Monsters of Television

The sheer volume of crying montages on American Idol has desensitized me to sadness.

Noel talks about formulas within shows and I don’t think there are many that are more formulaic than Idol, despite the reality guise. Hopefuls go in, audition, get judged. Some hopefuls have a sad backstory (usually about children or disease or both); some just want to be celebrities. The segues are usually rough, involve some history or setting establishment for the city they’re in, and, at some point, one of them will be a montage of people crying because they didn’t get in. These poor wretches, caught on camera for all their friends to see, bawling their little eyes out because Simon called them terrible or because they weren’t bestowed with a yellow piece of paper (by the way, “Golden Tickets” are supposed to be rare, not given out thirty at a time). Hopes and dreams crushed under a music industry juggernaut, the excess that squishes from underfoot beamed to an audience of 10.4 rating.

This show is exhausting. Each featured contestant is an emotional vignette, hastily constructed. The featured contestants are milked for their story that is condensed to a minute or two, just enough time to hit their low-point (which might be in the present) and how the Golden Ticket will give them the vindication/satisfaction/external validation they need. The intent of the producers is to draw you into these people and root for them. But with a featured contestant during every segment (and with American Idol broken up into as many segments as possible to allow tons of time for advertisers), the ups and downs throughout the program are terribly exhausting. And then this show is on twice a week for weeks on end. They grow from exhausting to tiresome. If a contestant had cancer as a child, an autistic kid, or a sick grandmother, we know that judges aren’t going to dash her dreams (paint Simon as “evil” but never sinister) and, almost as a self-preservation emotionally, the draw is limited by recognizing the formula. In fact, the only draw left is in watching the crazy, over/underdressed personalities take the stage. Those can go either way. “Skiibowski, of course.”

One might argue that the singing talent is what we’re supposed to be watching for. Just as these judges are looking for the next American Idol, we should also be awed by the talent across these United States. I don’t entirely buy that. Maybe for some but we live in media saturated culture. Music is pervasive in every aspect of life, from radio to television to jingles to ringtones. I’m almost jaded by music nowadays and singing talent, unless overwhelming, is not impressive anymore. Everyone can sing (even those that can’t thanks to advancements in production). So I’m left to feel that the draw for this show, why this show crushes in ratings every year, is not necessarily the talent of the good ones, but audience’s schadenfreude for those misfortunate souls tricked by our culture to believing their mediocrity can propel them to celebrity/a life of leisure and willing to chase that misappropriated dream on recorded television, even signing paperwork to show their faces.

Obviously, the audition phase of the show is not all the show is. There’s a whole competition aspect (though that seems so far away) which adds a new dimension to this puzzle (schadenfreude plus wanting to see who is the new manufactured pop star to worship). But after eight seasons of this show, you would think America would tire of this formula, of this obvious hype machine designed specifically to cater to someone’s emotions, like some reality body genre. The crying montages would have to wear on a viewer eventually. Right?

It does but it doesn’t matter. Here’s the thing about American Idol: lots of people hate it. Lots of people, vocal people, industry people, “Main Street” people, people from all walks of life can’t stand the show. But this is something that continues to roll on and I didn’t understand why until I watched the Atlanta auditions episode. The General Larry Platt, 62 years young, broke it down for the judges in the song of his own creation, “Pants on the Ground” (American Idol has committed an official version to the internet consciousness). The song blew up, making it into sketch comedy, entertainment news shows, late night performances, and making Platt a hero/celebrity not only in the city from which he hails but across the country. Simon remarked at the end of the performance that it was something that would catch on. It did. And I was there.

American Idol is a glut of content that continues to pump through television sets, twice a week, for hours sometimes. With so much film, so many hands involved, so many characters dying to be an Idol, there is sure to be something that can be made viral or, at the very least, interesting to a wide constituency. And to be there on the front end instead of hearing about it later was different, special even. I watched Platt drop to his knee in a faux splits, complaining about the “fools” sagging their pants with everyone else. When it hit Twitter, I was able to comment on it, enjoy with millions of Americans this thing that Larry Platt gave to us. It’s like that moment you hear a band no one you know has heard and you connect with it immediately. It’s special. And you were there, in that moment. Better yet, you’re able to share it with everyone else in that moment. American Idol is like that except without the pretense indie fans have of distrusting something that is mainstream. You rejoice with your countrymen in something that is fantastic.

So while the formula may be tiresome and the amount of programming terribly exhausting, American Idol has been around long enough to engrain itself into the culture so that its audience is waiting for these moments, either that glimpse of stardom or that insane viral opportunity waiting for parody or repetition. The formula gives you a way to read the mania. The exceptional moments are the twist. And, even if my feelings for fellow humans are numbed by producers playing to my emotions so often, I totally get why people keep watching this show. Not to say I’m hooked.