The latest distraction is this business with Paula Abdul and an American Idol contestant. He claims that she coached him and they had an affair, and blah blah blah…
I understand why American Idol is so popular. I think I get it. It’s like American Bandstand or something. But why is this news, and the news about ABC’s “investigation,” getting so much press? It’s like meta-press: the press is excited that ABC did something journalistic. It ranks right up there with Hersh’s story about Abu Ghraib!
i know! this is soooooooo less important than katie holmes’ tom cruise induced lip trauma. what are those marks all over her mouth? eeew! but seriously, my coworker pointed out that every third picture that flashes up on aol’s new banner at the homepage was a celebrity. is jennifer garner pregnant? did 47 people die because of a suicide bomb in iraq?
it’s easier to think about benjen’s womb than about a nail bomb going off in a trash can in front of a school. the media is pandering to that. i don’t watch the news, it’s too depressing. does the ameri-scam idol conflict (i just made that up–do you like it?) really merit a primetime special? sure it’s front page news, but only for rolling stone or tv guide.
Totally. So this is a primetime special that’s introducing the scandal into our lives? How fucked up is that? Also, where the fuck is that missing bride down in Georgia? Ahmed just got got his knee blown off, but where’s the bride?
that bride got found. she kidnapperd herself just like alicia silverstone in excess baggage.
There is no doubt this Abdul/Clark “scandal” is entirely manufactured spectactle, but American Idol is not just entertainment or a distraction like the missing bride story. The show is perceived, like the lottery, as a legitimate, meritocratic chance for any American to shoot to fame and fortune. And like the lottery, which is audited by a Big Ten (are there less now?) accounting firm, it must have the appearance of toal propriety.
Perhaps a less tangential parallel would be the quiz show scandals of the 1950s. While HUAC was holding its witch trials, the entrants, producers, and executives of the rigged quiz shows were excorciated in the press and forced to appear before Congress.
Vik, I love you. You’re so right. American Idol needs to maintain the American Dream myth, so any appearance of deviance must be stamped down. Maintain!
i sat in a bar and watched fox news run a fifteen minute story about the latest american idol episode. they interviewed the latest victim of the panel and gossiped about one of the other contestant’s love life. it’s not difficult to see why fox would perpetuate the show’s popularity both commercially and politically. until someone is directly affected by reality of war, like the woman who lost her son in farenheit 911, why wouldn’t he or she choose to watch the American Dream come true instead of the news?
It’s not really a myth for Clay Aiken or Kelly Clarkson. By making that dream a reality for a select few, the possibility becomes real for so many others (as Vik said, like the lottery). it’s distraction on a massive scale.
Is this conversation elitist? I want your opinions.