posted 2007/04/04 at 16:02
Alex Blagg: "American Idol, Sanjaya Malakar, and the Postmodern Condition" (Huffington Post)
When I was teaching first-year composition at the University of Toledo, I kind of made a point of becoming more aware of the music, television, and other media trends that people in that 18-20 age group are likely to be aware of, even though for the most part I really don't care for that kind of music or television. Given the huge juggernaut American Idol is, I thought that I should make a real concerted effort to follow the show, but so help me I just can't make myself watch it. I've already made my opinions about Simon Cowell well-known, and even if the show weren't pumping out such homogenized music, I haven't heard any singer come out of that show whom I could describe as anything better than mediocre.
Were it not for the mentions this whole thing has been getting on Countdown, I'd have no idea about this whole Sanjaya thing going on. On its surface, I can see the attraction of deliberately trying to mess up the voting on the show to make the seemingly least talented contestant the winner. That being said, as much as I sympathize with people who don't like American Idol, messing up their voting just seems kind of petty to me. I mean, if you really want to do damage to American Idol, wouldn't it just be easier, and better, to change the channel and just ignore the whole American Idol cultural juggernaut? I know it can seem hard to avoid something that's become such a dominant part of American popular culture, but it can be done.
More to the point, if you despise a force that you believe is manufacturing substandard product -- in the case of American Idol, both singers and songs of questionable quality -- why not instead put your energy into pushing quality singers and songs? I realize it can be hard to find the singers out there who are putting out quality music these days, but they are out there, and if you get your friends and co-workers used to a higher quality product, they should automatically reject the lower-quality product. That just seems like a better, more constructive, use of your time and energy than something like this whole "Vote for Sanjaya" business.
Sometimes it's fun to force the unexpected and watch how people react.
I'll grant you that, but at this point there's so much behind Sanjaya right now that he almost has, to borrow a Clintonism, an "aura of inevitability" around him. I don't see how Sanjaya actually winning the contest at this point would produce a significantly different reaction than the reaction he's gotten from surviving this far.
copyright © 2008 Sean Shannon