The season premiere of American Idol was Tuesday night, and I openly admit I watched it, as I plan to watch the entire season. Idol has always been an odd mix of gay-friendly and gay-insulting. This year, Ellen DeGeneres joins the series as a new permanent judge, and Neil Patrick Harris serves as one of the on-the-road guest judges later this season. Of course Adam Lambert was a finalist last season. And let’s face it: Lots of gay guys watch (and try out).
Part of the fun of the early auditions — some would say the worst part of the show — is watching all the self-deceived tone-deaf neophytes humiliate themselves while believing they are the next Lady Gaga. But it has become increasingly annoying to me how the show seems to concentrate of what appear to be the crazy GAY contestants: Men in tiaras and makeup, those who seems to lift directly out of their loafers.
I love the great panoply of gay culture, from the drag performers to the lipstick lesbians to the bears (love me some bears!) to the flamboyant twinks. Maybe the gay guys are just more emotionally accessible so their performances are more outre and their disappointment more unrestrained. But it has gone from making me laugh to bothering me that it makes me laugh to feeling it’s all just too damn insulting. Maybe if some of the good male singers ALSO seemed to be gay (a la Adam and Clay), it wouldn’t seem like they were JUST making fun of the gays, But it definitely comes off that way.
Whadaya think? Does this bother anyone else as much as it does me?
I miss Adam so much. Last night America Idol was a pain: no quality, no talent, no personality, no charisma.
I think Adam Lambert broke the idol.
Yes. It’s insulting. And they INTEND it to be.
But heterosexuals have always shown us that they will take ANY and EVERY opportunity to degrade, abuse, dehumanize and diminish us.
American Idol is just doing what (the VAST majority of) heterosexuals do.
But it’s their assumption of moral superiority while participating in this abuse that makes me want to vomit all over their ugly shoes.
The thing that bothers me is that this show is still on.
NO MORE REALITY TV.
If I want reality, I’ll go outside.
I want good, old fashioned sit-coms and dramadys.
Remember the good ole days of SOAP, WKRP, Moonlighting, and Northern Exposure (to name a few)?
I am over American Idol. I am not going to watch it this season. I agree about the reality tv crap. I can feel my mind starting to turn to mush. I watched a refreshing show on PBS last night (Hadrian’s Wall) and didn’t feel dirty afterward. What passes for entertainment today is embarrasing.
They make just as much fun, if not more, of the hetero contestants as they do the gays. They choose the odd balls, and if some of them are gay, that’s just the way life is. It’s the contestants who are willing to degrade themselves, make themselves laughing stock. I don’t like watching the auditions for that very reason…hate seeing people make fools of themselves. I rarely laugh during these preliminary shows.
If you look back on Adam’s audition, it’s not evident he’s gay. So there’s no way of knowing for sure which of the great auditiions might be gays too. The trick to watching shows like these are not to take them seriously. At this early stage of the game I don’t think they’re a reflection of society as a whole.
Considering they insult just as many heterosexual, male, female, black, latin, horrible Bostonian accented people on the show, I think it’s a stretch to target them for explicitly making fun of gay people. Idol is also not going to go out of their way to show you the only somewhat mediocre people they said no to. There are thousands of those. But they know the ones that are whack jobs bring ratings, no matter their sexuality.