It’s funny the range of emotions a single episode of American Idol can bring out of the casual TV viewer. It begins with the regular pinch of excitement that comes naturally when you see kazillions of wannabe-crooners looking to steal their moment in the spotlight. Then, after getting up close and personal with a few of them, you start to feel a little awkward. When did they rename America ‘Planet Delusion,’ for example, and does that guy with a chinchilla spewing out ‘Glowwria’ really think he’s gonna make it anywhere in life?
And of course, there’s the sheer embarrassment. This little feeling creeps up when people who aren’t the usual brand of AI-wacky-crazy, try out not for their 15 seconds of drama with Cowell, but because they actually want to sing and even more disturbingly – think they can sing. And then, in its true rewardeth-or-crusheth-your-hopes fashion, AI doles out the truth in a vicious game of Simon says: they’re not just bad. They’re horrendous. The embarrassment of course continues much longer than it actually should. Contestants either plead, or speechify with the panel prolonging their audition, and of course our pain.
What some critics say may be true: AI may very well capture all that is wrong with humanity. The endless wanting of celebrity, the narcissistic ignorance of a striking majority of contestants, and the sad, sad obsession-cum-addiction millions of viewers, like myself, develop with its saccharine dose of reality-fluff.
But hey, humanity’s wrong is grabbing even more attention this season, which means an Idol-ic future for most of us TV watchers, and more importantly, nothing to be ashamed of. If we are truly to attest to the all-consuming-fat-American image, then gobbling up as much Idol as we can shouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. And in a strange twist of TV lessons which I’m sure all culture critics, and think-y types are shaking their heads at – doesn’t Idol teach us to not be ashamed of what we love to indulge in, be it reality TV-fluff, Cowell’s cursing, or our own anti-melodic nails-on-a-chalkboard harmonies? Somewhere in its own self-involved race for the superficial, Idol asks us to embrace our own quirks, and through it’s rainbow of emotional catharses, to accept others’.
And that is why, good friends, American Idol, be it the bane of society’s existence or network TV’s saviour, is not a fad. It’s, like, a total Fable. An F-Rate will do.
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