Drukteinis revealed the truth about “Eurovision”: several performances are completely tasteless

Writer and etiquette specialist Giedrius Drukteinis didn’t miss the opportunity to watch the first semi-final yesterday – he says he hasn’t watched Eurovision for a long time, but yesterday, guided by a feeling, he watched it and didn’t regret it.

Kudos to the representative of Lithuania

When asked how he assessed the performance of Lithuanian representative Silvester Belt, the interviewer did not spare praises and nice words:

“Obviously, we haven’t seen the second semi-final yet, maybe we’ll fade away – anything can happen, but at least among the performances we saw yesterday, I think he’s certainly looking impressive.”

According to G. Drukteinis, the performance was worked out, the technical part was executed perfectly, which only proves how important it is to invest in the fact that the overall image on the stage is promising.

“It proved once again that if you invest money and equipment in the show, you can really make an impressive spectacle. Of course, that often happens to us in Lithuania – either resources or desire, but when it got into the good hands of stage engineers, our piece really deserved to look the way it did,” he concluded.

However, almost every year, no matter what song we choose, there are heated discussions about whether the song’s stylistics and subject matter have gone wrong, and the most debated question is whether the “Eurovision” stage is the right place to sing in Lithuanian.

And although there are always those who say that no one will understand Lithuanian on the big stage, G. Drukteinis says that this is a great opportunity to introduce Europe to our unique language.

“It seems to me that the mission and logic of Eurovision is, first of all, to promote the country’s culture with all its good qualities – society’s diversity, color, tolerance.

Our language is beautiful, it sounds very beautiful in songs, so why not give Europeans a unique opportunity to listen to how the Lithuanian language sounds?

One year we will sing in Lithuanian, the next we will sing in English – there is no big difference. All countries that have their own ethnic languages ​​probably do the same in terms of what they choose.

If we look at it as entertainment, as an opportunity to show Lithuania to Europe and the whole world, the question of whether we will ask or not will lose its meaning – we just have a good time, we show Lithuania and so much knowledge”, said the etiquette specialist.

Some shows are called tasteless

G. Drukteinis, who spared no praise for Lithuania, says frankly that there was definitely something to see in the first semi-final, there was no shortage of songs by various stylists and extravagant shows. However, some of them are called by the specialist nothing but simply tasteless:

“As I understand it, the Balkans have started to raise their heads again, correct me if I’m wrong, but as we did for a while, we had already put down “Balkanvision” a little bit, but watching yesterday it was clear that they are voting for each other in solidarity, supporting each other.

The most important thing is that they promote the Balkan style, which is more foreign to us, Lithuanians, it is more Slavic, loud, “market” – this is the kind of music that we would rather hear in a market, emanating from a car receiver.

To me, Balkan performances always seemed very tasteless, too vulgar in everything – both in their clothes and in the behavior of the performers.”

The interviewer adds that he is disappointed about one thing – that the representative of our neighbor Poland, Luna, did not make it to the finals with the song “The Tower”.

“Both her song and her personality were close to my heart. But again, I evaluate it purely subjectively, it seemed to me that it should have entered, but it did not – the tragedy is not great.

To be honest, I have already forgotten what she looked like, I just remember that there was such a singer and she sang something. This, it seems to me, is the whole essence of Eurovision – it’s interesting that night while it’s happening, but it’s over and we immediately forget everything. This is a cultural event for fast consumption,” the interviewer noted.

Vulgar performances raised a fundamental question

There was no lack of various posts and comments on social networks about whether all the performances were suitable for the big stage – many will probably remember the representative of Finland, who appeared on stage in body-colored shorts, and the performance of the United Kingdom also caused heated discussions.

G. Drukteinis laughs and says that as a man who is almost 60 years old, he doesn’t know if he understands today’s pop world standards, but such performances bring to the surface an important question.

“A fundamental question arises whether this is a family event or a specific cultural event, whether it is for everyone or only for some.

You know, I have nothing against the propaganda of some public, even political groups, when it is done within the limits of common sense, tastefully, without going beyond the limits of vulgarity and without turning a beautiful idea into some immoral image that makes you want to spit or write angry comments.

Again, this is my subjective opinion – maybe I no longer understand the standards of promoting those ideas and lifestyles, maybe this is the norm, say, in the West – maybe those norms will come to Lithuania someday. But this is not the first and not the last case, we have had similar vulgar actions on Lithuanian television,” the interviewer shared his thoughts.

However, even though the countries were separated by vulgar performances, bookies predict that Finland will take 10th place and the United Kingdom – 11th. So far, Croatian artist Baby Lasagna is leading the predictions with 36 percent. in terms of probability of winning, the second place is predicted for the representative of Switzerland, Nemo (17%), the third – for the Italian Angelina Mango (10%).

You have 1 wish for the representative of Lithuania

In the predictions provided by bookmakers, Lithuanian representative Silvester Belt is predicted to place 13th. When asked which place he thinks Lithuania will take in the finals, G. Drukteinis laughs and says that if he were a clairvoyant, he would have been living in the best resort in the world a long time ago, so he does not start guessing.

After hinting that we are probably not aiming for the highest places, G. Drukteinis retorts with words from the Talmud – a book of Jewish wisdom: “It is not written anywhere that this cannot be” and adds that if there is a desire to win Eurovision, we will win it someday anyway , the most important thing is not to lose optimism.

“The only thing I can say is to wish Silvestre success, as always to all representatives of Lithuania, but what he will win, what place he will occupy, I honestly have no idea and I will not try to predict. I can only say this – I think it’s high, but on the other hand, the most important thing is to participate, not the occupied place.”

Indeed, during the voting yesterday, it was seen that various predictions do not always come true – even those countries that were not considered favorites made it to the finals.

“This proves once again how difficult it is to predict the future. It seems that everyone knows everything, understands everything, even if you carry a cart of experience, please – those who had the least chances get to the finals, and those who were favorites do not. And how to explain such a phenomenon? People’s stupidity, as if they didn’t understand something, misjudged it?” – thought G. Drukteinis.