And Tom Neuwirth, 25, wins
Published:
May 11, 2014 at 12:18am
The most successful drag act ever – and all achieved by keeping the beard on to remind people that a drag act is just that. If you can’t win with a good song, you’ve got to win with the unexpected.
In this case, Austria had an unbeatable combination of both.
Malta placed 23rd out of 26 countries, with 32 points compared to Austria’s 290.
Who voted for Malta?
UK (10)
Azerbaijan (5)
The Netherlands (5)
San Marino (4)
Ireland (3)
Finland (3)
Albania (1)
Italy (1)
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What a circus.
The Eurovision is a circus.
It is only here in Malta that we take it seriously. Then we make a circus out of government, which is where the Europeans take things seriously.
“It is only here in Malta that we take it seriously.”
Exactly, who told you that?
Deliberately a circus. But the other Malta doesn’t get it.
The ‘other Malta’ gave it 10 points, Fenech.
The Eurovision is at its best when it is not taken seriously and used as a platform for mockery. Otherwise it is dull and utterly boring.
Good job Austria.
What a wonderful victory for all of us who espouse liberal, progressive values, who embrace diversity and strive to be the Best in Europe. I am sure our Prime Minister will agree when I say that Tom Neuwirth is a soldier of steel who deserves a Gieh ir-Republika.
Will this do?
Next year we should send Cyrus, with a song called ‘Pendrive’.
I don’t think he’s man enough to grow a beard.
I hear Cyrus was so delighted he sent a proposal in writing, avec pictures. Conchita had better watch it.
Actually, I think he/she’s quite serious about the whole drag persona. Conchita identifies as gender neutral, and believe it or not, some activists on the more extreme end of the LGBT spectrum argue that genders are social constructs rather than hard-wired biological properties.
According to this radical ideology, it’s unfair for people to be pigeon-holed into one particular gender, but ought to decide whether to identify as a male, a female, anything in between, or nothing at all.
I’m not saying I agree with the above – I don’t actually, at all.
That’s very 1900s Vienna, isn’t it?
Yes, as gender is not the same as biological sex.
What a joke.
Natius got there before everyone.
https://scontent-a-fra.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/t1.0-9/10320614_830627616967271_3322659089389185551_n.jpg
Halli ghalih biex ma jmurx jippoza u jiddeffes.
He was probably offering his depilation services.
It was a great exhibition of tolerance, diversity and peace, everything that Europe stands for. With all her power, Russia did not make it, a drag queen held evil Russia down… hu go fik Putin!
At least someone looked at it from that angle. Well done.
If it had to send a clear message, most welcome.
The crossing of iconography, intentional or not, lent it a multiple layering of very strong images.
The song, as usual, was a cliche’.
More successful than Dame Edna?
Austria had a great song and an unbeatable act. It’s a pity Sweden didn’t place higher.
I dedicate Belgium’s song to all Maltese men (if you can’t see anything wrong with it, it’s definitely dedicated to you):
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=APWpOkRQoiY
The “beard” looks artificial. It’s probable that this man takes females hormones to appear feminine and, if this is the case, it would be very difficult to have such thick and uniform facial hair.
If a bearded lady-boy with a Shirley Bassey song can win, surely Malta should consider ‘Gorg u Pawlu’ with an Elvis song.
How many votes did we give Romania?
I think that photograph doesn’t really do credit to what the act was about tonight.
A straight, slim minute figure wrapped in a caste garment covering everything but the face and palms.
The innocent, undefined, rises like a phoenix in flames of gold.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Gustav_Klimt_016.jpg
Camera work was either rigidly straight on from below or the facial expression.
http://www.artrenewal.org/pages/artwork.php?artworkid=6984&size=large
As for the beard, it was the key to tap into Van Toorop’s mesmerising symbolism.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/50/Interieur._Detail_glas-in-loodraam_van_Toorop_bij_glasatelier_Wiegen%2C_Nijmegen_-_Nijmegen_-_20337443_-_RCE.jpg/764px-Interieur._Detail_glas-in-loodraam_van_Toorop_bij_glasatelier_Wiegen%2C_Nijmegen_-_Nijmegen_-_20337443_-_RCE.jpg
Neuwirth has the face and the round wide eyes Zeffirelli would kill for.
