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fuck-the-gender · 1 year

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Mama ŠČ!: whatever could it mean?

i'm not really your eurovision girlie BUT! this year few songs captured my attention. to nobody's surprise, one of them is mama ŠČ! by let 3. this beautiful performance is so packed that at first watch it just looks like a nonsensical chaos so it's time for some good ol' analysis!

!DISCLAIMER! I AM NOT CROATIAN AND I DIDN'T TALK TO THE BAND. EVERYTHING HERE ARE JUST MY THOUGHTS

1. The band

what even is let 3? well, the word 'let' translates to 'flight' and i didn't dig deeper. sorry. the band itself is more interesting anyway.

they are a croatian rock band formed in 1987 in then-yugoslavia. since then they released ten albums and have become quite popular in croatia and other countries on balkan. they are mostly known for their controversial, avantgarde, vulgar and obscene performances. the eurovision one is tame for them. seriously, read their wiki, it's great.

2. The title

on to the song itself now! let's begin with the name. 'mama šč'. what? right of the bat we are intrigued. what the hell is 'šč'? one meaning could be щ. this is a letter of cyrillic script, which is used in russia, ukraine, bulgaria and some other countries. 'šč' is this letter written in latin script according to the ukrainian pronunciation, which is a nice little tidbit i learned from wikipedia. i also learned that the band itself provided non-sensical answers when asked about the meaning, but as they say, it may not be that deep, but the ground is soft and i'm ready to start digging. also also, the phrase 'šč!' is kind of a post-pandemic catchphrase for the band, with its origin being a video of the band's bassist balancing a shoe on his head.

now, 'mama'. the word itself is not difficult to understand, but it also has a symbolic meaning. you see, the title of 'mother' is often assigned to russia. this started in the medieval times, but was popularized and extensively used during the soviet era by the bolsheviks. this imagery, along with the theory of panslavism, was and sometimes still is used to support russia's role as the superior slavic country, which should take other slavs 'under it's wings'. it's also a term of endearment, which has become quite bitter

with this knowledge i think we can confidently say that the name of the song could refer to russia, with its imperial tendencies, and ukraine. i know, how shocking, i bet you wouldn't guess that.

3. The lyrics

we're finally really getting into it! the first three verses go like this:

Mama kupila traktora ŠČ! Mama kupila traktora ŠČ! Mama kupila traktora Trajna-nina Armagedon nona ŠČ!

'mama kupila traktora' translates to 'mommy's bought herself a tractor'. we already established the relationship between russia and the word, so let's assume that by 'mama' the song means the country.

so she's bought herself a tractor. good for her! except the tractor could be a metaphor, too. you see, one of the most popular brands of tractors in croatia is belarus produced in, you guessed it, belarus. so when the band sings 'mama's bought herself a tractor', they are also singing 'russia's bought itself belarus'. the words are somewhat ironic, since belarus' prezident has in october given russia's prezident a fucking tractor for his birthday, so he didn't even have to pay for it. also also, just a cherry on top, remember what ukrainian farmers used to tow russian armed vehicles? tractors.

if we take a more literal look at these lyrics, we get a picture of 'mama' buying a tool to help her and her family with farming. by the way, do you know who is one of the biggest producers of wheat inthe world? russia.

the next line is a little bit more complicated for non-croatians, but i have something. according to a comment under this video, 'trajna nina nena' is a popular croatian lullaby. so they swapped the 'nena' with 'armagedonona', which turned the meaning to an 'armageddon lullaby'. also, 'nena' means 'grandma' in croatian and i have seen people translate this line as 'armageddon grandma', which could allude to the soviet union, if we take russia today as the 'mother'. granny end-of-the-world kinda thing.

on to the next verse!

Mama ljubila morona ŠČ! Mama ljubila morona ŠČ! Mama ljubila morona Trajna-nina Armagedon nona

it's pretty similar to the first two, but the key line is different. 'mama ljubila morona' translates to 'mama kissed the moron'. who could it be, i wonder. combined with the previous verses, we get the picture of 'mama' buying 'tractor' for her 'moron' whom she loves. by the way this scenario is presented it's clear that the band doesn't agree with 'mama' or the 'moron', but it also could be read as russia and its people being in a sort of abusive or toxic relationship with the 'moron', as he is the one who's being referred to with unflattering term.

both verses are broken up with the 'šč' sounds. Here i will take the liberty to paste the lead singer's answer regarding this letter:

“5000 years older than the first alphabet found, it is the oldest letter. Now we will send our alphabet from Dora into orbit by spaceship. When Armageddon on Earth subsides, the rocket will return and bring the first alphabet again.”

Take from that what you will.

next we have something i would dare to call the bridge:

A b c č ć d dž đ e f g h i j k l lj m n nj o p r s š t u v z ž Mama, mama, mama, ja se idem igrat’ Mama, idem u rat

first, let's look at the alphabet. here i will again draw from the comment section of the previously aforementioned video. according to one comment, the nonsensical spelling is supposed to symbolize the creation of a 'new soviet union', represented by the 'šč'. they also mention that the 'šč' could be a parody of the letter z, which you can see on russian tanks deployed in ukraine. but i also saw a comment under a reddit post saying that it's just a croatian alphabet.

here i think is a good place to point out the origins of this song. you see, mama ŠČ! wasn't written for eurovision. it's actually part of a bigger project, an anti-war rock opera, and was inspired by another croatian artist, who wrote songs for croatian production of the play 'mother courage and her children', specifically by the lyrics 'buy me, mama, one little war'.

