February 2, 2008

American Idol Sux

I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this. Suffice to say, I think that American Idol is the essence of what is wrong with Western culture today. It's not so much the show itself, which is nothing more than an especially shallow talent show, as its inherent narcissism and its obscene omnipresence.

I don't watch the show, save rarely, primarily because I simply don't care for the kind of music it presents, so I really can't complain about the show itself. But what I hate is how it has became such a pervasive cultural presence. So much so, that otherwise respectable new sources will actually report on it. The show will air, someone will get voted off or something similar, and the news which comes on right after will report on it. As if I really needed to know. They could be reporting on the war, the election, the stock market, or something with even the slightest bearing on my life, but no, American Idol was more important.

Everything about the show is self aggrandizing. The theme music, the 'contestants', the judges, that queer host, everything, and the media treats it as if the self aggrandizement is to be believed. Its as if American Idol really were the greatest development in American culture, ever. Even it's title signals what I hate about it. It's that word 'Idol' juxtaposed with the word 'American.' As if this were what American's idolized: a bunch of vapid idiots belting out songs written by people far more talented. And the media eats it up. And the rest of the world thinks we're idiots. What a shame.

Labels: ,

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home