Dunja Verlašević walks on to the set of The Stars like she thinks a convincing performance will propel her into their orbit. She comes forward to pluck the microphone off its stand while the other girl waits her turn. A box pops up on screen, giving us her name, the title of the song she’s singing, and the name of her hometown – Banja Luka. The lights in the studio, blue and white, scintillate in time to the stabbing synths in the first few measures of the backing track.
The judges are seated in a circle around Dunja, behind desks that each have two buttons on them, labelled simply “1” and “2.” This round of the competition will last four hours, the commentary they give these two singers’ performances about twenty minutes, the songs themselves maybe three minutes each. Dunja grips the microphone with both hands, plants her feet, and sings.
Her song choice is “End of Ends” by Vrt, and as far as the judges are concerned, it is also one of her mistakes. Vrt is an old new wave band who wrote many of their songs in English, and everybody knows that the judges prefer turbofolk. In fact, the channel the show is broadcast on is owned by Majestic, a company almost synonymous with the genre. The judges will comment on how easy her song is, how she needed to sell it more, how her pitches lacked precision. How a song by a better singer would have shown off the talent they know she possesses.
One of the judges rocks back and forth on his chair, stringy hair plastered to his face and the shadow of three sleepless nights under his eyes. Nobody alludes to the fact that he is, unequivocally, trashed. He hits button number 2 and it lights up. Realising his mistake, he hits it again to turn it off, then hits button number 1.
The judge that sits to Dunja’s right shouts, “Give me energy!” as she sweeps her hands upward. The look on her face is dissatisfaction bordering on disgust. She shakes her head; Dunja won’t make it in the business. She is never going to be a star, and all the eyelash glue in the galaxy isn’t going to change that. The judge – Dada – holds off on the vote until she hears the second girl, but in her years on the show she has developed an ear for a winning performance, and this is not it. Dada is almost fifty years old and a mother of three, a fact often overlooked because of her pink hair, thigh-high boots and controversial choice to perform at Belgrade’s first and only Pride march before it got broken up by protesters. The part of the studio audience that sits behind her laughs when she pulls her phone out to check her makeup while she waits for the other singer’s turn.
Melisa Ilić is the second girl, and the graphic that pops up under her face tells us she’s from Jajce, a small town in Bosnia. Most of the judges and competitors come from Belgrade, as does the show itself, but people of all nationalities and ethnicities are allowed to compete, and it so happens that Melisa is the second of about fifteen Bosnian competitors. The one Bosnian judge leans forward ever so slightly when Melisa’s music begins. In fact, the entire room is suspended in time as Melisa enacts a performance straight out of 1995, with Cecilija’s “Ne ponavlja se stalno,” the music video of which features Cecilija playing with a lion cub. Cecilija, famous for her folk-pop stylings, is also famously the wife of the warlord Horkan, whose “Lions” were a paramilitary group otherwise known as the Volunteer Force. Melisa emphatically repeats the words “this is not monotony” as she twirls her free hand and traces figure eights with her hips.
The Bosnian judge exchanges looks with Dada sitting next to him. The greasy-haired man on her other side taps his fingers to the rhythm and hits the “2” button. Now both 1 and 2 are illuminated on the panel on his desk – a vote for both competitors. The judges sitting on the other end of the circle – opposite him, Dada, and the Bosnian judge – hit their “2” buttons as well, voting for Melisa. The Bosnian judge spends a moment in deep thought, decides to hell with it, and hits button number 2, then thinks again and also hits the other button. By the end of the second song, the only judge who hasn’t voted for anyone at all is Dada.
Both singers are done with their performances. The votes are counted up: Dunja two, Melisa six. Saša Mantilović, the host and producer of The Stars, congratulates the singers and calls on the judges one by one to offer commentary on their performances. They make the expected comments regarding Dunja’s performance – one of the women on the far side of the circle says, “Don’t get me wrong, I like that kind of music myself, but you’ll need to get the viewers on your side in the later rounds if you want to win this competition, and people in this country simply won’t vote for you.” The guy with the greasy hair says he liked her shoes. The Bosnian tells her she did well overall but needs to work on her falsetto. When it comes to Melisa, all the judges except for Dada agree that she was the stronger singer.
Dada doesn’t comment until Saša turns to her – she didn’t cast a vote, and he wants to know why.
“There was just something missing,” she says. “I think they both lacked a certain charisma, a certain attitude.”
Melisa’s clear victory is complicated by Dada’s refusal to vote, as she needs the approval of all seven judges to move on. Alternatively, she would need Saša to hit the golden button at the front of the set, sending her directly into the next round. And in a gesture of magnanimity, this is what he does, reminding the viewers that she is the last contestant he is allowed to send through without a full seven votes.
