Random Thought #1

I caught four minutes of American Idol a few weeks ago. That was enough. I actually don't mind the show as the season goes on, as it turns into a celebration (albeit contrived) of beautiful people (typically) singing beautifully. But the first few episodes, I hate. I really can't stand watching the contestants get rejected, even the ones who had absolutely no shot.

Are some of the individuals going on there to be purposefully bad in order to gain some attention? No doubt. But just like Samuel L. Jackson's theory that because there are disabled people there must be superheroes (anytime Jackson is in a movie, I assume all aspects of his character and the central plot were derived from him), there is a perfect reflection on the other side - hence many of those awful contestants actually think they have a chance.

On most reality shows, this isn't an issue for me. I don't watch them, but it also doesn't bother me when Starlotta gets booted off Rock of Love on the first episode, thus negating her opportunity to be mouth-raped by a tranny who used to be in Poison (and not C.C. Deville - it would be tragic to miss out on that). What bothers me is that, in our collective subconscious, American Idol has morphed into an actual competition. The results of the show have bearing in the real world, not just the world of television or in the mind of a vapid, bloody-nosed sorority girl.

Win any other reality competition and you have the chance to be famous for six weeks or infamous for 12, depending upon how you went about your post-series fraternizing. But if you win American Idol, you actually have a legitimate chance of becoming really, really fucking famous (and rich). It's no guarantee, but I'd like my odds better as winner of that show than as a delightful, singing bar back in Pawtucket.

And that's why it bothers me. When you see someone crying into the arms of their mother after Simon charmingly insults everything about him/her, there's a 50/50 shot that you're witnessing someone's dream dying. And who wants to watch that? I mean, at this rate, you'd think that someday they'll run videos on television of people actually dying. Oh, wait, what's that? Stations all over the country have been showing a clip of a guy getting run over by a monster truck? Once again, I've fallen behind the zeitgeist.