Yep, very European. Have to say, up yours Putin.
[Daphne – Actually, the point everyone is missing is that not only is he Jewish, but he has the textbook, classic Jewish face. It was the first thing I noticed about him, prompting me to check. This gives the whole thing a lot more significance, especially in view of Austria’s history, and would account for a great deal of the hostility from Russia when coupled with the rest.]
That explains the 12 points from Israel.
But how would it explain the 12 points from all those other countries? And the 10 points from Malta?
The made in China spoof was a novel idea, to put it mildly.
And what does Putin have to do with it, Jozef? No, really, just curious. To my mind, you’re both missing the point, and definitely misreading the Russian vote.
It may come as a surprise to you, Jozef, that Putin is considered by the free press as a beacon of reason, hope and sanity in a world gone utterly mad. Even the cynics were won, if only by the measure of the West’s bewildering level of deception in the face of indisputable facts – about which you never read, or are only fed distorted versions that fit the myth.
The reason why this makes no sense to you is because you’ve been living on a staple of trash news your whole life. The bearded lady-boy is just another symptom of a much larger malaise. You could be the cleverest ant, but an ant’s twisted view is all you get.
Welcome to a new norm, Jozef: gender-bending bearded transvestites – the cutting edge of European culture and tradition, courtesy of Putin’s enemies.
Coming down on gays to preempt the Orthodox rite and drive a rift with Bergoglio’s Vatican to stoke anti European sentiment won’t work.
Ever heard of the symbolist movement? it’s the quintessence of Mittel Europe. It flourished when humanism reached the end of its aesthetical journey, indeed symbolists realised abstraction demanded the subjugation of symbols to ‘depict’ art and drew these directly instead.
Napolenonic portraits were so last year.
The more radical insisted it wasn’t even enough, that any reference, use and reliance on symbol was a barrier to free composition.
Deconstruct they said, Dada replied some, futurismo replied others (were those obsessed with energy), cubism still others.
To think deconstructivism was born in Russia. Or better, its exponents happened to be mostly Russian.
Ever seen Chagall’s masterpiece kev? It’s the Opera’s treasure, pity he couldn’t do the same at home.
Can art be degenerate? Do you distinguish between ‘alta cultura’ and pop surrealism?
http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/vaticano/dettaglio-articolo/articolo/francesco-francis-francisco-31625/
If so, perhaps you don’t have the instruments to engage this discussion.
My sole reservation lies with the derivative nature of the music played. But then, it is a Euro’vision’ song contest. kaleidoscopic babushka and all.
Just as an aside, gender bending was always present in European ‘culture and tradition’. I shudder to think gender as unchanging, no doubt who gets to define it. And it’s not your ‘both’.
And why do you invariably mistake neutral comment for insidious propaganda?
How do you know ‘this makes no sense to me’?
I get the feeling you can’t get yourself to think without an imposed dogma, instead of relying on principle to guide your dialectic. ‘Clever’, something to dismiss as devious.
Sad really, you kill any potential. The consistent use of insult gratitious and predictable. Boring.
Stop it you two. You sound like medieval theologians discussing the number of angels that can fit on a pinhead.
Eurovision is a harmless bit of fun, and Farage is still a fruitcake. Actually, he’s the only man outside Malta who still takes Eurovision seriously.
I don’t know which planet you inhabit, Jozef, but I’m talking about geopolitics, not Dadaism and Cubism; more specifically, I was trying to antropologically determine what your “Up yours, Putin” comment meant.
This mess doesn’t surprise me. I very well recall your nonsensical diatribes against the EAF, parroting and embellishing the lies of disgruntled bloggers without ever bothering to check the official party website at least as far as who the members actually were.
I inhabit a planet which carries its symbols forward notwithstanding what every ‘progressive’ thinks.
My point is very simple, if Russia were to win the Eurovision I’d be the first to lobby for sending the campest of acts, as would do everyone else around western Europe.
