Europe, with Feeling: The Eurovision Song Contest as Entertainment
: Pajala Mari
: Karen Fricker, Milija Gluhovic
: Houndmills
: 2013
: Performing the 'New' Europe: Identities, Feelings, and Politics in the Eurovision Song Contest
: Studies in International Performance
: 77
: 93
: 17
: 978-0-230-29992-4
Pajala's chapter reminds us that Eurovision Song Contest performances and results often evoke strong emotions, focusing on three kinds of situations where feelings engendered by the ESC result in action: voting, complaining, and singing along. Calling on Richard Dyer's theorisation of entertainment and utopia, Pajala identifies specific qualities of the ESC that engender feeling-responses and explores the different ways that fans and media figures cope with disappointments – by the fostering of conspiracy theories, for example, but also by reparative means such as fan polls. Her regard on the regional and local nature of fan affiliations to certain songs leads her to conclude that the contemporary ESC both reproduces historical divisions and tensions in Europe and provides opportunities for new connections and affinities.