Two topics dominated television this past weekend. The contradiction between singing and shooting had to be resolved. So on RTS, we alternately watched the musical content in the selection Eurovision songs and the increasingly dark images of the latest war which are Israel and the US take the lead against Iran. Two semi-final nights, and then the final, the same trio of hosts, the same dramaturgy and an attempt to turn the provincial show program into a spectacle. Nor did the mantra about the proud representative of Serbia in Europe, about the incredible importance of introducing half-known performers and eternal candidates to the audience once a year...
You cannot make an interesting program out of a mass of bad and a few average tracks. The usual discussion about the votes of the jury and the audience did not help either, everything ended with a choice - the group Lavina from Niš will represent us with a song Next to me. It's interesting that this is a metal band with a performance like Maneskin, so we won't get stuck with one of the generated ballads of which there were dozens.
PZE is actually escapism from the reality in Serbia, which has not changed since last year, when here and there we saw messages of support for citizens and students. This year, the presenters did not recognize Beli Preletacevic, and the only political topic was the title of Zejna's song Yugoslavia as metaphors for the breakup of a love. I think the organizers in Vienna will have the same problem, because it is not easy to throw a party while a serious part of the planet is in the blaze of war.
A good example, in contrast to our burying our heads in the sand, was given by the Sanremo festival, which was held this year for the 70th time. He beat Sal Da Vinci (not Vesna Da Vinci's brother-in-law) with the song of the symbolic title Forever yes. The artistic director and presenter, the soul of this festival, Carlo Conti announced his retirement by giving a lesson on good TV programming even in the conditions of war. The presenters sent messages condemning the regime in Iran, as well as the illegal bombing of that country. In the finale, they even took part in the RAI news, and then returned to the stage of the Ariston Theater.
And as far as RTS is concerned, there is a need for a creative director who follows trends, improves and changes the form of the festival, as Carlo Conti once introduced "Youth Night", special guests-hosts or "Evening Obrad". Our attempts to copy it didn't exactly turn out great.
PZE and Sanremo announced the future of television that will continuously try to entertain people exposed to terrible images of destruction around the world. This brings us to the issue of promoting empathy for mental health reasons. On the other side, there is a non-stop emergency program with more and more terrible news and new victims.
On the opposite side of empathy stands the fascination with war, a projective test for psychopathic personality structures. It implies a kind of admiration for the power of weapons, sometimes with biblical symbolism, which we first recognize in the names of military operations such as "Righteous Anger" or "Roar the Lion". Threats made by warring parties to each other speak of mass destruction, dire punishment or consequences for actions taken. The war psychosis radiating to the viewers was broadcast on all tabloid channels, and before or after the singing, RTS aired special programs dedicated to the war in the Middle East.
If we add to that dozens of quasi-experts amazed by the power of rockets and bombs of one, the other or a third party, the average viewer could think that the end of the world is upon us and that a global conflict has begun. That's probably why Aleksandar Vučić joined the Informer program by phone to tell voters that the Third World War didn't start. He stated that there is no more international law and that it would be good if we did not support anyone in this conflict.
In Serbia, this practically means that we will have a continuous argument on television between those who support one of the parties.
The first, terrible parallel was drawn by Milenko Jovanov comparing the demonstrations in Iran and Serbia. According to him, we should be happy that Vučić did not kill tens of thousands of demonstrators, because if one of his subordinates had made the decision, that someone would have lost patience and ordered the massacre.
I don't know if it's scarier that one of the officials is spouting such nonsense or that he really means it.
Bokan presented a fantasy about an imaginary Biden, who, as a liberal, would wrap intervention in the wafer of human rights, while Trump only waits. It is the aforementioned fascination with force that all autocrats share.
And the collateral damage of the US-Iran conflict was Željko Mitrović, whose cable operator BH Telekom canceled the broadcasting of 70 of Pink's channels. Mitrović claims that this is because he is on the "American side", and he promised the viewers in BiH a new platform and the continuation of the fraternization of the Serbian and Bosniak people, as an incurable nostalgic for the South.
In the end, I wonder how a picture of an abandoned baby monkey from a zoo in Japan evoked empathy around the world and went viral, while we googled corpses in Ukraine, Gaza, Iran, or any other place where bombs fall on people's heads. Footage of a baby monkey finding solace in an Ikea monkey doll led to global sales of the doll, not empathy for the victims and the realization that we all, like that baby monkey, want closeness with other beings and a sense of belonging. Instead, we will smell napalm from the early morning every day from the television screen, like in Coppola Apocalypse today.
