Adam Lambert Rant Part 1
I guess I wanted to weigh in on the whole Adam Lambert vs ABC fiasco for posterity’s sake, especially since I don’t actually post on forums. Personally I didn’t really care for his AMA performance because I thought it was a little over the top and vocally a mess (although I do give him props for his Ninja Roll when he fell - there were tons of people who didn’t even notice although maybe they were too o.O about the rest of his performance). Regardless, I am a fan, and I have been one pretty much since I saw his audition singing Queen. What’s not to like? I enjoy rock, the pretty, and a great voice.
I will state for the record that I DO believe that there is a double standard and that the media IS censoring him. Here’s why:
ABC promoted him insanely during the entire show (I am allowed to talk as I watched the ENTIRE thing). They kept commenting about how his performance would be the talk of the town the next day and how it would be shocking. Although Adam did go overboard and off script, there were plenty of things that ABC knew were going to be there. For example, the men on leashes, Adam grabbing the strap at the female dancer’s crotch and even the simulated BJ move was in there (just not as close to his body). That was REHEARSED. There probably would have been yelling even if he hasn’t done what he did, but let’s not get started on that since it cannot be proven. I believe that ABC wanted ratings and basically had Adam deliver it.
They could have censored the simulated BJ very easily. Although not ABC, when Pink did the exact same move, they certainly did it fast enough. Hell, when Perez Hilton crotch-dived someone on MTV they censored it even though that one had to have been 100% unexpected. There was a 7 second delay on the feed. ABC COULD have censored it, but chose not to. They later did for the Western Feed which leads me to suspect that they realized uh oh, people are complaining, maybe we shouldn’t have done that. They basically let him take the fall for their decision to air it. Admittedly it is not just their fault since Adam DID perform the move, but Pink certainly was not BANNED off live performances after what she did.
Was it because Adam went off script? Maybe it was; it is certainly feasible, but other people have also gone off script in similar ways. For example, Adrien Brody totally kissed Halle Berry at the Oscars (also on ABC). That was NOT scripted and Halle did not know it was going to happen. Was there ANY problem? Nope. Was there mutterings about sexual harassment? I don’t believe so and that was an Oscars that I actually watched and followed. It’s still not good, however, that he did things that weren’t rehearsed and I understand that ABC would be pissed off. It was still not necessary to cancel all of his live performances.
So what happened? Were people freaking out about the oh so gayness of Adam’s performance? Was it people being horrified that he was being obscene? Was it the religious groups? Was it ABC getting revenge? I think it was a little bit of all of those, some more than others. I do believe that if a female had done all those acts there would have only been minimal outrage AND if Adam had done what he did to females (BJ/kiss) there would have been less outrage than there was.
There were people who were screaming about ‘the children’, like it is television responsibility to monitor your children. This argument has been done before and I don’t want to rehash the entire, ‘you should parent your children, not expect other people to do it’ theory, especially since it seems especially silly (at least for me at almost 11PM). I think it’s much more telling that people only screamed about Adam and not any of the other sexual acts, like Janet Jackson grabbing a male dancer’s crotch and turning him towards her with it, or the multitude of scantily clad dancers performing provocative moves such as in Shakira’s performance. Let’s not even start on America’s prudish ways, where it’s much more acceptable to have violence than sex so it’s okay that Eminem talks about rape like it’s A-OK and Rihanna’s dancers were waving rifles around. It’s a cultural thing and in other parts of the world (Germany for one), it’s pretty much the opposite. It doesn’t make one better than the other and it is a personal choice. Regardless almost all the performances at the AMAs were not made for children. So why the EXTRA complaining about Adam’s performance; was it THAT much more obscene? Maybe it was; I too think the BJ was a tad too far (even though I didn’t find it obscene, but I’m pretty hard to shock), however, as I mentioned above, ABC could have CENSORED him. They chose not to.
The concept of decency and obscenity is dependent on people, even if some people believe they should be able to decide what is decent for everyone. I’m not one of those people though and think that you are able to turn it off if you don’t want to see it, ESPECIALLY in the case of the AMAs where most of the acts were pretty adult. Those people should have been almost equally scandalized by all the other risqué performances but they weren’t, it was just Adam’s performance that had people up in arms. I tend to believe that it was because he showed his gayness on stage, I read a lot of comments about his performance and many of them mentioned how they did not want to see his homosexual tendancies (basically) on stage. So male + female kissing and groping=okay, female + female kissing/groping=okay, guy on guy is NOT okay for them. Yes it is a personal preference, but if it was all equal, even if you don’t like to see it, it should not be grounds to file a complaint if you did not do it for the others.
