Published April 18, 2004 in the Hibbing Daily Tribune
I don’t watch “American Idol.”
I know a lot of people who do watch the Fox musical talent show where people call in to vote for their favorite marginally skilled potential pop star. Sure, our dog Molly watches it pretty regularly when we’re in the room, but I swear my eyes are fixed upon a thick book of Greek philosophy. Naturally, when reading Greek philosophy your eyes need rest once in awhile, so I might catch a few minutes of “American Idol” between deep rhetorical thoughts.
The show’s ratings over the past three years indicate that the United States can bear a virtually limitless supply of unmemorable songs targeted at consumers who wear glitter on their body. This thing is a bona fide cultural phenomenon – but something about this particular pop sensation troubles me.
Let’s review for a moment how “American Idol” contestants advance from week to week. During each show, the contestants sing songs from a certain genre, such as Motown, Country or Cat Screech. Vast numbers of Americans call in to vote for their favorite singer. The only catch is that people can vote as many times as they want.
If some guy decides the girl who sounds like she was tossed into a vat of molten steel looks nice in a halter-top, he gets a few thousand chances to tell the world she should stay on the show. If some girl decides that the judges are mean for telling the red-haired geek with no talent that he is a talentless geek with red hair, she can spend her evening – thankfully free of homework or any sort of paying job – calling repeatedly to see that he survives the week.
The result of all this is a nationwide celebration of mediocrity, where everyone is a Paula Abdul, looking for good in what is most assuredly bad.
Many pundits have observed that a large cache of voters tend to support the contestants issued the harshest rebuke by the judges. If this show represents any part of society well, it’s the part where almost no one can take criticism of any kind. Watch the contestants when Simon Cowell tells them their voice was off that night. They act like he just ripped out one of their lungs and wore it as a hat.
You notice this thin skin on people all over, especially with the members of (gulp) my generation. Growing up with Big Bird telling us that we’re always right really did screw us up. Fact is, most of us shouldn’t go on TV to sing Elton John songs, and if we did, an established professional could probably find something wrong with it. For some reason, that’s hard to explain to folks.
So “American Idol” lives on in our popular culture, and a lot of us – including Molly Dog – will see it through to its conclusion later this spring. The show represents a mood in America. Fame and riches should be available to all, without the cumbersome burden of developing talent, and one of society’s most important problems is whether some girl is “kind of pitchy” when she sings “Midnight at the Oasis.”
I don’t blame the show for being insipid, that’s all it knows to do, and I know for a fact that many elements of our culture rise above stupidity. I am, of course, referring to the millions of Americans who spent the last month following “The Apprentice.”
Oh yes, there is hope for us yet.
Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune.