Word: idol
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Glee's creator, Ryan Murphy, specializes in lampooning American appetites. In his dark comedy Popular, he took on the desire for social status; in the plastic-surgery drama Nip/Tuck, the hunger for physical perfection. Glee is all about the timely teen dream embodied and fed by Idol, High School Musical and YouTube: fame, glorious fame...
There is, obviously, everything ironic about Glee: an upbeat chorus number set to Amy Winehouse's "Rehab" is the funniest thing I've seen on TV this year. But this raises the question of how good a match it really is for the Idol audience, who tend to like their glitter dreams earnest. Indeed, the jock-meets-music-geek pair-up is a straight lift from, and parody...
...American Idol is a referendum on American taste, then it's possible Adam Lambert--the most flamboyant contestant yet on a show that has never been a beacon of restrained masculinity--will be gone before you read this sentence. Pleasantly little fuss has been made over pictures circulating on the Web of Lambert kissing a man, but a form of prejudice could still do him in: prejudice against irony...
...Idol is a reliable source of platinum talent largely because the talents it produces--Kelly Clarkson, Chris Daughtry, Carrie Underwood--respect the conventions of its genres. They are nice singers who sing nice songs nicely. Lambert, 27, may have the best chops of the bunch (his ability to hold high notes recalls Grace Slick in her prime), but where he really outshines them is in self-awareness. While his peers act as if being plucked from obscurity to sing in prime time is normal, he understands that he's on a television show, where acting normally would be completely abnormal...
...Lambert, but they are also routinely stumped: "Confusing and shocking and sleazy!" shouted Kara DioGuardi after Lambert seduced Sammy Davis Jr.'s "Feeling Good." Lambert might just be too weird for a show this big. But win or lose, it won't matter: after producing plenty of singers, American Idol has found its first star...