What American Idol can learn from Susan Boyle http://www.cbc.ca/arts/media/blogs/popculture/2009/04/what_american_idol_can_learn_f.html
Quentin Tarantino was the guest mentor on last night's episode of American Idol. I know, you're thinking , What does a self-styled renegade filmmaker have to do with a hackneyed television singing competition? Well, it's not the first time Tarantino's made an Idol appearance (he joined the judging panel back in Season 3), and he does have an upcoming film to promote. (That would be the WWII actioner Inglourious Basterds (sic), which received a substantial onscreen promo during the show, though the AI team was careful not to mention the flick's semi-controversial title.) He may be a rabid pop culture junkie who's helped create some iconic film soundtrack moments, but Tarantino's attempts to coach the Idol wannabes through last night's song selections were... unconventional at best. Unlike the pro pop stars who make a game effort to provide musical feedback when they act as guest mentors, Tarantino had very few constructive pointers when it came to the actual music. Rather, he slipped into film director mode, focusing on the emotional content of each contestant's tune -- the theme last night, appropriately, was "Songs of the Cinema" -- as he tried to coax believable moments out of the flailing singers. I wasn't sold on Tarantino's brusque, self-satisfied manner, especially since he seemed oblivious to musical factors like staying in key and delivering a polished vocal. At times, it felt almost as though he was directing thespians auditioning for the role of a wide-eyed rock star in a rags-to-riches movie of the week. But in his attempts to get these wobbly singers to communicate the actual meaning contained in their songs, Tarantino hit on a key quality that most American Idol competitors lack. Namely, the awareness that the pop nuggets they perform aren't just some vehicle to show off their latent star quality, but rather compositions that tell stories and convey emotions. Tarantino's advice got me thinking about another televised reality competition performance that's been making waves recently: Susan Boyle's jaw-dropping, heart-tugging appearance on Britain's Got Talent. By now, most of you are probably familiar with the unassuming bird from Scotland who's become a sudden sensation. The video of 47-year-old Boyle singing I Dreamed a Dream, from the musical Les Miserables, went viral over the weekend; by now, the official clip on the Britain's So Talented YouTube page has received close to six million views. What's marvelous about Boyle is how she managed to completely challenge not just our preconceived expectations (and those of the Britain's Got Talent judges) but also the collective perception of what an undiscovered star looks like. Watch the initial moments of the clip and you can tell that the producers are salivating over Boyle's potential as a wacky character who'll make great television fodder. An unemployed, eccentric dowager from a small Scottish village who lives alone with her cat, Pebbles? A 47-year-old clad in an unflattering taupe housedress who claims not only that she's never been married, but that she's never been kissed? "This?" they're silently guffawing, "This woman thinks she's got a snowball's chance in hell of becoming a professional singer?" The set-up is cruel: a collection of spliced-together clips of Boyle making doddering, off-colour comments, snarky tween audience members rolling their eyes and the Britain's Got Talent judges addressing the self-proclaimed singer as though she's a recent escapee from a mental institution. We've seen this character in similar competitions before, most recently in the guise of delusional drama queen Tatiana del Toro on this season of American Idol. This character is usually painfully misguided and sorely lacking in skill. He or she is unattractive by conventional standards and often given to grand proclamations about his or her talent. Producers adore these figures because they make for melodrama, because they're limitless sources of cheap jokes and surefire targets for our own mean-spirited mockery. These shows revel in these characters because laughing at the poor saps on television provides a nice boost to our own self-esteem. But Boyle screwed all of that up. When she opened her mouth to sing, something exquisite and jarring came out, something that, as Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwartzbaum describes it, "reordered the measure of beauty." Boyle herself underestimated her incredible ability and left us speechless. "In our pop-minded culture so slavishly obsessed with packaging," says Schwartzbaum, "[with] the right face, the right clothes, the right attitudes, the right Facebook posts -- the unpackaged artistic power of the unstyled, un-hip, un-kissed Ms. Boyle let me feel, for the duration of one blazing showstopping ballad, the meaning of human grace." I'd go even further. The reason Susan Boyle's performance has become such a worldwide phenomenon is simple: she genuinely felt and understood the meaning of what she was singing and demonstrated a kind of uncompromised honesty that we rarely witness in popular culture. And the facts of her biography -- she's alone and attached to an impossible hope she's had since the age of 12 -- provided an affecting context for her performance of a song about dreams deferred. The detached, sheltered pipsqueaks on American Idol would do well to follow Susan Boyle's lead. Who knows -- maybe she'll show up as a guest mentor next season. -- Sarah Liss --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ TV or Not TV .... Smart (TV) People on Ice! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
