t.A.T.u. You! Russia, the global politics of Eurovision, and lesbian pop

Abstract

The author argues that the success of the Russian pop duo, t.A.T.u., and in particular their participation in the 2003 Eurovision Song Contest, is revealing of the multiple and contradictory ways in which Russia is currently engaging with concepts of the national and the international. Specifically, the essay considers t.A.T.u.’s performance of faux-lesbian pop eroticism as a productive flashpoint of East-West misreading and failed translation that might account for the pop duo’s very different reception in Russia and the West. The controversies and inconsistencies that have followed t.A.T.u are located in the larger context of ongoing debates over the redefinition of post-Soviet Russian national identity and Russia’s emerging role on the global pop cultural stage. From this perspective, it is argued, the t.A.T.u. phenomenon interfaces with aspects of both post-Soviet and international youth cultures, shifts in Russian attitudes toward gender, sexuality, and identity politics, and the contradictory commodification and transnational circulation of distinctive ‘European’ identities that is Eurovision’s stock and trade. Thus, a secondary question addressed by the author concerns the value of Eurovision itself as a subject suitable for serious scholarly engagement.