American Idol

I know we talked about this a little bit on the first day of class but I wanted to express my opinion....

After the first several shows of this seasons American Idol, many people thought that the judges were being more cruel then ever. There was talk that the judges were not just criticizing the participants sing (which the show should focus on) but were also criticizing other factors such as appearance, intelligence level, etc. This caused many people to stand up and express there opinions about this. I saw this publicly addressed on the show, The View. Rosie O'Donald state that she felt that the show allowed people that might not be in a correct mental state to but themselves in a situation and that they do not realize how this could harm them in the future. And many other people had similar view points.

However, I feel that these concerns are very interesting. American Idol has been on for many seasons now and each season the same thing happens. Plus, the judges are just as mean as they were since season one. So, why are these people all so concerned now. I mean if anything, people that sign up to participate in the show know better now more then ever what they are getting themselves into (They most likely have seen all the past seasons or at least heard about the show). In addition to this, I think if you sign up to participate in any reality TV show you know that anything you do can be aired and you sign a contract that says this is okay. I mean every reality TV show airs things that make people in them look stupid or shows them doing something embarrassing.

Plus, American Idol is part of the media business and their main goal is to make money. If the show only aired the great singers and the people that seemed "normal" most likely not very many of us would want to watch. It just wouldn't be as fun or entertaining. And if we didn't watch the show would lose advertisers and this would result in the show going off the air. The show is all about being successful and no one can blame them for that.