In Israel, Adam Lambert Would Have Won
If it had been up to Israelis, American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert would have won.
Not because he's Jewish. And not because the vote may have been rigged.
Because he can sing.
Israelis keep asking me why Adam Lambert, whose gargantuan talent clearly places him in the category of Touched By God, didn't win. Here is one reason:
Because many, many Americans don't want to think that God works that way.
I should state at the outset that is not a column about music. This is, at heart, about deviance, and how societies respond to the deviants in their midst -- whether with fascistic denial ["In Iran, we don't have homosexuals"], or with an unease that spurs them to seek desperate refuge in the bland.
Seldom has a singing contest been so clear-cut a case of no contest. In a final duet alongside eventual winner Kris Allen, Adam Lambert sang him off the stage. And no one knew that better than Kris Allen.
So what was it about Lambert that moved tens of millions of Americans to make sure that he would not win?
Some, at least, decided to take a stand. It was time to cast a vote against deviant behavior. Against men who keep their eyeliner thick and their sexual preference determinedly indeterminate. Against a polite, generous, fearsomely gifted deviant.
When the internet brimmed with photos of what appeared to be a femme Adam kissing men, his response was one which triggered every trip wire of passive-aggressive American grundyism. "I have nothing to hide," he said. "I am who I am."
Through no fault of Kris Allen's, who, by all accounts, is exactly the unassuming, more-surprised-than-anyone small town Arkansas guy he appears to be, many Americans seem to have viewed him as holding the fort against the darkness of diversity and/or non-Christianity.
"The battle of good versus evil, dark versus light, played out in the context of a culture war," wrote Danielle Bergin in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal. "The nation's conservatives changed the game by voting their conscience, not their common sense. And in the end, Idol viewers proved that they're not that interested in the best singer. They don't even care about electing a star. All that matters is that they get to worship their Idol, the one who is just like them."
Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, while declaring that the best man should win, displayed a bowdlerized version of the photographs, and could not resist asking a guest expert: "Can illegal aliens vote in this?"
Which brings us to Israel. Soon after the Idol finale aired in the Jewish state at the weekend, the crowning segment of Israel's version of "Survivor" was broadcast live from the ancient Roman amphitheater in Caesarea.
Perhaps the most telling moment in the broadcast was a look at the daily life of Arik Alper, a slight pediatrician with deer-in-headlights eyes, who would go on to survive all other contestants and win the million shekel grand prize.
"I wasn't one of the more popular kids in the class," Alper said, on a filmed visit to his boyhood school. "I was on the sidelines. I was different. I was in the closet. I was the ugly duckling."
The day before, the mass-circulation Maariv newspaper published an extensive article detailing how "Over the past decade homosexuals have turned from an exotic detour on [talk-show host] Dan Shilon's panel, to the kings of prime-time." Among the gallery of famous gays were two of the 20 Survivor contestants, one of them Arik Alper.
"To me," he told the camera, "being the last survivor is to be the most popular kid in the fourth grade, which I never was."
Say what you will about Israel, this place has developed an exceptional tolerance for behavior traditionally deemed deviant. One of the judges on Kochav Nolad (A Star is Born), Israel's version of American Idol, is Dana International, a post-op transsexual singing star whose unapologetic exuberance persuaded Israelis to choose her as their representative to the 1998 Eurovision Song Contest, in which she took first place.
Perhaps a certain tolerance, or predilection, for flamboyantly deviant behavior devolves from the way Israel is itself seen as deviant in its region and in the world. In this world, all Israelis have a certain otherness about them, a statistical minority status.
Certainly, any American in Israel can relate. All American Jews who live in Israel are, by definition, deviants, no matter how conventional their lifestyle may be. They have done what only one out of 100 American Jews does -- and, for that matter, just 0.02 percent of all Americans chooses to do -- live in Israel.
On the surface, the choice of Kris Allen -- not unlike the choice of George W. Bush -- suggests that the more unreliable America seems, the more unsafe, the more threatening it gets, that is, the more diverse it gets, the more the people who used to call themselves Real Americans, that is, Christians, are going to look for a Kris Allen to soothe them.
"Though never referenced on the show," the Associated Press commented, "Allen's religious background may have also played a role. Allen has worked as a worship leader at his hometown church, traveling on mission trips around the globe."
It could be that the fight over separation of church and state is giving way to a struggle over separation of church and gays, one in which -- as in the California referendum which successfully outlawed gay marriage -- Christian churchgoers of all colors and cultures band together in common cause against societal acceptance of what they view as deviant sexuality.
Read the full article on haaretz.com
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This article was spot on. If you don't think people were voting against Adam because of his sexual orientation then you are sadly burying your head in the sand. Kris Allen himself acknowledged several times that Adam was by far the most talented singer. It wasn't even a competition. Music Industry experts have all acknowledged the superior talent of Lambert. Do not however underestimate the voting power of a lot of narrow minded bigots in middle America and the South. Just because YOU may not have cared about his orientation don't be fooled into thinking everyone feels that way. One of the men at work admitted Adam was the superior talent but said his wife would never vote for "someone like that".. Someone like what ? All media sources could comment on during the AI season was Adam's sexuality. It played out over and over again. Some of these articles were hate filled and others just plain old analytical. That standard was not applied to any of the other contestants. You would be very foolish to think that all that attention did not have a negative effect. America is filled with a lot of vanilla people who like to play things safe., Adam wears guy-liner, does crazy things with his hair and doesn't have a shy bone in his body. Safe - not by a country mile.
