American Idol Worship

By James Poniewozik

Those whom the U.S. would bomb, it also calls talented. "You are a good and gifted people," President Bush assured Iraqi TV viewers after the fall of Baghdad, an echo of many previous references to Iraqis' "talents." Some call this language condescending; others, a mark of real admiration.

But maybe the President just watches more reality TV than he lets on. If he did, he would see his own people trying mightily to prove that they are talented and gifted--and that when it comes to doing yo-yo tricks to Walk Like an Egyptian, we are indeed the world's sole superpower. In the wake of Fox's American Idol (which not only dominates the ratings but also put last week's No. 1 single and album on the charts), more than a dozen current or upcoming talent shows offer Americans the chance to sing, dance, joke or pose their way to stardom. We have USA network's Nashville Star (country music), CBS's Star Search (singing, comedy, dancing), ABC's All-American Girl (beauty, brains and athletics), even Animal Planet's Pet Star (self-explanatory). This week VH1 launches Born to Diva, and in May, UPN airs America's Next Top Model. NBC is airing or planning searches for talented kids, seniors, comics and action-movie actors, plus a reality-show reconception of the teen-musicians drama Fame. Jeff Gaspin, NBC's head of reality programming, doesn't feel it's overkill. "They're very different," he says. "Wanting to be the next action star is not the same as going on Fame."

Many of the Idolettes break from Idol--with its nasty barbs from judge Simon Cowell--through an assertive positivity. They insist, sometimes despite heavy evidence to the contrary, that the contestants are good and gifted enough and that, doggone it, people like them. In this new, post-mean reality, America is Lake Wobegon, and all its residents are above average.

Think of the Idolettes as a virtual U.S.O. show for a time of war and anxiety. They're patriotic (plenty of praise for America in general and the troops in particular). They're full of up-by-the-bootstraps stories. They're old-fashioned (offering something for Grandma and the kids in the age of niche audiences) but in a 21st century, ethnically diverse way. There may be no better embodiment of the Bush Zeitgeist than Nashville Star's John Arthur Martinez, a Latino cowboy who sings odes to marital love, laced with Spanish. There are, too, numerous invocations of God, specifically Jesus. On Star Search, Mormon teen dance act Sudden Impact assured viewers, "We won't let our dancing compromise our religion." Apparently, Joseph Smith would have been cool with the tight, midriff-baring outfit in which the lead girl hoofed a smoky tango.

Perhaps most creepily sunny of all is NBC's America's Most Talented Kid, which often plays like JonBenet: The Series, as when a 5-year-old girl performs a coquettish version of Swingin' on a Star, shaking her hips and interjecting "Ooh la la!" Child-pageant culture has long been with us, but--like marriage between cousins--it rarely bursts so prominently into the mainstream. And yet there is something fascinating about this raw display of kids' and/or their parents' preternatural ambition: 10-year-old Brityn Martin, for instance, performed a high-impact dance routine with a hairline fracture in her foot.

Talented Kid's judges, understandably, wear kid gloves; few contestants score less than a 9.7 out of 10. (American Juniors, Fox's summer Idol follow-up with 6-to-13-year-old singers, will not even have judges, just an audience vote.) But what the Idolettes sometimes don't understand is that Idol's meanness makes the apotheosis of its winner all the sweeter (and thus more marketable). The welcome exception is Born to Diva, a blessedly catty celebration of show-biz egocentrism. Its female belters may not be as talented as Idol's, but they are adept in the diva-esque arts of eye rolling, backbiting and referring to oneself in the third person. That will serve them well in show biz, where they will discover--like people around the world in real and harsher struggles--that being labeled "talented" is only a fraction of the battle.