AI is not for Artificial Intelligence, but AMERICAN IDOL!

AI is not for Artificial Intelligence, but AMERICAN IDOL! by Roxanne McDonald

Known the world over now, AI returns for another hyper-engaged and engaging season…and all 40 million of us are screaming cheers or muttering jeers right along with the auditoriums of auditioners.

Jesus, has American Idol gotten huge. The years past, when the show began—showing the first few nights of auditions, the good, the bad, the crazy, in lines around the block(s)—it was exciting and loud and endearing. Now, now, however, Idol has grown so large that abbreviations and allusions are understood, stay-at-home fans are anxious and calculating days until next seasons or series episodes are starting, and the holding areas for the auditioners are no longer cordoned-off lines but whole amphitheatres or auditoriums.

Last night, January 16, 2007, the opening night, the intro featured Ryan Seacrest, of course, and clips and teasers, and scenes wherein tens of thousands of hopefuls all chanted in unison, “I AM THE NEXT AMERICAN IDOL!”

Maybe this was just for impact and advertising, but maybe it was also to illustrate the exponential popularity and utility of a show that is so big that the producers and participants have to go to even greater lengths in the making of the next one–and only one–Idol.

To highlight greatness, Seacrest’s script included a reminder of last season’s winner, Taylor Hicks (who got numerous shout-outs throughout the night), a clip and mention of the great finale and surprise (man, was it ever) performance…by Prince, and the number of viewers: 40 million. That’s one seventh of the population of the United States. That’s a superbowl number. That’s the number of dollars only a carload of Americans can boast being worth.
Also big were the attitudes and faith systems, the clothing choices, and a very small number of the voices: crack baby now 16, Denise Jackson, for instance, blew (in a good way) a mean rendition of a Jennifer Holiday piece (the classic a number of previous Idol contestants have used).

There were of course the proud and brave, the soldiers with the beautiful tenor voices; there were the auditioners who were sure that, sheeeut, they could do better than any Idol contestant or winner previous; the doorknobs and dildoes showed up, dressed like Apollo Creed (and, I think blowing the chance as he had an aria that was melodious as hell) or doing a tendentious imitation of already established (but Idol irrelevant) musical character like The Cowardly Lion.

And my favorites (uh, yeah, like I am the only one sucked into the exploitive parts of the show) were the mental patients who came out on their day passes to do drooling, stuttering, angry bits, or to try so hard with so many false starts and follow-up screeching and proud bows that I was peeing my pants—for they were the very ones who said

that only good voices should try out, that bad singers had no business being there, and/or that sheee-ut, they could out-sing any Kelly, Reuben, or Taylor any day.
Yuh. I sing, too. So what I am missing teeth; my boobs drag; and my hair is falling out in clumps. I am sure that I AM THE NEXT AMERICAN IDOL!

Okay, maybe the next American Idol fan…in a long, long, long line.

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