'ja se idem igrať' translates to 'i'm goin to play' and 'idem u rat' to 'i'm going to war'. this sounds like it is sung by a child, as well as all of the song up to this point, with the use of nursery rhyme and the childish word 'mama'. but here, the atmosphere of the song changes, it becomes more chaotic and aggressive. the child is excited to go play, to go to war. if we look at dictators, majority of them were recruiting children through insane amounts of propaganda. many of those kids actually were excited to go kill. or it's possible, that the child in the song is not a child at all, but rather a childish dictator, who sees war as play. this would be inline with the band's statement, in which they addressed the song to 'all those, who think that planet is their toy'.

whoosh, that's a lot! but we're almost there:

Onaj mali psihopat Mali podli psihopat Krokodilski psihopat Mama, idem u rat

'that little psychopat, little evil psychopat, crocodile-like psychopat, mama, i'm going to war'.

well who could they possibly mean by that. fun fact, that gentleman-sitting-over-there (as our geography teacher refers to him, while pointing at moscow) is noticeably short.

the 'crocodile-like' part could refer to few things. firstly, boris johnson said that talking to russia's prezident about peace is like 'talking to a crocodile while it has your leg in its jaws'. another one is 'crocodile tears', which could be connected to the image of eager children going to war in the bridge and how the dictator cries crocodile tears over them when they die. and lastly, 'krokodil' is a street name of the drug desomorphine, also called 'russian magic' or 'poor man's heroin'. this drug is quite popular in russia and it's, well, not good. so yeah, they could be calling the dictator a psycho on drugs.

one thing to note, however, is that this chorus is really angry and is sung by a dude dressed like stalin. one way that leaders justify their occupation efforts is by questioning the competency of the other nation's leaders. we see it in ukraine, how russia claims to be 'liberating it' from a 'fascist regime'. if we go with the interpretation that the song is sung by a dictator, then we get a picture of him singing those words about the leader of the country that he's trying to conquer, while to us viewers it seems that he's singing defacto about himself. it's a double edged sword.

so if we put it all together, it's a song inspired by nursery rhymes and the play 'mother courage', through another artist, about a child, or a childish dictator going to war. numerous lyrics point at russia, but some things are still vague enough that it could be applied to any bloodthirsty, war-hungry dictator. but this piece is not only a song, it's a performance.

4. The visuals

first, the costumes!

beautiful, isn't it? these costumes symbolize the four riders of apocalypse ('glad' - hunger, 'rat' - war, 'smrt' - death and 'kuga' - the plague), however, they added a fifth one, HDZ, which is a croatian political party, who is supposedly 'corrupt as hell'. the prime minister from this party was arrested for corruption, so i'm inclined to believe it.

when i was showing the clip to my mom, she stopped it here, looked at me and said 'that's stalin'. it's actually kind of scary, how much it looks like those stalin-cult-propaganda posters.

few things about this.

the performer in the background is croatian drag queen jovanka broz tituka. her name is a pun on jovanka broz, probably the most famous yugoslavia's first lady, and the word for prostitute. she is featured even more in the videoklip, it's great.

the composition of the projection is very similar to the typical composition for soviet propaganda posters. they use this format in the videoklip, too

and the moves of the dancer are literally military march. so they took the things that soviet union is recognized for (propaganda and military power) and made them into a perfect parody performed by a drag queen. it's mocking in the best way possible, because queer people are heavily persecuted in russia, so here their symbols of power are made into a laughing stock by a member of the very group they hate. it feels like a resistance, like a reclamation.

it wouldn't be let 3 if they didn't perform in drag. the mocking-military theme continues, since they are wearing uniforms painted and tailored to look like dresses.

but who's that guy in black? he's actually not a member of the band. he's another croatian artist, žanil tataj žak. this is not his first time doing a collaboration with the band. he looks like some kind of evil wizard, with how he creeps in from behind with missiles and then stands behind the band

just look at that dude. the word on his forehead is 'njinle'. it's written in šatrovački, which is an argot developed by some subcultures in yugoslavia and was used as a device of secret communication. when you switch the letters, you get 'lenjin'. so yeah, a crazy evil wizard.

the missiles are quite self-explenatory, we all know what that gentleman has in his military arsenal. here, however, i don't feel like they are portrayed like a thread, but rather like another mockery. i think this screenshot summarizes my thoughts on them pretty well

also this is possibly my favorite thing ever: five dudes marching in a drag costumes of military uniforms, singing the 'psychopat' chorus. it's a mockery, beautiful and gorgeous mockery of military might and war.

and the whole performance is finished by the band striping down to their undies while in the back a giant projection of jovanka dances among their flying heads. what a ride. i've read somewhere that the faces on their undershirts are young them, but it could be wrong. and of course the saluting. the final nail in the coffin of dictatorship's dignity.

i love this piece of art. it's ridiculous, because that's what it's meant to be, because it wants you to look at this caricature of power and military might and realize how stupid and pointless it is. it made people angry, but it was supposed to do that, because it's a satire and good satire always angers those who feel threatened by it.

10/10

(here and here are the videos, here's some article)

#eurovison 2023 #let 3 #mama šč #croatia #esc 2023 #song analysis #thoughts #long post #sorry got the brain zoomies #ill prolly do similar thing to the czech song

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