With American Idol having now descended into what is essentially the pit of bizarreness, I think it very safe to say that my days of watching it can now be said to be officially over. Believe it or not I was always a fan of Simon Cowell, I thought he provided a much needed dose of reality to some of these would be idols that no one else was willing to offer. When Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez came onto the scene, I wasn't sure about things, but Steven proved to be a pretty good judge while with Lopez there was never any doubt about who it was she wanted to win, whether they could sing, or not. Randy was Randy, pretty much the same since day one, way back when.
But with this new group of judges this show that was once an attempt to make someone's dream come true has become nothing more than a silly little freak show that has worn-out it 's welcome. There's really very little entertainment value to be gained and the escapism that it may have at one time provided, is now gone. And now we have this new judge, Nicki Minaj, making nutty accusations that it’s somehow "racist" of old judge, Steven Tyler, to predict that she’d probably send Bob Dylan back to "the cornfield" if he appeared as a contestant on the Fox show. The current judge’s backlash on Twitter against the former Idol judge came after Tyler unfavorably compared the present panel to when he was on the show.
Tyler said: 'These kids, they just got out of a car from the Midwest somewhere and they're in New York City, they're scared to death; you're not going to get the best [out of them]. Tyler told MTV News Monday, "If it was Bob Dylan, Nicki Minaj would have had him sent to the cornfield! Whereas, if it was Bob Dylan with us, we would have brought the best of him out, as we did with Phillip Phillips. Just saying." Tyler said, in reference to rumors of in-fighting on the judge’s panel between Minaj and Mariah Carrey, "I know that they’ve got something going on on the judges’ panel, [and] it shouldn’t be that, it should be just the opposite. They should have something going on, which is called ‘camaraderie.’" .
I guess old Stevie must have hit a nerve because Minaj, who was officially announced as one of the replacements for the departing Tyler and Jennifer Lopez in September, responded with a flurry of tweets today. "You assume that I wouldn’t have liked Bob Dylan??? why? black? rapper? what? go fuck yourself and worry about yourself babe," Minaj added on Twitter. "When Steven 1st went on Idol he was ridiculed by his peers & fans alike. Called a sell out. So what does he do? Ridicule the next judge," she said later this afternoon. Tyler was a judge on American Idol from 2010 to 2012. Both he and Lopez left earlier this year. Minaj, along with country star Keith Urban, joined Carey and long-term judge Randy Jackson this season.
So this little bit of escapism that I used to rather enjoy, has been, like most everything else today, been spoiled in the effort, I guess, to sustain ratings. Bringing in freaks as judges only serves to diminish the reason this show worked for so long. While it once was about these young people trying to make it big, and to some degree about the judges, I think that these new judges are determined to make it ALL about them. And with that I've lost all interest in watching what will surely be nothing more than a circus. So while it was fun while it lasted, I'll now just have to find something else to take my mind off of the fact that Barry is destroying my country and the fact that, apparently, a majority of Americans are choosing to stand with him.
No comments:
Post a Comment