Then what, ban every act from stage? As I said, up yours Putin.
As for your barely concealed disdain for art and its relevance to life, no wonder you’re stuck in the weird end of youtube, confusing the rythmic onslaught of planetary communication for conspiracy.
I inhabit a planet which twin towers came down due the particularly critical design they had, planned in the early sixties. Ones where laden weight nearly added a fifth over compound mass.
Trust me kev, I know.
I have the instruments to interpret cubism as having brought Franco’s murderous attacks on Guernica to the world’s attention, dada predicting your sense of helplessness.
As for your difficulty to understand, let me spell it out, Vienna was the place where gender and androgeny were explored fullest, a refuge to artists exiled from Russia.
Love of the souls, Jean Delville 1900, this one from its sister city at the time, Brussels. Androgeny as Plato’s ideal of love.
http://moniquespassions.com/jean-delville/jean-delville-the-love-of-the-souls/
And isn’t that Conchita, fiery wings and all? Do you ignore the blatant obvious reference to the son of man?
Symbolists, unlike Impressionists and their cafes, were the first to contemplate Mittel Europe. It was then that Russia cut herself off.
Trust me kev, I know.
Now go play IRA.
I can’t look at his face for longer than 2 seconds. He really needs to decide what he wants to be.
It’s a ‘she’, Charlie. Conchita is her name. the elephant in the room should never be mentioned. Girls are urged to grow one too and men should learn to like them, while shaving their pubes to make sure they form part of the Tosser’s Club in the ‘cunt society’.
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2013/06/vladimir-putin-s-face-appears-to-contain-more-botulism-than-drug-store-sushi
Incidentally, this is what being liberal is really all about. It doesn’t have to do with degradation of morals or doing whatever you like.
It’s about respecting and believing in everyone irrespective of their appearance, beliefs, or practices.
I bet Joseph Muscat had a fit when he saw Conchita for the first time. He wouldn’t have the balls to allow someone like her (and it is a ‘her’; if Thomas Neuwirth wants to be called a ‘her’ while in costume, so be it) to represent Malta at the Eurovision. He would be scared to death that we would be seen as silly or as homo-loving fools.
So here’s hoping to an end to the LGBT community. People just are. There’s no need for people who identify themselves with the LGBT group to find it necessary to state where they stand on the sexuality spectrum. Who cares? It’s a normal variant of life.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120527/local/jason-micallef-demands-responsibility-for-eurovision-disappointment.421512
Will Jason Micallef demand the same now that Malta has placed 23rd out of 26 countries as opposed to Kurt’s 21st?
The delegation now included self-proclaimed experts like Natius Farrugia and Deo Grech.
He uses Gowzef’s hair trick to make his patchy beard appear fuller. Check this out http://www.menshairforum.com/talk/Thread-Conchita-Wurst-fake-woman-with-fake-beard-aka-Tom-Neuwirth
It’s official, I will never bother to watch Eurovision again after this year. If Switzerland, Iceland or Holland couldn’t win, then what’s the point? It’s been hijacked by weirdos once too often.
Wel this year Malta had an okay song. But where is the PR? Almost no one in Malta knew the song, ahseb u ara abroad. I heard the team changed (political reasons apparently) and it showed in many ways. The lack of experience of the whole team (apparently inluding the band 25 people went to Denmark) was evident in many ways. Poor Firelight that they had to work with people that their main interest was to be at Eurovision and not to work hard to get good results for Malta.Sorry but it very obvous that this year there was no passion and no hard work. Hope Anton Attard and whoever makes the decisions from the Labour camp learnt a good lesson.
I am amazed the Maltese song actually made it to the finals.
If Eurovision is a circus, next year Malta should send its entire government.
Just out of curiosity, do you also insist on calling Ringo Starr Richard Starkey?
[Daphne – Hardly the point. You can rest assured Ringo Starr’s passport and contracts give his name as Richard Starkey, unless he has had his name changed by deed poll. Legal documents have to carry your legal name, and no abbreviations thereof.]
The face of future Europe.