A Temper Tantrum on American Idol
Will Simon Cowell Really Quit the Show if Sanjaya Wins?
Idol judge Simon Cowell threatens not to come back next year if the viewing public votes a bad singer all the way to the top.
Simon Cowell, the infamous American Idol judge known for being brutally honest about a contestant's singing ability (or lack thereof) said he won't do the show next year if Sanjaya Malakar wins. Say what?
Admittedly, this young kid is not a very good singer. He's not terrible, but his vocals are not nearly as powerful as many of the other Season Six Idols who made the Top Twelve. So why did Sundance Head, a much better singer, get the boot while Sanjaya Malakar stayed? Despite that judges Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul continually try to convince the viewers that American Idol is a "singing competition," it really isn't.
If this show were truly all about singing, the voting to decide who stays and who goes would never be left solely up to the public. With that voting structure in place, American Idol becomes less about singing and more about a popularity contest. It becomes not about who will go on to sell millions of records later, but who is the most entertaining to watch right now. It's a reality television show, a genre where "anything goes" and usually does. The more cheesy and amusing, the better.
Simon Cowell has made a career out of being a caustic curmudgeon who seems to enjoy putting the singers down when they perform badly. Regardless of what he's really like in person, the television persona he created (or the American Idol producers created for him) is not very nice. Why would it surprise anyone that viewers enjoy voting for the worst singers just to push Simon's buttons and watch him explode?
Add to the mix Vote for the Worst, a website that encourages viewers to cast their votes for the least talented among all the Idol hopefuls. Now that Simon says he'll go if Sanjaya Malakar stays, VFTW has made him their current poster boy.
VFTW claims that American Idol is not about singing at all, but about making an entertaining reality television show. And what makes good reality TV is watching bad singing and contestants who flounder like fish out of water. The producers of AI could hardly dispute this, having served up copious amounts of exactly that during the lengthy audition portion of the show. They can't possibly expect intelligent viewers not to surmise that they let some really awful singers through simply because it makes the show more entertaining.
For Simon Cowell to decry the voting results and threaten to leave if America doesn't shape up and vote for the singer he likes, is downright laughable.
