In my heart, I want Switzerland to win Eurovision. That’s what my heart wants. My brain has calculated the costs of Eurovision in Zurich or Geneva or Bern and is busy rooting for Baby Lasagna.
But, oh, Nemo’s The Code is everything that I want in a Eurovision song.
Let’s start with the technical side of things. Like many songs of 2024 Eurovision, The Code is maximalist. But instead of filling my ears with sound (like Norway) or production (like Lithuania or Poland), Nemo is filling my ears with genres. They’re flipping between opera and rap and drum n’ bass and Bond theme all in the space of three minutes. It’s a wild ride.
And just in case you thought that it was all production tricks that enabled these shifts, watch this video of the acoustic version of The Code, where Nemo proves they can move between them effortlessly (and also that they would be very good in a Broadway production.)
But while I admire the musicianship behind The Code, what I love even more is its story. Nemo is in their mid-20s, and identifies as non-binary. They’ve managed to articulate in three minutes a concise summary of what that journey was like for them and what it means to be non-binary in a way that anyone can understand. Transferring the computer science concept of binary to the gender concept of binary suddenly makes gender fluidity and a non-binary nature easier to talk about, because it’s neutral – existing between the zeroes and ones.
And while Nemo’s song is written from the nonbinary perspective, I think it has resonance outside of the nonbinary and gender fluid community to anyone who has struggled with gender norms – which is pretty much the entire Eurovision community. Take it from me, a cisgender woman who blogs under the name Dude! Eurovision is seen as a warm and accepting space, and having a song like Nemo’s is simply additional affirmation that the only right way to be is to be oneself.
I’m making myself tear up here as I’m writing this, thinking about the millions of people who are going to be seeing Nemo on stage in their wonderfully fluffy pink coat and boots, and all the little kids who are going to want to wear the pink coat. (I mean, I spent 15 minutes today browsing pink coats online before realising one would not arrive pre-Malmo.) In a world where so much of the news we hear about trans and NB people is bad, having a moment of clear joy and pride in one’s identity is a balm.
dudepoints.fun 