Word: simonizing
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...America gone insane? Season six for American Idol has caused us to ask some fundamental questions about the reality television phenomenon. Show judge Simon Cowell repeatedly chides contestants, "This is a singing competition." But is it really? When talented singers such as Gina Glocksen are voted off in favor of a tone-deaf Sanjaya Malakar, with his trainwreck performances, the question is whether Idol is really a singing competition, or something altogether different...
Nothing makes a TV executive queasier than the word telethon. Jerry Lewis' efforts have done wondrous things, no doubt, for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, but as entertainment, they're must-flee TV. So when Simon Fuller, American Idol's creator and sovereign, told Fox executives he wanted to give one week of his prime-time, never-fail, hitmaking show over to fund raising--to make it a sort of telethon--he knew what they were thinking, and it was a word...
...blame them. The idea sounds not a little corny. On Tuesday, April 24, Idol contestants will sing what Fuller calls "emotive, moving, aspirational, triumph-over-adversity songs." In between renditions of, say, Bridge over Troubled Water and Man in the Mirror, there will be clips of Simon Cowell and Ryan Seacrest's trip to Africa, Randy Jackson's trip to Louisiana and Paula Abdul's trip to Kentucky. When viewers call to vote for their favorites, sponsors will kick in some money for every vote cast...
From Einstein by Walter Isaacson. © 2007 by Walter Isaacson. To be published by Simon & Schuster...
...likes to see itself as the invisible hand guiding the changes. A narrative makes the audience feel invested, the same way movie fans do in Brad and Angelina. "The journey of seeing the same people coming back week on week-you have a relationship with them," says creator Simon Fuller. "You don't know what's going to happen. Sanjaya walks out with his crazy hairdo. It's a living soap opera." Season 6 contestant Chris Sligh called the job of getting the audience to identify with you "mak[ing] David Hasselhoff cry," referring to the Baywatch star tearing...