Letters to the Editor
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Thank you for saying what I felt watching last night
It seemed incredibly exploitative of people's misery, particularly the scenes from Africa. It's a good cause and knowing the plight of people in Africa and the U.S. is valuable, but the way it was carried out left me with a sick feeling. The Carrie Underwood video was particularly cringe-worthy and tacky. We ended up fast fowarding (thank goodness for DVRs) though a lot of it.
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Please. Stop.
American Idol is not about music. It's about crass commercialism and marketing to the lowest common denominator. It's about selling commercial air time to hawk deoderant and hairspray.
This "music" blog has really gone down hill as of late. In the quest for a wider audience you are alienating the fans you already have.
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Idol should be covered
There's been some harping about whether American Idol should be covered here in Salon, but I think it should be. Whether you like Idol or not, it is a force in American pop music. It gathers huge ratings, big starts have started to lobby to be included as mentors, and the artists who have appeared as contestants have released an awful lot of music. Some of it's quite good, and some of it's pretty bad, but it is part of the music scene now.
Last night's Charity show was weird. Others have noted, the juxtaposition of the performances with the sad, grinding poverty was overwhelming. I'm glad they raised the money to help, because every dollar can help someone, but they should have just had a charity special and kept the "who will stay/who will go?" part out of it.
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I don't understand it either
I usually watch American Idol but trying to watch it this week just left me with an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach. I appreciate that celebrities want to use their visibility for a good cause, but showing children in Africa crying next to Ryan Seacrest and Simon Cowell, who will be gone left week, had me turning off the TV set. There is a difference between hilighting something that needs to be changed and simply using it for PR. I also don't understand what the focus of the show was... was it Africa, New Orleans, the whole U.S.? It seemed just to show miserable people everywhere. I also wanted to know what, exactly, the money was going to. I ended up just feeling a little confused and a little disturbed by the whole thing.. and ultimately turned off the TV.
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Glitz-raised dough still turns into bread.
Sure, I cringed a few times as the sad orphans and hardworking food pantry folk were shoehorned onto the show, in tiny little context-free increments.
But how many of the millions of people, esp. kids, watching that would have tuned in to a dour PBS documentary on hunger, or AIDS orphans, or literacy? Isn't it better (at least as a start) to capture the public's attention for a few moments on a massive scale?
I actually thought that Simon, Randy, Paula & Ryan were sincerely moved by their visits, esp. Simon and Ryan in Africa. As for the sign-on celebs, what's the problem with using your klieg-light of fame to point at some *real* problems in the world that the media-industrial complex would otherwise not give the time of day?
I think we need to move away from this notion that one is either "involved" or "apathetic," either a true believer who rejects all mainstream media and entertainment in favor of "important causes," or just a couch drone flipping mindlessly through Us Weekly. Why can't there be room for people to BOTH watch "Idol" AND get involved, even tangentially, in a chartiable/political effort? Who would deny these causes the $30mil raised just because it was raised from the unenlightened masses? Lighten up, folks -- it's OK to wear a Sanjaya t-shirt, not a hairshirt, and still fork over a contribution.
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Was Idol a Fund Raising Success? Not so much.
Thirty million may sound like a lot of dough, but for perspective, know that March of Dimes telethons conducted in the mid 1980s raised $60 million or more with fewer celebrities on lower rated channels. With all the star power and marketing savvy of Idol, I would have expected hundreds of millions raised. What was the problem? While many of the vignettes were very powerful, the show and its stars just never seemed sincere. Plus the power of the brand almost worked against Idol. At times, I had the distinctly unsettling feeling that the most lucrative show in television history was asking me to send money to help them improve their brand.
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Why are all our flags still at half mast?
Exploitive? Gerald Ford's death didn't get this much flagtastic stuff.
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Strange and Good
I have watched on and off this season out of curiosity having never seen it before. Often I find the show boring and repetitive and end up just cleaning or doing something while it's on. I have enjoyed the fact that singers that otherwise would be dismissed based on appearance get a chance to sing for millions of people. I also like that they are actually singing live as opposed to being auto-tuned in the studio.
Although I found many aspects of last night's show to be strange I think it's a great thing that they showed people stark images of suffering and asked for donations. They will raise over 30 million, that figure was mentioned before the show was over. There may be a self-serving side to all of this as it seems there is in every aspect of American business and political life. I'd rather have a poor attempt at combining fund-raising and entertainment than no attempt at all.
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Awareness Does Not Equal Action
Today's telethons or amalgams of pop culture and human misery are as commonplace as discarded "Idol" candidates. While we all can say "good job" to Simon and Co. for trying to do some good or "raise awareness," it'll wash right over the eyes of most of the viewing public. Our regularly scheduled song and dance routine will go on until the producers decide we need another tearjerker to tug heartstrings and boost ratings.
We live a passive lifestyle. When we look at the problems of the world, it's much easier to throw some money down a hole (after seeing something so heartbreaking) than to realize the role we play in regional and world events. The American lifestyle (profit and consumption over all) contributes heavily to some of the dire poverty in the world, environmental problems, wars, etc. We can pour money down the well all we want, but it's only going to go so far.
Specials like this episode of "Idol" don't alleviate that passivity. We watch, feel bad, cut a check, and then move on with our lives - feeling slightly better about ourselves for awhile. That is, until the next time someone asks us to contribute just seventy cents a day. Specials like this should make us question the root causes of poverty and make us take a look at our own role in them.