Tuesday, February 01, 2005

American Idolatry

American Idol. Loquasia and I debate this: is it exploitation because it is a perfectly produced vehicle that guarantees maximum profits for television and music execs while grinding star hopefuls' hopes to powder? Laura says maybe. I say probably no, but maybe it's exploitative like lotteries are exploitative, in that they give otherwise hopeless people a shred of hope. We both agree that the "You only get one chance to make it in your lifetime" narrative is full of shit. And watching American Idol is like watching all the fuzzy-lensed biographical vignettes that NBC made for all the athletes in the last four Olympic Games condensed into an hourlong broadcast, so that heartstrings are tugged in all directions and cockles are warmed to the point of burning. Prime TV manipulation; all this empathy you didn't know you had leaks out of your eyes when you listen to the seventeen year-old farmer boy talk about overcoming tracheotomies, bad homes, weight problems.

I guess the problem with being an overthinking cynic is that no pleasure will ever again be unadulterated, i.e., if I'm soaking in sunshine on a perfect day (77 degrees, lemonade, the smell of suntan lotion), there will always be either 1) a paranoid fantasy of accidental tragedy (airplane wheel falls out of sky and crushes me), 2) a sense that I am enjoying something I ought not to be enjoying because other people do not have the privilege to enjoy it (leisure time, disposable income), or 3) a sense that I am buying into some kind of artifice, somewhere (classical conditioning, advertising).

Hence, all pleasure is guilt. Television is manipulation or exploitation, candy is cavities, friendship is realpolitik, exercise is sweatshop sponsorship, clubbing a baby seal is rotator cuff pain. *Sigh.*

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