Will 'American Idol' Party Like It's 2009?
It's that time of year again.
It's the time of year when Americans are getting ready to laugh at a bunch of tangle-tongued wannabes who call themselves "singers," shout down that snarky Brit guy and rub their thumbs raw hitting redial on their phones.
You know what I'm talking about. If it's January, it's time for American Idol.
Fox's competition-crushing colossus is entering its ninth season. And even though the ratings have dipped a bit the last couple years, it still draws more viewers—sometimes millions more—than anything else on television. And that includes CBS' 68 different investigative procedurals bearing combinations of the letters C, S, I and occasionally N.
This year marks the departure of the often-loopy but always interesting Paula Abdul and the introduction of comedienne, talk show host and Idol über-fan Ellen DeGeneres. And on the day I started writing this piece, The Hollywood Reporter announced that this season will be judge Simon Cowell's last.
Time for full disclosure: My wife and I have been big Idol fans. In the show's first season I voted for Kelly Clarkson over that frizzy-haired pretty boy. Redial I did, as Yoda would say. Since then, I've voted for Chris Daughtry, Jordin Sparks, Danny Gokey, Chris Sligh … even long-haired rocker Bo Bice.
As a long-time watcher and regular voter, I've noticed two things about this show that are worth a second look in a new decade:
1) The number of contestants who talk about their Christian faith (in one form or another) is nothing short of remarkable—and perhaps an integral part of what's made the show so popular and reasonably family friendly. But …
2) The show's producers have become increasingly interested in spotlighting guest performers whose stage antics and song lyrics are anything but family friendly.
Onward Christian Singers
When I was growing up during the era of big shoulder pads and bigger hair, Christian music was a subculture hermetically sealed off from the mainstream. Amy Grant, Stryper and Michael W. Smith eventually had their big crossover hits, but ask someone (anyone) on the street who Shout, Whiteheart or even Petra were, and you'd likely get a blank stare. One Bad Pig, anybody? Holy Soldier? Crumbächer?
This article isn't about Christian music, really. And American Idol isn't about Christian music, either. But I find it fascinating that so many of Idol's biggest performers have come from Christian backgrounds and have openly, repeatedly talked about their faith.
Take the winners over the last eight seasons: Six of them (Kelly Clarkson, Ruben Studdard, Fantasia Barrino, Carrie Underwood, Jordin Sparks and Chris Allen) have in some way mentioned their allegiance to Christ. And that's just the champions. Chris Daughtry, Jennifer Hudson, Danny Gokey, Phil Stacey, Chris Sligh and Melinda Doolittle have all been high-profile Christian contestants as well.
I think it makes intuitive sense that a group of people who spend a lot of time singing at church and for churches would perhaps have an edge when it comes to performing on a singing-based talent show—a connection that several writers have recently pointed out. During the 2009 Idol season, for instance, an Associated Press article reported that more than half of the final 11 contestants had "regularly performed in places of worship," including eventual winner Kris Allen.
Joanne Brokaw, who writes Beliefnet's "Gospel Soundcheck" blog, said of this potential advantage, "From Whitney Houston to Evanescence to American Idols, many singers, with and without any current claim to Christianity, started singing in church. For some, it was the gospel choir. For others, it was a praise band in youth group. That doesn't mean that they went on to become preachers or Christian artists. But that experience as youths offers them a chance to sing in front of a crowd, to get some direction on how to sing properly, and build confidence. While some kids are playing in a garage band with just the family dog for an audience, others are on church stages with professional sound and lighting systems. You can't discount that kind of experience."
Kids were singing at church in the 1980s, too, of course. But what's changed is that now the idea of Christian performers on secular stages isn't a strange one. In an interview with MTV, Brokaw noted, "Look at Jordin Sparks, the Jonas Brothers and Flyleaf, who've blown up in the mainstream. I think the fact that the line between Christian music and the mainstream is becoming more blurred makes it OK for people who are involved in worship to audition for a show like this and not feel like they are selling out or will be criticized."
Far from being criticized, these Christian performers are pulling in enthusiastic Christian viewers (like me and my wife). Christians watch American Idol. And they vote. And Fox knows it. So including Christian performers has proven to make good TV sense. It's enabled Fox to throw down a welcome mat for Christian viewers who don't like—let alone identify with—very much else on broadcast television. In his conversantlife.com article "American Idol—Good for TV. Bad for Church," CJ Casciotta noted, "The people at American Idol are not idiots. They realize that there's this huge percentage of America that watches TV as a family, and lots of families go to church. … [The viewers] know worship leaders and musicians in church, and why not bring that aspect to the show?"
Dancing for New Judges
Perhaps in part because of these performers' presence and the fans they draw, the show has traditionally kept things reasonably clean. Sly innuendo has crept in here and there, but profanities have been both bleeped and visually obscured.
But what happens when (good) business begins to drop off?
American Idol is still TV's No. 1 show, of course. But over the last three seasons, viewership has steadily declined. After peaking in the 30 million-plus range during Season 5, Idol has drifted down to about 25 million viewers. Last year, the number of 12- to 17-year-olds was the lowest it's been since the show debuted. Numbers are eroding for 18- to 49-year-old fans as well.
In TV Land, O-L-D spells D-E-A-D. (Perhaps Simon is jumping off before the good ship American Idol springs a full-blown leak.) And what happens when TV shows go from new to old to almost-dead? They either start randomly jumping sharks or laying on the sleaze. Or both. So those declining numbers may well be one reason Idol's producers agreed to "spice" things up a bit last year.
More than once my wife and I were disappointed to find out who was being featured on the show's Wednesday night results episodes. Lady Gaga pranced her way through "Poker Face." Worse, Flo Rida gave his none-too-subtle nod to strippers and oral sex in his No. 1 hit "Right Round" (with Ke$ha singing backup). And Katy Perry performed her ode to a hard night in Sin City, "Waking Up in Vegas." (Perry—who ironically, at least from the perspective of this article, got her start in Christian music—has been asked back this season as a mentor.)
If there was any doubt that the producers had gotten a little too comfortable with sexing things up, the Season 8 finale utterly erased it when Idol judge Kara DioGuardi decided to "compete" with so-called "Bikini Girl" Katrina Darrell by ripping open her dress to reveal her own teeny-weeny bikini.
That smacks of desperation to me. And it was all the more noticeable because it simply wasn't representative of the kind of content that I had come to expect. The sexualized, homoerotic post-Idol antics of last season's runner-up, Adam Lambert, only serve to put an exclamation point on the situation.
Will American Idol climb back on the wagon this year? Or will it party like it's 2009? If it opts for the latter, I'm going to have to start pushing the off button instead of redial.