Idolatry
In the world of pop culture, my coworkers are blind fieldmice. They're dimly aware of the greater culture around them--they feel its weight, its power--but they can't seem to understand its shape or meaning. Walking into a lunch conversation about American Idol embarked upon by two people who've seen an accumulated five minutes of the show between them, I was asked "Doesn't it make you fear for your species that these people are being held up as role models?"
But a real consumer of popular culture knows that this isn't the issue at all. The audition weeks of American Idol make me fear for my species, but for an entirely different reason: They're the grownup equivalent of getting down on hands and knees behind the special ed kid about to be shoved on the playground. Last night's two-hour episode literally featured three decent singers. And what did they do with the rest of the show? They humiliated each and every comer, employing the holy trinity of modern America: snark, eye-rolls, and egotism. Even Jewel--who I've always loathed as a musician, but somehow managed to respect as a human being--didn't hesitate to go for the sad, middle-American jugular every chance she got.
I assured my coworkers that the show will eventually get down to business; it will include likeable people who actually have pleasant voices. But for now, it's nothing more than an in-joke calculated to make the home viewer feel smart. "Look at that stupid fat girl with the raccoon eyeliner. She says she's watched every single episode of American Idol, so why can't she see she doesn't have a chance in hell at anything but a sound trouncing?"
Mean-spirited and smirkingly self-satisfied, the early episodes of Idol are content to look for the freak, for the poorly educated, for the sucker. Sure, there's the occasional contestant with talent. And sometimes there's a contestant who just doesn't care--who's out for the lark of getting on TV, even if they have to wear a goofy costume and warble a painful rendition of Somewhere Over the Rainbow to do it. But most of the time, it shows people who genuinely think they have a shot, who earnestly believe that, in spite of all evidence to the contrary,they can sing.
Sure, I've spent half my career laughing at ridiculous manuscript submissions about the confluence of Kabbalah and Baseball (entitled Ka-baseball-ah, of course), sent in on twenty sheets of rainbow stationary purchased at Kmart. Sure, I love the snark. But American Idol is taking it to a whole new level, one where human beings are nothing but a source of amusement barely more sophisticated than Roman gladiatorial contests.
I love you, Simon Cowell, you of the sharp British accent, clever commentary, and skintight black t-shirts. But I also hate you, Simon Cowell, you of the disdainful sneer, of the dismissive hand wave, and of the dark, Ayn Rand-ish future of mankind, when success at the brutal expense of another is a matter of course.
But a real consumer of popular culture knows that this isn't the issue at all. The audition weeks of American Idol make me fear for my species, but for an entirely different reason: They're the grownup equivalent of getting down on hands and knees behind the special ed kid about to be shoved on the playground. Last night's two-hour episode literally featured three decent singers. And what did they do with the rest of the show? They humiliated each and every comer, employing the holy trinity of modern America: snark, eye-rolls, and egotism. Even Jewel--who I've always loathed as a musician, but somehow managed to respect as a human being--didn't hesitate to go for the sad, middle-American jugular every chance she got.
I assured my coworkers that the show will eventually get down to business; it will include likeable people who actually have pleasant voices. But for now, it's nothing more than an in-joke calculated to make the home viewer feel smart. "Look at that stupid fat girl with the raccoon eyeliner. She says she's watched every single episode of American Idol, so why can't she see she doesn't have a chance in hell at anything but a sound trouncing?"
Mean-spirited and smirkingly self-satisfied, the early episodes of Idol are content to look for the freak, for the poorly educated, for the sucker. Sure, there's the occasional contestant with talent. And sometimes there's a contestant who just doesn't care--who's out for the lark of getting on TV, even if they have to wear a goofy costume and warble a painful rendition of Somewhere Over the Rainbow to do it. But most of the time, it shows people who genuinely think they have a shot, who earnestly believe that, in spite of all evidence to the contrary,they can sing.
Sure, I've spent half my career laughing at ridiculous manuscript submissions about the confluence of Kabbalah and Baseball (entitled Ka-baseball-ah, of course), sent in on twenty sheets of rainbow stationary purchased at Kmart. Sure, I love the snark. But American Idol is taking it to a whole new level, one where human beings are nothing but a source of amusement barely more sophisticated than Roman gladiatorial contests.
I love you, Simon Cowell, you of the sharp British accent, clever commentary, and skintight black t-shirts. But I also hate you, Simon Cowell, you of the disdainful sneer, of the dismissive hand wave, and of the dark, Ayn Rand-ish future of mankind, when success at the brutal expense of another is a matter of course.