Re: American Idol 3/3/09
Yeah, my wife and I decided that we're no longer going to watch American Idol, for a few reasons:
- The Tatiana exploitation-for-ratings segment was just a downright nasty thing to do. The judges obviously chose who they want BEFORE they sang tonight. They weren't going to put Tatiana through. Why humiliate her again? She's obviously mentally ill. Shame on them. This segment made me sad, especially as she was the best SINGER of the top 12 (she's no Barbra, but out of this group? she was miles above anyone else).
- This year seems much worse than years past in regards to putting singers through based on things that have nothing to do with singing talent. "You look commercial." To Jasmine Murray. This is such an unreal statement to me on what is purported to be a singing competition. Why not just tell her she's hot and that's why you're putting her through? Also: "I don't like what you''re wearing." To Katherine McNamara, who sang great. Gee, the producers have nothing to do with the contestants' appearance, huh? I'm sure at this stage, at the very least, they have to get the nod of approval, otherwise extremely-gay Nate would have been wearing his assless chaps on live TV.
- Also for the first time, I'm convinced that America's votes only count for how the producers want to steer the show. This one takes a bit of explaining, I think. I'll bet the 1-866 number and text system they have for voting keeps track of where the votes come in (by telephone number) and they can plot out on a map exactly how many people, for example, in Alabama voted and for whom. So they can look a world map and see large pockets of voting. They can discard multiple votes from the same number if they choose. Hell, they can discard anything they want and I think they do. "Oh, contestant A has the most votes (say this number is 10,000) and is from town B. Town B is in area code C. 70% of the votes for contestant A come from this area code. Well, this isn't going to work for us. Strike 50% of the 70% of votes in area code C immediately." This is just one way that the data can be manipulated. So, I don't believe the sheer number of votes wins. The producers use these stats as data to determine who to keep and who not to keep, based on prospective record sales. I really do love it when it doesn't work for them: Fantasia Barrino, Taylor Hicks, and Ruben Studdard are great examples of previous systems failing. I don't think they're going to let any of this happen again.
Oh well. I feel a sense of liberation, to be honest.
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Originally posted by Dudley Garrett
