I’ve been watching “American Idol” on TV this season (it’s not what you think; I only watch it for the articles), and was disappointed when Kent’s only remaining contestant Stefano Langone was booted off the show.
OK, he was Kent’s only contestant on the show. But I wasn’t surprised; I think he had it coming for a few weeks now. Not because he was less talented than the other contestants, but because he was less likable.
Now don’t get too excited; it wasn’t his fault, and his likability had very little to do with him personally. The producers of the show get the blame here. They sift through dozens of hours of footage and interviews each week to produce less than a minute of personal screen time for each contestant, and that’s precious little information for us to learn about them.
That screen time is a big part of what helps or hurts their chances, besides the actual singing competition, of course. People are scrutinizing them for their likability, and are searching for subtle hints about who they really are.
These people have never been in the public eye before, are forced to feign happiness, complete humility, and the aw-shucks attitude that the public demands. When contestants don’t live up to that, they are quickly penalized.
Jacob Lusk is another contestant on the show who learned that the hard way. When he was interviewed prior to singing Michael Jackson’s song “Man In The Mirror,” he said that if viewers didn’t like his singing of the song, it wasn’t because of his talent, but because America couldn’t look itself in the mirror.
What happened was that America couldn’t be bothered to phone in and vote for him anymore, and he was nearly eliminated from the show. Once the show’s favorite, he’s now been on the brink of elimination regularly.
It’s not because of his lack of talent, but because people don’t like him as much after that episode. The producers didn’t have to air that footage, but they did anyway, tossing another amateur with no public relations experience into the fierce public eye.
Some contestants played it too safe, and weren’t revealing at all. The preordained likely winner Pia Toscano was the perfect contestant, but that didn’t save her. She wasn’t likable enough. She played it too safe, and we never learned anything personal about her.
That’s what happened to our local hero from Kent. His precious few seconds of screen time weren’t particularly flattering, and the producers didn’t include the human side of his personality. We were mostly given clips of the music experts advising him on how to manipulate the audience, rather than seeing clips of him as an authentic person.
But there is a balance here; we don’t value complete honesty from our public figures. That’s why you hear generic, empty statements from sports stars after a game. “We just went out there, executed our game plan, and we came away with a win,” while the losers say, “We didn’t execute our game plan, and couldn’t pull out a win today.”
What they really wanted to say was, “Obviously we won, because we’re a much better team than they are,” or “We lost because Bobby can’t throw the ball.” Honesty is not rewarded here, so athletes have to put on the phony humble attitude that keeps those paychecks coming.
Someday, I’m going to market a bunch of cue cards for athletes, so they don’t have to make up their quotes after every game. Each stadium can have a set of winner’s cards and loser’s cards, and set them up in the appropriate locker room. At Martin Stadium though, we can just leave the loser’s set in the Cougar’s locker room (go Dawgs!).
“American Idol” could probably use a similar set of cue cards, but I think the contestants would rather have better lessons in media relations and on-camera presence. Now that video clips are everywhere, people are becoming famous too quickly, and an entire new industry of public relations for the common person should spring up soon. Anyone need a free business idea this week?
