Blog Post 3: Critiquing the National Brand
The Eurovision song contest gives countries the opportunity to express themselves through a three-minute performance to viewers across the globe. By choosing how to portray themselves, it shows how each country would like to be represented by. The contest also gives the opportunity for countries to nation brand themselves or to simply just participate in the song contest. According to the Oxford dictionary, national identity is “a sense of a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, and language” (Oxford Dictionary). The national identity of a country plays an important role in nation branding which is “the phenomenon by which governments engage in self-conscious activities aimed at producing a certain image of the nation state” (Bolin and Stahlberg 82). Going more in depth on Portugal’s performances, I will examine if they’ve chosen to implement certain aspects of their national identity and how they’ve portrayed it on stage.
Discussed in my blog post 1, I highlighted that the main aspects of Portugal that shape its identity were its pride in language, musical ideology, religious affiliations, and political history. In blog post 2, I reviewed Portugal’s performances from the years 2014, 2015, and 2017 and observed the similarities. Common ones that I found were that all the songs were sung in Portuguese, revolved around the topic of love, and that the ethnicities of the singers and backing performers were all white. However, I also was also able to observe that one difference between the performances was the music genre. With this information, I’m able to cross my two blog posts and see if any of the performances used certain aspects of what I saw were main components in their national identity.
Language is a main contributor to Portugal’s identity. All three of the performances were sung in Portuguese and shows the strong alignment between song and language. I feel that Portugal is showing that they’re proud of their language and encourage it to be heard by the viewers everywhere. With 96% of the Portugal population speaking Portuguese, it gives a stronger connection between the residents and the performers to hear the songs. The originality of having a Portuguese song amongst other languages in the contest makes it unique and gives the Portuguese residents pride in their mother tongue.
Fado is the main music genre of Portugal and plays a role in the shaping of its identity by expressing the hardships Portugal has faced throughout the years. Although there is a misalignment of the performances expressing the Fado genre, two of the three songs had a strong feeling of Saudade. A brief description of Saudade is the feeling of longing or melancholy and is typically used to describe the genre of Fado and the souls of the Portuguese. In Leonor Andrade’s performance of “Ha Um Mar Que Nos Separa” (2015), she portrayed strong emotions as the song talk about emigration. Not only influencing Portugal, many families were separated due to the financial statuses of their countries. The emotional connection being shown from Andrade to all the families suffering from the issue was clearly felt through the powerful performance. In Salvador Sobral’s performance of “Amar Pelos Dois” (2017), a melancholy feel was also present as he sung about a lost love expressing the longing feeling of Saudade. As for the 2015 entry by Suzy who performed “Quero Ser Tua” (2014), there was a completely opposite style of performance. With its upbeat and energetic rhythms, the song could be seen giving Portugal the representation of being a fun or ideal vacationing spot. With the country’s financial issues, tourism can be a great way of boosting their financial income. The tactic of portraying Portugal with vibrant, exciting, and a happy song could be seen trying to lure watchers in to viewing Portugal as the ideal vacationing spot.
It’s been known that Portugal has had money issues throughout their time. Political history has been a main contributing factor to what Portugal is today. Referring to my first blog post, I discussed how it currently is still struggling with financial issues revolving around its government including money scandals and poor budgeting. Through the performances, there weren’t any indications of the songs mentioning the governmental or political factors of the current state of Portugal showing a misalignment. However, I feel as though the reason why this problem isn’t shown through the performances is because Portugal may feel ashamed of their financial status. I’d assume that they wouldn’t want to express to the world how financially unstable they are and would rather focus on dealing with the issue.
Originally in my first blog post, I felt that religious affiliation was a big aspect of Portugal’s national identity. However, I’ve now come to the realization that it doesn’t have that big of an influence. Even with its extent history that the churches had throughout Portugal’s very early years, it hasn’t had much of an effect on the country or its residents overall. Looking at the three performances, there was no representation of any indications towards religion. What I failed to mention was how ethnicity plays a role in the identity. According to the World Factbook, majority of the resident in Portugal are of Mediterranean ethnicity (The World Factbook). Representing themselves on stage, all three of the performers and majority of their backing performers were of white ethnicity. With the lack of representation in race, it gives off the interpretation that Portugal is closed off by not expressing diversity.
From the three performances analyzed, I’ve come to see that Portugal doesn’t see nation branding as something that they like to show in their Eurovision performances. Although there are noticeable alignments shown such as their choice of language for songs, Saudade, and ethnicities of the main and backing performers. However, there were also quite a few misalignments. An example being that even with their extensive history on their political status, it was chosen to not be shown through the performances. Also, regarding that all the songs were sung about love, there are no indications relating love to any important aspect of Portugal. As stated in my second blog post, I feel that the reason the topic of love is chosen is because it can be easily related to and allow listeners to have their own personal connection with the song.
I feel that Portugal isn’t purposely trying to display their national identity for nation branding. In Portuguese culture, they tend to be conservative and traditional and are lenient to innovation and change (Global Portal for Diplomats). Seeing as their ethics are modest, it could be seen going against them if they were to engage in such open actions like nation branding. With their choice in only using songs sung in Portuguese, it shows their love towards their mother tongue while at the same time gives them a unique attribute compared to other songs in the competition. When choosing a performance, they tend to pick the ones that they like and not what they feel will win the contest. An example of this is shown through their song choices from 2015 and 2017 that differed from the popular pop genre that’s usually seen at the contest. Sticking to the taste in music that they prefer, I see it as a somewhat authentic view on their entries to the contest. Confident in the performances they’ve chosen, again, it doesn’t seem as though they care too much about winning the competition but rather expressing the talent they have interest in. Portugal is one of the few countries participating in the contest that are genuine about the music and don’t associate themselves often with the political background that happens behind the scenes.
Going with the ethics of sticking with tradition, I feel as though they may feel that implementing a new change could be wrong or they simply are satisfied with the system they have. Contrasting from my opinion, their choices in sticking with the same presentation could also be viewed as narrow-minded. Refusing to conform to the modern society of what people find more pleasing, Portugal could be stubborn in only doing what will please themselves. With these two concepts in mind, it still supports my theory that Portugal simply isn’t participating in the competition to make themselves more appealing to other countries and creating a specific image. Rather, I feel that they participate for the musical aspect and want to use that platform to express the talent and originality that comes from their country.
Word Count: 1,413
References:
Andrade, L. (2015). Há Um Mar Que Nos Separa (Portugal). Eurovision Song Contest 2015 Austria. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE-LqXkb0ok
Bolin, Göran and Per Ståhlberg "Between Community and Commodity: Nationalism and Nation Branding". Communicating the nation: national topographies of global media landscapes. Göteborg: Nordicom, Göteborgs universitet. 2010. pp. 82.
“Global Portal for Diplomats: Portugal”. eDiplomat. Retrieved from
Sobral, S. (2017). Amar pelos Dois (Portugal). Eurovision Song Contest 2017 Ukraine [DVD]. Baarn, NL: Universal Music Group
Suzy. (2014). Quero Ser Tua (Portugal). Eurovision Song Contest 2014 Denmark. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhMbHLiEjS4
“The World Factbook: Portugal”. Central Intelligence Agency, July, 2017.
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