But last night the winner was chosen by popular vote, and it wasn't Adam Lambert.
This convulsed the media...who called it an "upset", insulting all the fans that voted for him, had every intention of voting for him, had always planned to vote for him, in the millions...and of course, the man himself, whom they thereby declared has been, in their minds, the likely loser.
Nice guy, humble guy, sweet guy, laid-back guy, nuanced guy, Christian guy, and naturally cool guy Kris Allen took home the coveted prize. He's this year's American Idol.
Even if you don't watch, or don't care about AI, this is a big deal for a couple of reasons.
1) The Media hyped its favorite, believed its own hype, and was shocked....shocked that he lost.
Once again the media, and particularly the "entertainment" media, centered in Los Angeles and New York, decided in their little blue bubble that their man Adam Lambert was God's gift to American Idol, North America and the World.
This is a contest in which the viewers vote for their favorite. The "media" has no power to dictate the results except insofar as they can influence their consumers. Even the producers of the show, and the record companies who must sign the winner and produce his first album can only attempt to manipulate the opinions of the audience, they cannot proclaim the winner. They are, after whatever attempt they might may to influence the viewers, at the mercy of the public's choice. It is final, there is no appeal.
This year, the media, and the entire machinery of the show worked, not very subtly, and with rather reckless disregard for good manners, objectivity, fairness, courtesy, and disinterest, to make American Idol the "Adam Lambert Show". Unfortunately for them both, they were among those who drank their own Kool-Aid, and the results became for them, a forgone conclusion, a prophecy fulfilled in all but the mere formality of the vote.
Until, that is, Ryan Seacrest spoke the "wrong" name from the "envelope please".
The shock on the face of the winner, who was among those who became utterly convinced of the inevitability of the crowning of "The Chosen One", speaks to the effectiveness of the inside-the-AI/media-bubble-full-tilt-boogie-full-on-Adam-Lambert-is-the-best-ever-PR-campaign.
This disconnect will come as no surprise to those of us who are the marginalized, despised, criticized, and satirized majority who live somewhere beyond the horizons and under the radar of the glitterati of LA and NYC. But, damn, its nice to see them trip on their bottom lips in front of God and everybody on national television—on the highest rated program of the year.
Sometimes, life is good.
They, of course, don't understand what happened. They are so convinced of the superiority of their brand, of their boy, it does simply not occur the them that others may simply prefer a different one. And that segues into my next point...
2) American Idol watchers and voters once more chose the cute, clean cut, all-American boy next door as their idea of the symbol and face of American talent...instead of what the media hype (and his fans) were pleased to call their favorite: "edgy", "different", "original", "sexual", "in your face".
In order to understand the contest, one has to describe Adam Lambert and Kris Allen. Perhaps a photo of the two is the best place to start:
This is Adam Lambert, the Presumptive winner:
This is Kris Allen, the Actual winner:
Adam is a 27-year-old theater performer (from age 10) living in L.A. Kris is a newly married 23-year-old student, from Arkansas, with no performing resume to speak of.
Adam is a (very) high-voiced glam-rock screamer/singer who wears makeup, black nail polish, snake-skin boots and terminally hip costumes. Kris is a laid-back, guitar-playing, piano playing, nuanced singer who wears regular guy clothes and tennis shoes - and sometimes has that trendy (admittedly kind of sexy) needs-a-shave whisker shadow goin' on.
Now, to each his own, and all that, but the interesting thing about this year's top two is the cultural issues one side is raising.
Adam Lambert is in my not very charitable opinion, a dated glam-rocker. He's got all the required glam-rock theatricality and overt sexuality of a junior-drag-queen..."not that there's anything wrong with that," as Jerry Seinfeld would say.
I get that this is hot stuff to the unsophisticated and unsubtle tastes of children who think this is what "sexy" means...and to the jaded tastes of old queens to whom subtle flavors no longer give a "lift". He has a very strong, very skilled, very high voice. He can kill all those screamy rock high notes. And he does it with tedious regularity. This is his stock-in-trade. His theater background, his ownership of the stage, his costumes, his bawdy sexuality and his howling soprano convinced the young, the inexperienced, the unwashed and the unsophisticated that he's a "rock god".
And these pseudo-sophisticates are all over the blogs and media columns spitting bile that because Americans prefer Kris Allen, they are "afraid" of someone as "different" as Adam Lambert
"Different" if you've been living under a rock for 30 years.
In any case, Adam's hysterical fans (including the entertainment media en masse) are outraged because the "wrong contestant" won. The vote was an "upset". And they are furious because boring, stupid, white-bread America has proven once again it likes bland and boring beige rather than juicy, exciting and unique "true" talent...and that Adam Lambert is just too "scary" for frightened, uncultured, oatmeal-eating, middle America.
Oh...and that all of us who voted for Kris Allen are just dull, boring, stupid, trembling homophobes. (You HAD to know that was coming, right?)
Once again the idiocy of the Liberal is on full display. How, exactly, does one have an "upset" via a popular vote? The only thing that happened is that the people who were utterly certain Lambert would garner more votes were wrong. Just wrong. There was no "upset". The public voted how it had always intended to vote. It was the Lambert fans who were mistaken in their assessment of his general popularity.
