Fueling the Dream: "American Idol" Expands its Marketing Machine

American Idol, fresh into its seventh season, has managed to find yet another outlet for expanding its commercial empire. Disney announced this week that the corporation plans to open an elaborate American Idol attraction at the Hollywood Studios amusement park in Buena Park, Florida (pictured, right). Scheduled to arrive in late 2008, the "Idol" attraction would aim to instill the same excitement in each customer as that experienced by the top twenty-four every season on American Idol, complete with auditions, live performances, and studio audience voting to determine each day’s finalist. Top competitors on the Disney stage would then be eligible for front-of-the-line American Idol audition passes for the next season, although the final details are still forthcoming.

All this seems pretty harmless, if not actually fun. However, as the authors of the Rolling Stone's Rock & Roll Daily mockingly suggest, this collaboration between the biggest cultural monopoly and the most popular American television show can only lead to more sarcastically-dubbed, "brilliant interactive entertainment concepts". These may include the “Pussycat Dolls Tower of Terror,” a hit-rock-bottom, porn-infused version of the “Twilight Zone” elevator drop ride, or a "Rock of Love" spoof on “It’s a Small World," complete with all the tiny male singers wearing bandanas and the girls plumped up with collagen implants. Yes, these examples are clearly absurd, but this is the point I (and the Rolling Stone editors) wish to make about such a merger of two huge entertainment icons. Perhaps we have taken American Idol just one step too far, with the corporations’ interest lying predominantly in turning a profit, lacking the necessary concern for finding and fostering the genuine talent that will truly enrich American culture in a positive way. And Americans, too, are getting caught up in the commercial glamorization of American Idol as a star-making machine, dangerously fueling the exaggerated shared dream of stardom that has proven inconsistent and unpredictable as previous winners have entered the real music industry.

So is the reality show experience really as glamorous for the artists as the media lead us to believe? No one can deny that the majority of hopefuls who audition must be prepared for disappointment from the start, with tens of thousands of auditionees fighting for only twenty-four spots on the show each year, not to mention the high probability of harsh criticism from the notoriously crabby and brutally honest British judge, Simon Cowell (pictured, below left, with co-judges pop artist Paula Abdul, producer Randy Jackson and host Ryan Seacrest). Certainly, watching Cowell rip apart first-round contestants can be entertaining, although contrasting the sadistic tone of opening auditions with the sentimental qualities of the final weeks of competition proves the show to be confusing and slightly disturbing, not glamorous. Yet America has not tired of this predictable (though emotionally inconsistent) progression: according to Nielsen Media Research, last week's ratings reveal an overwhelming twenty two million viewers for American Idol’s Tuesday broadcast, second only to the Superbowl game and postshow even in its seventh season. Although ratings have dropped compared to past years, this number nonetheless suggests that the show has become an incredible cultural and musical phenomenon, one that is likely here to stay.

Where the series goes wrong is in its failure to prioritize quality singing over personality-biased voting. American Idol is really a voting competition, not a singing one; singing is merely the entry requirement for finalists. Yes, the show probably owes its high ratings to the millions of Americans who love to play the critic and voice their own votes, but what makes us so sure that these fans really have the ability to recognize true talent? Perhaps some members of the public who avoid tuning in do so out of awareness of the musical genius that exists outside the limiting bounds of American Idol. On this note, how can we be certain of the actual talent level in any given season, other than by listening to the judges’ comments? In fact, what the series’ viewers respond to most is actually not the talent, but rather the finalists' personal stories, which have grown consistently each year to become an integral part of the program. For example, American Idol video clips depicted Season Three winner Fantasia Barrino as a teenage single mother working hard to support her baby and turn her life around, a sentimental theme which many viewers could relate to and emphasize with; conversely, Season Six's Sanjaya won the audience's hearts with his crazy, ever-changing hairdo and quirky personality. Vocally, however, it is unlikely that either of these artists (nor many others that have appeared on the series) would have made it as far as they did if the goal and design of the show were actually to produce genuine talent and not just to capitalize off of the singers' personalities and heartfelt home videos, as I suspect is the case.

To be fair, Cowell has admitted that the producers of American Idol need to "do better" this year to find an artist with more long-term potential, expressing his disappointment that neither of last season’s two finalists have “caught on fire". Additionally, previous winners Taylor Hicks, Ruben Studdard, and Katharine McPhee all terminated deals with their record labels due to lagging sales. Cowell dismisses this as a reflection on the harsh character of the music business, where the results of “reality” television do not necessarily translate into long-term fame and musical success. Studdard similarly acknowledges this fact, calling American Idol a "crash course" in the entertainment industry. However, he also concedes that most of the winners--who generally represent the "average American" demographic--would never have become recording artists were it not for the show. Perhaps, then, the program does have some merit in affording a select few finalists the opportunity to rise to fame, however short-lived, as well as providing educational insight into the always unpredictable and often vicious nature of the music industry. Somewhat disconcerting, however, is the fact that contestants are contractually forbidden to discuss their experiences on the show, such that their true stories remain hidden from the public. Were former contestants and winners allowed to speak out, would American Idol still manage to continue the legacy of excitement and uphold the shared dream of sudden fame in its young contestants and viewers?

Unsurprisingly, the behind the scenes reality of the show's limiting legal contracts and of the music industry as a whole conflicts with the sunny, smooth-sailing images presented by the media. Perhaps this is because American Idol producers know that the show would cease to be popular were its hypocrisy and misleading promises of fame to be openly revealed. However, this contrast has dangerous cultural implications, including the perseverance of false dreams and the downgrade and commercialization of mainstream talent. In any case, unless Cowell keeps his word this season and adamantly helps guide viewers towards choosing the most genuinely talented--and not just charismatic--singer, I hope Disney's Idol attraction fails.