I will continue this tomorrow, it’s become too long and late….
I will state for the record that I DO believe that there is a double standard and that the media IS censoring him. Here’s why:
ABC promoted him insanely during the entire show (I am allowed to talk as I watched the ENTIRE thing). They kept commenting about how his performance would be the talk of the town the next day and how it would be shocking. Although Adam did go overboard and off script, there were plenty of things that ABC knew were going to be there. For example, the men on leashes, Adam grabbing the strap at the female dancer’s crotch and even the simulated BJ move was in there (just not as close to his body). That was REHEARSED. There probably would have been yelling even if he hasn’t done what he did, but let’s not get started on that since it cannot be proven. I believe that ABC wanted ratings and basically had Adam deliver it.
They could have censored the simulated BJ very easily. Although not ABC, when Pink did the exact same move, they certainly did it fast enough. Hell, when Perez Hilton crotch-dived someone on MTV they censored it even though that one had to have been 100% unexpected. There was a 7 second delay on the feed. ABC COULD have censored it, but chose not to. They later did for the Western Feed which leads me to suspect that they realized uh oh, people are complaining, maybe we shouldn’t have done that. They basically let him take the fall for their decision to air it. Admittedly it is not just their fault since Adam DID perform the move, but Pink certainly was not BANNED off live performances after what she did.
Was it because Adam went off script? Maybe it was; it is certainly feasible, but other people have also gone off script in similar ways. For example, Adrien Brody totally kissed Halle Berry at the Oscars (also on ABC). That was NOT scripted and Halle did not know it was going to happen. Was there ANY problem? Nope. Was there mutterings about sexual harassment? I don’t believe so and that was an Oscars that I actually watched and followed. It’s still not good, however, that he did things that weren’t rehearsed and I understand that ABC would be pissed off. It was still not necessary to cancel all of his live performances.
So what happened? Were people freaking out about the oh so gayness of Adam’s performance? Was it people being horrified that he was being obscene? Was it the religious groups? Was it ABC getting revenge? I think it was a little bit of all of those, some more than others. I do believe that if a female had done all those acts there would have only been minimal outrage AND if Adam had done what he did to females (BJ/kiss) there would have been less outrage than there was.
There were people who were screaming about ‘the children’, like it is television responsibility to monitor your children. This argument has been done before and I don’t want to rehash the entire, ‘you should parent your children, not expect other people to do it’ theory, especially since it seems especially silly (at least for me at almost 11PM). I think it’s much more telling that people only screamed about Adam and not any of the other sexual acts, like Janet Jackson grabbing a male dancer’s crotch and turning him towards her with it, or the multitude of scantily clad dancers performing provocative moves such as in Shakira’s performance. Let’s not even start on America’s prudish ways, where it’s much more acceptable to have violence than sex so it’s okay that Eminem talks about rape like it’s A-OK and Rihanna’s dancers were waving rifles around. It’s a cultural thing and in other parts of the world (Germany for one), it’s pretty much the opposite. It doesn’t make one better than the other and it is a personal choice. Regardless almost all the performances at the AMAs were not made for children. So why the EXTRA complaining about Adam’s performance; was it THAT much more obscene? Maybe it was; I too think the BJ was a tad too far (even though I didn’t find it obscene, but I’m pretty hard to shock), however, as I mentioned above, ABC could have CENSORED him. They chose not to.
The concept of decency and obscenity is dependent on people, even if some people believe they should be able to decide what is decent for everyone. I’m not one of those people though and think that you are able to turn it off if you don’t want to see it, ESPECIALLY in the case of the AMAs where most of the acts were pretty adult. Those people should have been almost equally scandalized by all the other risqué performances but they weren’t, it was just Adam’s performance that had people up in arms. I tend to believe that it was because he showed his gayness on stage, I read a lot of comments about his performance and many of them mentioned how they did not want to see his homosexual tendancies (basically) on stage. So male + female kissing and groping=okay, female + female kissing/groping=okay, guy on guy is NOT okay for them. Yes it is a personal preference, but if it was all equal, even if you don’t like to see it, it should not be grounds to file a complaint if you did not do it for the others.
I will continue this tomorrow, it’s become too long and late….