The both sucked. And not in the good way.
What a load of nonsense. I am an atheist who is firmly pro-gay marriage who voted for Kris Allen because his artistry grew during the contest, and Adam, who I also liked, became redundant ultimately. Unless you haven't noticed, since David Cooke's win last year, the contest have evolved into something more than crowning "the best singer" (hell if it were ever simply about that, Clay Aiken would have won over bland Reuben Studdard in season 2.) Kris Allen's jazzy reworkings of old standards, on the money song choice, and fresh contemporary sound won him Idol. I've never heard such sour grapes vis a vis Adam Lambert's second place during the years of the contest, and I suspect, the reason is that he has such a conveninent handle upon which to hang conspiracy theories, i.e., his gayness. However, Lambert's steady advance in the contest seems to disprove the theory that homophobia did him in (ending every song in a scream is far more likely.)
I don't understand why people have such a hard time getting this. I voted for Kris because, for the most part, I liked the songs he sang and the way he sang them. I did not vote for Adam because, for the most part., I did not like the songs he sang or the way he sang them. I thought he was fantastic on Tracks of My Tears and Mad World, and think he probably would have won if he had toned down some of his other performances similarly.
For me, he lost all hope of winning with U2's "One." He took a beautiful song and turned it into a screeching mess. In my opinion, that is when most Americans said, "Thanks, but no thanks!"
Puh-leeze. Sure, I grant you that some Americans were never going to vote for Lambert. But he sailed thru pretty easily to the finale at the same time.
Me? If I had dialed in to vote, I would have voted for Kris over Adam. But not because of talent, eyeliner, or sexuality. I would have voted for Kris out of irritation that Idol -- and specifically Simon Cowell -- was manipulating the vote (note particularly Cowell's comment on the semi-final dinging Lambert's performance because otherwise he feared people wouldn't support him).
I suspect that Israelis might have been just as tempted to say "no thanks" to being force fed their champion.
It's not about tastes its about talent.
Fine, let's compare a clasical pianist to a banjo player.
If the banjo player has more skill, training, better timing, and wider range of style, then who wins?
In this case it's the second rate, bland, "safe" classical pianist.
Face it, ordinary people do not like a level of talent that stretches their imagination.
They appreciate it later, after they have time to digest it of course.
But throw it in their faces and they start feeling small, like they missed something, like they didn't figure out their potential in time, like their losers.
Thank the gods for this conversation, because hopefully it just might be signalling a raising of the bar and an end to this insipid culture of mediocrity.
Bravo.....well put!
The best way to do that is to go out to the local bars that play live music and support those people who not only put the time and effort in but who will also blow your minds with the level of talent on display.
I've only heard a little bit of each of them, and frankly I just don't see what the fuss is. Neither are particularly innovative singers - Lambert sounds to my untrained ears like an overblown Jon Bon Jovi. I think people should quit second guessing this.
I preferred the style of music that Kris played, it seems that other people did, too. Adam is talented, yes. He also lost this competition so get over it and buy his album when it comes out. Move on already.
Although Adam is clearly the winner, I think it is better that he didn't win because he would have been under AI's thumb and packaging. He has the exposure and can now be himself. I don't buy much music, but I downloaded all of his from ITunes because he is a good guy with incredible talent. By the way, I am an old white lady from Texas. I see the talent and the person and think a lot of him.
As much as my gay defensive mechanisms want to agree with you here, I have to say, I disagree. Adam's (and America's) loss is purely one of musical taste changing. Had this been 1970's or 80's, the rise of the glam bands, Adam would have won hands down. But the daya of the flamboyant over the top performers, the Queens and Ziggy Stardusts of the world is over here in the US. You're right, in otherr countries, Great Britian for example, people would worship Adam, and he would have just as successful a career as Placebo who are equally flamboyant and expressive. But, in a world where Bruce Springsteen is considered God in many parts of the country for almost 30 years, the Chris Daughtry's of the world are always going to win out over the Adam Lambert.
Of course the argument can be made that adam's style is directly related to his sexuality, but that would be a sweeping generalization I'm not ready to make
I think you greatly simplify things - first because you ignore the fact that showmanship continues to reign supreme in American tastes, second because it isn't about glam vs. non glam, but rather about the strength of the singing and quality of voice. My wife and I have yet to meet anyone in our social circles (made up mostly of parents at children's sports events and music recitals) who didn't gush glowingly about how extraordinarily talented Adam Lambert is. To top it off, my son's voice coach, from Russia (not that that means anything other than that her points of reference for judging singers is different), assured us that Adam is the real deal. no debate in her mind.
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