The "right" winner is the contestant that gets the most votes. In a contest decided by popular vote (assuming all votes were fairly counted) a "wrong" winner is a logical impossibility. But they are just like their political allies. They have no doubt that they are correct, that their minority opinion is the right one, and anyone who disagrees with them is evil or stupid.
Starting to sound painfully familiar, isn't it?
And they are all proclaiming that in spite of the stupid (or evil) public, Adam Lambert will be much bigger star than the winner, Kris Allen. They insist that the dullness of the American public in voting for the more or less insipid Mr. Allen will not prevent the glorious Mr. Lambert's soaring success and the rapid fading away of the "coffee-house" singer that actually won.
And they are very content and self-satisfied in their declarations...without a thought about exactly how that can be expected to happen in the real world.
I wonder if these people understand how "success" in music is achieved? I wonder if they understand that if many more people prefer Mr. Allen's music than preferred Mr. Lambert's (which, after all, has been clearly demonstrated by the result of their voting to crown Mr. Allen as the American Idol) it's possible that those same people will purchase Mr. Allen's albums and attend Mr. Allen's concerts in greater numbers than they will Mr. Lambert's.
There's no guarantee, of course, fame is fickle. But it's a likely eventuality I should think.
But it's not the actual eventual fate of either man that is at issue here. At issue, as always, is the smug, superior, condescending attitude and unsubtle tastes of the supposedly sophisticated—but in fact the hilariously parochial and the easily impressed.
Adam Lambert is a big, fast, loud, f/x studded, summer blockbuster Hollywood movie that once seen has revealed all its secrets. Kris Allen is a sophisticated, intelligent indie flick, in which every time you watch it, you find something new.
Adam Lambert is a rollicking bodice ripper romance novel that's pretty much like all the other rollicking bodice ripper romance novels but with different names. Kris Allen is a clever English village murder mystery, peopled with unique characters, that keeps you guessing until the very end.
Adam Lambert is KISS (the band)...whom the American Idol Powers-That-Be chose to appear with him on "results night". Kris Allen is Keith Urban...whom the American Idol PTB chose to appear with him on "results night".
Honestly, I think they got it exactly right...but I'm not sure they understood exactly what message they were sending—silly Liberals.
It did finally occur to me, eventually, that the reason the undue, perplexingly unprofessional and annoyingly obvious favoritism was brought to bear for Adam Lambert is because he's gay. Simple as I am, for a long time I just didn't understand their unwavering and rather slobbering adoration for this slightly bloated, round-faced, serpent shod screamer that would be a perfect fit in Vegas playing to the glam-rock glory-day memories of people old enough to be his parents.
The judges insistence that Adam's 80's showy rock style was "current" was baffled me until I looked at the show with my "political" (conspiracy?) eyes.
I think it's as simple as this: it was important to the Leftist/Media/Hollywood complex that an overtly sexual homosexual win American Idol. One columnist actually said that considering American finally elected a Black president, it's time that America had a gay American Idol.
All the puzzle pieces fell into place. This was a concerted effort to make Adam Lambert, gay guy, the American Idol. He has mad skills...and was a good candidate.
And of course, not a word was mentioned about his sexual preference anywhere near the show. It was the unspoken criterion. So they slobbered and drooled all over his performances, compared other contestants unfavorably to him, recalled praise of him when critiquing other singers. His picture graced most blog and columns referencing AI.
In the final "group song" on results night, the director shot Adam in several close ups...and got not one of the eventual winner...it was typical of the whole season.
In the final analysis, his mad promoters among judges, directors and the entertainment media did Adam a disservice. With all the hype, it's simply not possible that he didn't expect to win. He'd been told as much from his first performance to his last. He was literally set up. He was led to the slaughter by people who had agendas to advance, and for whom his individuality was subsumed by his sexual preference and its usefulness to their politics.
He was, in the end, despite all the apparent drooling affection, treated shabbily.
Kris expected to lose, and was prepared for the inevitable. The win was almost disconcerting for him. He was in shock. But for him, the shock was good.
It would be too much to ask of any young person put in the position Adam was, to expect him to ignore the heaping praise for weeks on end and not harbor certain expectations. Kris' win must have been equally disconcerting for him, even though he handled it with grace. But for him, the shock was bad. And unnecessary. Shame on the "adults" for not behaving more responsibly.
It is, as always, the left who talk of caring for people, but who always sacrifice them, whenever convenient, to their own volcano gods.
We'll see how this plays out. But there is a chance that the artificially and purposefully whipped up extreme expectations for Lambert's win, and the subsequent immense and "shocking upset" disappointment, may serve to tarnish both Kris Allen's legitimate victory and both boys' very real accomplishment of reaching AI's top two.
I hope it's a tempest in a cyber-teapot. But when the Gay-Agenda biddies gets crankin' there's no knowing where that speeding locomotive will stop.
In my opinion the American Idol audience has once again proved that the American people GET. IT. RIGHT.
And Leftists...we're just getting started.
The Gunslinger
ADDENDUM: Here is a hilarious example of the sort of comment on the net about the "upset" on AI:
"It was quite a shocker to say the least. Kris Allen was voted in as the new American Idol, defeating fan favorite Adam Lambert."
Pay particular attention to the italicized bit. Logic is not their strong point.
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