Dunja has to sing again at the end of the round to see if she can stay in the competition. The last hour of the show is a sudden death stage where all the competitors who did not get enough votes redo their performances and the judges make their final decisions. Dunja doesn’t make it through to the next round.
In a week’s time, Melisa returns to the stage and performs one of Dada’s own songs – “Iluzija.” This time she gets all seven votes, and as she goes through each cycle of the competition, she continues to win. The judges begin to remember her name. Some believe she paid off the Bosnian judge, who refuses to give her negative criticism, but his word alone is not enough to influence the others, who, apart from Dada’s occasional protests, nonetheless agree that she consistently delivers on performance. It might be said that despite everything, she has talent.
That’s the gist of what commenters online say when, months later, she posts a music video to one of her original songs that features her in camo shorts and a camo crop top, posing against a red, white, and blue flag of indistinct nationality. She posts it under the stage name “Nova.” It reaches half a million views on the first day.
Time continues to pass. Dunja earns a little bit of money outside of her regular job by busking on the streets of Banja Luka, but for the most part people walk by without dropping a single fening.
Cecilija, aged pop diva, gets put under house arrest for embezzlement, which creates a stir in the tabloids overshadowed only by Melisa, who meanwhile books concerts, talk shows, and photo shoots. She reaches out to Dada for a feature in her new song but Dada’s management declines. It doesn’t make a difference; Melisa has followers in the millions.
Having decided that busking won’t cut it, Dunja picks up a second job waitressing and saves up money to record an album abroad.
The Stars runs continually during all of this, never quite finding a breakout singer like Melisa but keeping up viewership nonetheless. The judges stay on in the same rotation, never missing a single week despite their busy schedules. Dada’s age begins to show for the first time when she gets out of her chair to do a demonstration and stumbles over her platform heels, spraining her ankle. She sits out the rest of the show and comes back the next week wearing an ankle brace.
Dunja travels to Austria, where she meets labels that like her voice but don’t think she has it in her to make it as a solo act. She auditions for bands, and eventually joins one unknown, unnamed group of young men with bedraggled facial hair and acoustic guitars, and becomes their lead singer. She doesn’t speak much German and they don’t speak any Bosnian, so they split the difference and write all their material in English. They call themselves Blue Languid and they compose songs about mountains they’ve never climbed, bales of hay covered in snow, the loneliness of driving a tractor down a dirt road at night with only the glittering eyes of feral animals for company. They earn a few fans from their local gigs, but gain popularity mostly through their social media presence, where they share photos of their performances and weigh in on political issues by expressing bafflement at the current state of affairs and suggesting that things should change, leaving out what or why. Eventually they attract the attention of up-and-coming country artist Chenelle Roberts, who invites them on her North American tour as an opening act. After every second or third song they play, they repeat their band name, and they hand out flyers after the show. People begin to recognise Blue Languid, and especially their lead singer.
While Blue Languid’s star is rising, Melisa gets into some trouble over allegations of plagiarism. Dada insists Melisa’s new single uses the same melodic phrasings as her song “Iluzija,” which, as everybody knows, she performed as a contestant on The Stars. Even Dada’s fans finds these accusations tired, as they’ve often heard Dada claim that Beyoncé copied her dance moves, or Lady Gaga took inspiration from her fashion choices. But this time, the public admits, there may be some truth in it – after all, Melisa is an artist from their own shores, and if there’s one open secret in the Balkan music industry (actually, there are several, albeit some more open than others), it’s that plagiarism is rampant and only the most egregious cases go unexcused. Of course, Melisa never appears in court to address these claims, but her follower count drops as fans begin to wonder if she’s exhausted her musical potential.
She comes back weeks later with a music video wherein she adopts the persona of an old woman who slathers herself in makeup and hides her thin grey hair under a cheap wig. The old woman bears a resemblance to Dada that seems more than coincidental. The video is set to a song about the club scene in Belgrade, and the old woman ends up going to a rave, which according to the video is the only place she can find people intoxicated enough to not find her repulsive. Fans and detractors alike love the controversy, but the connotations prove to be unfortunate when Dada suffers a heart attack backstage at one of her concerts and is rushed to a hospital, where she is told to take a break of at least two months.
Blue Languid, meanwhile, manages to sell one of their songs, “Ocean Capture,” for use in a soap advertisement, a promo for a survival reality show, and the trailer for a Groundhog Day remake. “Ocean Capture” gets a lot of time on American radio, breaking into the Top 40 and staying there for months, soon joined by hits like “Whisper of Summer” and “Jealous Skies.” They go on tour again, this time as the main act, and perform to venues full of people who paid to see them and them alone. Dunja’s name becomes synonymous with the band, as it is her face in all the cover art, videos, and interviews.
