music is a fusion of traditional folk and modern styles. Their song ¨Terra¨ got them to the semifinals and then finals in the contest to represent Spain. The hymn has a catchy ¨ai-la-la-la¨ refrain, typical in Galician music but usually not as epic as in this song. It's bewitching. Powerful. The message-- in addition to roots and feminism-- is, ¨Non hai fronteiras,¨ there are no borders. It would have been the first time ever that Spain sent a song in Galician to compete in Eurovision. Take a look at their performance and judge for yourself: 

While gathered around the TV, ready to support our ¨local team,¨ we also viewed the performances of the other seven finalists. Well, six, because one was confined with COVID. For me, the Tanxugueiras were fantastic, of course. The only other artist who stood out for me was Rigoberta Bandini with a catchy and yet somewhat radical tune, ¨Ay Mamá.¨ At that point, I had been bregrudgingly trying to accept defeat (said like a sports fan, who takes every team loss as a personal one) to her and her song. The crowd loved her --hey, they also loved the Tanxugueiras! And the song was good. In all fairness, both seemed like ideal options for Eurovision. Although once again, I am not a Eurovision professional. But most people agreed that these were the ¨only possible choices.¨ At no point did it cross my mind that the singer who ended up winning was even to be considered a potential rival. 

The system to determine who goes on to represent Spain in Eurovision works as follows: 

• 50% of the score was based on the so-called ¨professional jury.¨ This jury was made up of three Spanish women and two European men, all related to the world of showbiz.  
• 25% was based on viewer votes via texts messages and phone calls
• 25% was based on the opinion of a carefully-chosen group of Spaniards meant to represent all of the demographic groups

As they announced the scores on Saturday night, the jury gave a pathetic amount of points to the Tanxugueiras. Unfortunately, this wasn't a huge surprise. Days earlier, the Galician trio had only been able to move onto the finals thanks to the public's high opinion of them. Afterwards it had also been revealed that while the two European judges had given the Tanxugueiras high scores, the three Spanish judges were the ones who skewed the count. In the semifinal, when the judges' scores had been revealed, you could hear the audience booing them, so much so that the festival host had to intercede. Back in the finals, in both of the categories based on public opinion, the Tanxugueiras got the MAXIMUM number of points. The people have spoken! But all thanks to the jury, they will not move on to Eurovision. Instead, Spain will be sending a singer reminiscent of J.Lo or Beyoncé. How original! We've never seen anything like that before!

As you can imagine, following this incident, social media in Galicia and even Spain was filled with outrage. How very democratic: the people selected their favorites and a jury of five people denied the whole country its preferred representatives. Could they not stand to see a song in Galician represent Spain in such an international competition? If that's the case, their selection isn't much more Spanish. The song is in Spanish, sure, but with a bunch of random English thrown in to be nearly unintelligible. It has also come to light that the winner has had a working relationship with one of the jurors. So much for an unbiased jury! 

Twelve hours later, and I am still just as outraged and incredulous. ¨Non me entra na cabeza,¨ it does't fit in my head; I cannot possibly fathom how some ¨professionals¨ thought that a run-of-the-mill reggaeton song was the best choice for Eurovision. Some have expressed hopes that Portugal takes the Tanxugueiras as their own and goes on to win the whole competition. After all, Galician and Portuguese were once the same language. That'd be wonderful, but I won't get my hopes up. All I can say is at least I'll have plenty to talk about this week with my students.