Bilal Hassani and the Eurovision Song Contest 2019: Tackling Homophobia in the French Press

In France, Bilal Hassani, YouTuber and French entrant for the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) represents a striking and high-profile example of popular music artists who publicly disclose their same-sex attraction. Hassani may also be situated in terms of the growing ‘visibility of non-normative gender and sexual identities in the ESC’, which has ‘significantly contributed to the discursive construction of Europe as a tolerant society, even though the respective performances often garnered considerably less support in their home countries, where certain audience segments received them in less positive or different ways’ (Motschenbacher 2016). My paper considers how French press coverage - from the start of the internal Eurovision selection process through to the ESC final in Tel Aviv - locates Hassani particularly in terms of ongoing debates concerning homophobia and LGBTQ rights in France. Existing studies of media coverage of homophobia in a variety of contexts have emphasised ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ (Wright and Clarke 1999); the ‘invisibility’ of gay people (Rédai 2012); the under-representation of particular groups and categories (Paceley and Flynn 2012); ‘ambivalent’ and ‘contradictory’ discourses (Hughson and Free 2011); and the contrasting approaches of government- and private-owned media outlets (Strand 2012). Accounts have also emphasised the possibilities of anti-homophobia media initiatives such as social marketing campaigns (Hull, Gasiorowicz, Hollander and Short 2017). Moreover, looking beyond established notions of ‘symbolic violence’ and ‘symbolic annihilation’, Venzo and Hess (2013) emphasise ‘social artillery’ - ‘sexual minorities utilizing their expanding and more readily accessible social connections in digital space to combat instances of homophobia’. The media has also been identified as a ‘catalyst for resilience by buffering discriminatory experiences’ of young people (Craig, McInroy, McCready and Alaggia 2015). While Bilal Hassani is certainly represented in French press coverage as a young victim of homophobia, generated particularly in social media, he is also viewed as developing ‘social artillery’ and ‘resilience’ notably through two of Craig et al’s. categories: ‘escapism’ and ‘fighting back’. Coverage also generates a tension between ‘the language of non-specific difference in a French republican tradition’ (Provencher 2007) and more particularist, communitarian and multicultural approaches, given Hassani’s own ethnic and sexual identity.

https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/lavlang/2021/saturday/13