Of Idols and Men

There's a trend I've noticed, and it makes me fairly angry.

I don't watch a whole lot of TV; my entertainment needs tend to be quite a bit more selective than that. I can appreciate the production value, the time, the investment that these things bring, and sometimes I can even accept it. Though there's one genre I almost always shy away from: Reality TV. As a general rule, I'm just not that interested. Tonight, however, I got very interested, perhaps for the wrong reason.

Going upstairs for dinner, I noticed American Idol was on. Now, American Idol is a show I've always felt was some of the worst that we as a country could showcase, and a great example of our reliance on pop culture trends to define who we are and what we do. I'm not up with the lingo, but the latest episode featured 20 contestants -- ten men, ten women. Four people were to be eliminated. They started with the males. I wasn't around to see the first elimination, but I came in to see the black male singer be eliminated, "by America's vote." He had his final song, which I thought was soulful and spectacular and a fantastic call back to Motown.

After the commercial break came the females. The way these elimination rounds work is they separate the groups into two rows, each row housing five contestants. They move through the line, and call the final two in a row before the judges -- I'm assuming for dramatic effect. Before they had even started saying who was eliminated versus who was continuing on, I said to my parents, "The two black girls are going to be eliminated."

The sad thing? I was right. They prefaced each elimination with "from America's votes", and gave them a final song. I imagine the argument could be made that America really is that dumb and vocal, but I don't think enough people vote on that show (especially via text, which dings you each time you cast a vote if you aren't with the right carrier) to truly make a statement. I know people do vote, and I know they do count those, but to what degree? Where are these votes coming from? I'm willing to bet the raw data would show something else entirely.

The goth chick survived. The weird hippy dred chick survived. The gay country star male survived. The metrosexual male survived. Their performances were not particularly stunning. And yet, all the people of color -- Asian male, black male, two black females -- got eliminated in one fell swoop.

Rupert Murdoch, international media mogul and current owner of Fox, has a well-documented history of bigotry, especially in "his" media of interest. In a way, I know I shouldn't be surprised, but this makes me feel ill. And it happens all over. To wit, the only non-white, non-country "artist" who's won American Idol is Ruben Studdard, and even then his runner-up, Clay Aiken, has far eclipsed him in record sales, popularity, and national appearances, even in the face of other difficulties.

Doesn't this point to something amiss? Certainly, I can't be the only person noticing this. I don't even watch the show, and yet the first night I sit down and actually take a gander (aside from the season opener gag reels) this blatant display of racism and bigotry is flaunted. America likes to tout itself as the land of the free. We like to think we're past the racism thing since desegregation; I would posit that we are still very much racist, just in a much more insidious way. This is all very well covered elsewhere, and I know that decrying the silent racism in American media is old-hat, but it still irks me to no end when I notice it. We should be past this, and yet all we seem to do is embrace it. We have a black President, for fuck's sake. Shouldn't we be past this by now?

Incidentally, predictions for the next semifinals round: Goth chick goes, hippy chick goes, metrosexual goes, and Barack Obama is voted out of the running by overwhelming majority vote. Thank (white) Jesus we have people like Rupert Murdoch to watch over us and ensure that the entertainment we get is safe, highly sanitized, and bleached all to Hell and back.