After the tour, she decides to fly back home and visit her family. At her stopover in Vienna, she is approached by fans who want to take pictures and ask questions. Other people, too shy to approach, stare at her as she passes through security, makes it past passport control, and disappears into a VIP lounge before her next flight to Sarajevo.
From there, she is to drive to Banja Luka, but first she decides to spend some time in the capital. She walks through Sarajevo’s old town, known as Baščaršija, but the atmosphere is different here than it was in Austria. The warm and open reception she had in Vienna turns into fleeting glances and whispers. Two girls pass by and almost bump into her, too busy pretending she’s not there to watch where they’re walking. When she sits down to order coffee, the waiter brusquely takes her order, brings it to her, and leaves without a word.
When she leaves the café and the streets of Baščaršija, the commentary begins.
“Did you see Dunja Verlašević downtown?”
“No, where?”
“She was sitting at the corner café, acting like she wanted people to line up for her autograph.”
“I hear she comes from some village up north.”
“Not even from Sarajevo!”
“Earn a little money, and suddenly you think you’re Angelina Jolie.”
It isn’t much better in Banja Luka. Her family, at least, are happy to see her, especially her aunts and uncles, who always have some sort of debt to pay off. Her parents listen with vague interest as she talks about her music, but they mostly want to know what she thinks of her fellow band members and if there’s one of them who might have caught her eye. On her way out of Sarajevo International Airport, following yet more scornful glances and whispers, Dunja decides that maybe what she needs is to buy an apartment somewhere in America and move there permanently.
Public opinion of Melisa overturns after news of Dada’s heart attack starts flooding local programmes, alongside stills of Melisa’s video, depicting her hunched over in a pink wig and leaning on a cane for support. Commentary on Melisa’s music videos runs vicious. It starts with her latest one, but the critics dig deep into her upload history, finding that first video, where she dances on a tank while singing about wanting to get back together with her ex. The video incites a different reaction among viewers this time around: a few of the comments, for instance, describe her as a nationalist. Most just speculate on her sexual history.
Dada’s seat on The Stars is empty for the first time since the show’s inception. Finding a suitable replacement is not easy, because whoever does it has to have Saturday nights off. Saša figures he’ll reach out to Melisa with a deal: he helps her repair her public image if she agrees to fill the seat, press the buttons, and provide interesting commentary for as long as he needs her.
What else can Melisa do? She signs on.
Blue Languid, meanwhile, are invited to play at a festival, along with various other acts who range in genre from country to alt rock and in popularity from fringe to mainstream. There, Dunja meets other musicians, mostly folk and country types, and over the four days she and the other members of the band develop a friendship with them. One of these musicians is Bill Ashworth, who offers to show them around town after the festival.
Bill takes them to a Mexican restaurant twenty minutes outside of the city. He’d reserved a table for six, but mostly ignores the four bearded men sitting between him and Dunja. He asks about her accent, perhaps having just now noticed how prominent it is.
“I am originally from Bosnia,” she says by way of explanation. The waiter comes by with their food.
“I know a little bit about Bosnia,” says Bill, and this causes her to raise her eyebrows. “Yeah, I heard about that war that happened back in the nineties. Something to do with Muslims, I believe.” Nobody knows how to respond to this, so one of the band members says something about the tortillas being really good here.
“How did you say you pronounce your name again?” Bill asks after a moment of silence. “Doonya, was it?”
“Dunja,” says Dunja.
“Doonya, are you a Muslim?”
“I am not. But many people from my country are.”
“I see. Well, it’s not like I have a problem with them. I was just curious.”
Dunja will think back on this dinner a lot when she moves to Virginia and buys a house there. She will think back to it when protestors start waving signs and when mobs in response start carrying tiki torches through the suburbs. Mostly, she will think of it when Bill Ashworth releases his single, “He Will Lead Us Right.” And then she will think of Bosnia and remember that her countrymen believe she thinks she’s too good for them. So Dunja decides to stay in Virginia. At least she has a recording contract, a set list, and a chance to experience first-hand the country that the rest of the world won’t stop talking about.
What Dunja doesn’t get to see from America is the first episode of The Stars in the show’s history that doesn’t feature all seven of the original judges. The chair once belonging to Dada is now occupied by Melisa, who receives a mixed welcome by the audience. Some cheer, some heckle, most sit in silence and observe. But everyone goes quiet when the first contestant walks on, the din of the vocal minority replaced by the clacking of heels on the plastic floor. The music begins, a stiff one-two beat supplemented by accordion trills and a synth loop. The singer opens her mouth and lets out a series of lengthy vibratos that lament her lover’s death at the hands of some old, long-forgotten conflict in one of the outlying villages of the former kingdom.
Melisa presses the red button in front of her.
Ana Kosic 