What Idol reveals about our culture
Published on Mon, Feb 1, 2010 by BY WILLIAM CRIPE SR. | CONTRIBUTING WRITERRead More Religion & Spiritual
Another season of the wildly popular American Idol is underway and if you’re one of the millions who watch, I trust you will appreciate what I am about to say. Week after week in these early stages of tryouts, we are “treated” to a montage of Americans who, with stars in their eyes, gyrate, rotate, vibrate, juggle and dance with a song in tow and a dream of being the next pop icon.
To be sure, many show up just to say they went and I have to believe that many more are putting on when they get upset and act shocked when they are told they can’t sing. Tears, sobs, wails and expletives often accompany the star struck entertainers, supposedly crushed to the core, when they are told flatly--they stink.
But what are we to think when the others, who are truly awful by any objective standard of talent, are honestly shaken to the core because—apparently for the first time--someone is honest with them? The fact is, being judged for the actual quality of their performance rather than the sincerity of their desire, obliterates the fragile bubble of self-esteem inflated over the years by the guardians of mediocrity—and worse.
Of the four judges on the show, Simon Cowell receives the most scorn. He is blunt, no nonsense and sometimes downright mean—all true. But meanness aside, his assessment of talent is usually spot on. And contestants leave in tears or cursing or both insisting these professionals--who make their livings assessing or demonstrating real talent--have “no idea what they’re talking about.” And why? Because the aspiring stars have never been told they are anything but “Fantastic!” “Great!” “Awesome!” much less that they have no talent what-so-ever.
What American Idol reveals is the fruit of a hollow generation where no one was ever cut from a team, few if any have ever been allowed to “fail” and where everyone gets an award just for showing up.
And so this generation of deluded adults struggles through life bewildered when doors remain locked, and the seas of opportunity do not part before them. All of it is testimony that we are reaping what we have sown.
When God was kicked out of our schools, objective truth also packed its bags and children were left to find meaning in cheap diplomas and worthless awards. But the real world does not operate on the measure of one’s sincerity. Hard work, and intense desire in the absence of ability, is no guarantee of success. So, instead of a red carpet, these children, now grown, get a pink slip having been set up for failure brought up in a vacuum of truthful honesty. These young adults are left shattered—the harvest of an ethos germinated in the soils of well meaning, but deceitful “Way-to-go’s” and “Atta-boys.”
“Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy,” wrote Solomon. (Proverbs 27:6) The young people of today have been given the kiss of death in so many ways. Who will love them enough, to “wound” them, if necessary, for their own good?
To be sure, many show up just to say they went and I have to believe that many more are putting on when they get upset and act shocked when they are told they can’t sing. Tears, sobs, wails and expletives often accompany the star struck entertainers, supposedly crushed to the core, when they are told flatly--they stink.
But what are we to think when the others, who are truly awful by any objective standard of talent, are honestly shaken to the core because—apparently for the first time--someone is honest with them? The fact is, being judged for the actual quality of their performance rather than the sincerity of their desire, obliterates the fragile bubble of self-esteem inflated over the years by the guardians of mediocrity—and worse.
Of the four judges on the show, Simon Cowell receives the most scorn. He is blunt, no nonsense and sometimes downright mean—all true. But meanness aside, his assessment of talent is usually spot on. And contestants leave in tears or cursing or both insisting these professionals--who make their livings assessing or demonstrating real talent--have “no idea what they’re talking about.” And why? Because the aspiring stars have never been told they are anything but “Fantastic!” “Great!” “Awesome!” much less that they have no talent what-so-ever.
What American Idol reveals is the fruit of a hollow generation where no one was ever cut from a team, few if any have ever been allowed to “fail” and where everyone gets an award just for showing up.
And so this generation of deluded adults struggles through life bewildered when doors remain locked, and the seas of opportunity do not part before them. All of it is testimony that we are reaping what we have sown.
When God was kicked out of our schools, objective truth also packed its bags and children were left to find meaning in cheap diplomas and worthless awards. But the real world does not operate on the measure of one’s sincerity. Hard work, and intense desire in the absence of ability, is no guarantee of success. So, instead of a red carpet, these children, now grown, get a pink slip having been set up for failure brought up in a vacuum of truthful honesty. These young adults are left shattered—the harvest of an ethos germinated in the soils of well meaning, but deceitful “Way-to-go’s” and “Atta-boys.”
“Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy,” wrote Solomon. (Proverbs 27:6) The young people of today have been given the kiss of death in so many ways. Who will love them enough, to “wound” them, if necessary, for their own good?
