cross-posted at skippy as well as a literal cornucopia of other community blogs.
[ed. note: little did we know, when skippy left a comment on mimus pauly’s one-line throw-away about watching american idol, that we would wind up in a heated debate about the values of this program. but here follows our response to mimus’s response to skippy’s response to mimus’s response to the program:]
mimus, you say in your rant against american idol:
here are some of the lessons viewers do learn from that program: building young people up just to knock them down is nice; making them cry is funny; being a douchebag is cool; and, perhaps the most insidious lesson of all, to quote vince lombardi, winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.
sorry, mimus, but the lessons you lay out which america learns is exactly what skippy was trying to say in his comment: show business is hard. incredibly hard. “making young people cry,” is your interpretation of rejection, which is what simply happens in this industry.
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unlike several reality shows which set people up for falls (think “the jamie kennedy experiment” or “punk’d”), this show does nothing more than tell the truth to aspiring hopefuls about their talent. and, the unfortunate truth is, 99% of the people, young or not, who want to make it show business don’t have the talent to do so, let alone the drive, gumption, ambition, focus, or discipline.
is simon mean sometimes more than necessary (read: “douchebag”)? yes. are there people like simon who are callous, unsympathetic and brutal to you in show business for real? yes. luckily, there are also people like paula and randy who are positive and helpful towards young hopefuls.
we don’t believe “american idol” teaches “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” look at the many american idol contestants who did not win the contest but have gone on to major careers: clay aiken, tamyra gray, chris daughtry, kellie pickler (who has a sitcom in the works), katherine mcphee, diana digarmo (currently on broadway), bo brice, and a little singing nobody named jennifer “golden globe winner oscar nominee” hudson.
in fact, howard cohen of the miami herald wonders aloud if losing on ai isn’t a much better proposition than winning:
daughtry — the clear front-runner early in season five — certainly has benefited from that controversial ouster. he has sold more than a million copies of his eponymous debut cd, and radio — long resistant to most idols — has embraced his single, it’s not over. daughtry sits at no. 3 on the current billboard 200 album chart — far outpacing winner taylor hicks, whose album has plummeted to no. 47. other idol rejects to come out on top: kellie pickler, who scored a no. 1 country album recently and has been tapped to star in a tv sitcom; and josh gracin, who has seen three songs breach country’s top 5.
no, “wining is the only thing” is not the lesson this show imparts. we believe that american idol teaches (and pardon us if we repeat ourselves, this is, after all, our main premise) that to make it in the entertainment industry, you have to be focused, disciplined, ready to give 1000% of your talent 1000% of the time, and able to take rejection, because you are going to be rejected a billion times more than you are ever going to be accepted. (those of us in show business know the secret to this dilemna: when you get accepted, it’s suddenly a million times sweeter than you could ever imagine, because of the previous rejections).
we will grant you that the producers seem to milk the auditions for all way more than they are worth, and there are little if any actual life lessons to be gleaned from the over-stuffed and over-wrought first 6 or seven episodes of any given season (“but today in memphis, the clouds broke: will the sun bring talent, or will paula and simon still be fighting?” please. get a writer…no, strike that…get an editor and cut the audition sequence down to one hour, and get on with the actual contest!!); however, it is their show and they want to have as many people watch it as much as possible.
and therein lies the truth: it is, after all, just a tv show. and it’s not even an original idea at that. where is your wrath for horn and hardart, ted mack, star search?
we maintain, there are many, many other reality shows (not to mention so-called comedy, drama and news shows) that one could get justifiably upset over (in a recent interview w/jamie tarses, the previous head of abc’s entertainment division, she lamented that tv has come down to people “pointing to a suitcase,” an obvious reference to the vapidity that is “deal or no deal”).
fling not your bile on “american idol.” more than any other program, movie or entertainment we have seen, it demonstrates all the good, the bad, and the ugly that trying to be a success in the entertainment industry can heap upon young hopefuls. it shows all those party-goers, whose friends tell them (after a drunken rendition of “mandy”) that they ought to be on tv, how very very hard and very very serious a life dedicated to show business can be. in other words, it’s not as easy as it looks.
the skippy’s love american idol, for this very reason. if someone doesn’t like it, fine, turn the channel, or better yet, read a book (or blog, preferably, ours). but it’s certainly not the worst thing on television, and we think, it shows some of the best.
