American Idol: Replacement 401K?
Thursday, February 14th, 2008American Idol is good bad TV. It’s a juggernaut (I love that I just got to use that word), so there’s really no escaping it. And really, why would you want to when it provides such a great learning opportunity, and (I suspect in addition to our current foreign policy) one of the several reasons people hate Americans so much.
The thing is (in case you aren’t lucky enough to be informed about the approaching apocolypse on the bus to Nordstrom’s or haven’t been exposed lately to a Tom Cruise monologue) American Idol brings the crazy to your living room, weekly. All kinds of it too. Crazy dressed up as Star Wars characters (see, they’re called characters because they’re not real); grown men wearing white suits of cellophane, glitter lycra, and feathers; bumble bees, pastry, Meatloaf (the singer, not the food)…
These people, of course, just want to be on TV. And, of course, the producers indulge them because it sets tongues to wagging and insights media buzz. What no one, however, seems to talk about or even acknowledge is the very sad and completely INSANE use of American Idol as a: 1) college fund, 2) medical insurance provider, 3) morgage payment, 4) retirement plan, or 5) platform from which to launch total world domination via land, sea, and singing.
I refer here to the contestants who respond to Randy’s “nah, man…not good enough….I like you, but it was just aight for me, dawg” with their own insightful drivel: “This was my only shot, dude…NOW what am I supposed to do with the REST. OF. MY. LIFE?”
To this I respond: American Idol is NOT a socioeconomic program!
I’ve been called a “dream crusher” at least once this morning by a co-worker, so let me assert here and now that I am pro-dream. I’m even for people striving to live the “American Dream.” But the thing is, if that’s what the show is, then it only gets to be one person’s dream (each season).
Given those odds- oh, I don’t know- maybe some form of back-up plan might be in order? At the very least, it might help to defray some of the rejection one is likely to encounter. And then, you know, you might have a regular job or something to fall back on like the rest of us.
I mean, it certainly wasn’t my dream to sit in a cube 40 hours a week, marketing The Meaning of Mundane, but I work for what it enables me to do responsibly to survive and irresponsibly to have fun. Has it become that difficult for the American public to find the means (outside of winning American Idol) to have both?
I have never watched American Idol.
To have that kind of will power! Every year-except the first and the one with the prematurely grey guy, I get sucked in.