An Open Letter To The Producers Of American Idol
Paul Vargas
January 15, 2008
Dear Scumbags,
Dear Minions Of Satan,
Dear Minions Of Gozer,
Dear Reasonable Members Of Civilization,
Your show premieres today, you fucking bastards, and even if there weren't a writer's strike on,
and even if the nomination for the Republican and Democratic Parties weren't up for grabs, your putrid death
march of a program would most probably still dominate this joke we call the news cycle.
Like neo-Fascism in Germany or those warts a girl tried to convince me on our third date two years ago were just
razor burn, American Idol seems to come back stronger and harder to kill each year. I can recall when the show first made the
trip over the pond from England (I'm thinking they learned we cloned Tony Blair in a secret lab in Texas and sent him
over there as a practical joke) and I can recall the hype surrounding it. I can recall when the show came back (I
refer you, again, to neo-Fascism and Herpes Girl, late 2005) and the hype was even greater. That trend, over five plus years, hasn't
reversed.
Hype can be a good thing. If I could shave my balls with hype, I would. But I can't, so I guess I won't
be shaving my balls. Hype's kissing cousin, awareness (Lord FUCKING save me, I just typed "awareness") brings
people to the causes of hunger, poverty, rape, and diseases like AIDS. Let's not forget AIDS. Remember AIDS? Still around.
Be AWARE! Boogedy-boogedy-boo, you damned goldfish. Hype has supported some very good advances in the entertainment industry.
DVDs: better than DivX, more portable than VHS tapes, excellent for storing massive amounts of girl-on-girl pool
action. TiVo and its generic twin, DVR: now I don't have to watch commercials for Viagra, Cialis, Levitra, Claritin,
Ambien, Ambien CR, Ambien Light, Ambien Dark, Ambien Smooth, Ambien Ultra, Ambien Dry, Ambien Stout, and amateur videos of girl-on-girl
pool action. But douche bags ladies and gents, hype has also nearly caused your downfall. I refer you to
the case of Sanjaya Malakar.
Say what you will about the politics of Vote For The Worst.com (I say their
desire to find fairness in a Hollywood enterprise is like trying to shove a floodlight up someone's ass: yeah, you could manage
it somehow, but you'll have to find a really BIG asshole to accept it without caring), they know the grunt politics of hype.
Rally around a polarizing figure, change the nature of the debate, grab a voice just as polarizing to trumpet your cause, and
get the opponent on the defensive. Step One was picking that mental patient Sanjaya Malakar as their lightning rod. Step Two was
stepping on our common sense and aesthetic sensibilities announcing to the world that picking Sanjaya would change Idol
more than picking one of the other cookie-cutter-pop-or-faux-gospel-trash more talented singers.
Remember when you guys were in seventh grade, and you had to lead a team in writing a report on NAFTA, but half your team wanted to
write about the soft drink FANTA instead, and you were all like, "Guys, c'mon, if you do that, we'll get an F!" And they were all like,
"No, c'mon, let's do it--she can't fail ALL of us! Besides, it's funny; everybody's gonna laugh, and this shit doesn't matter anyway!"
And you caught a conniption fit and cried in your coat closet? That's what last year was like.
Last year, American Idol garnered more votes than 2004's general
presidential election, I think; I heard that somewhere but I'm too
drunk right now to look it up and that means that, for better or worse fuckyouassholesIhateyousoMUCH!!! your show
serves the public as a microcosm of American democracy in that rich pole-smokers handpick our choices for us and we're stuck
electing the lesser of who-gives-a-flying-fuck when we'd much rather be listening to Radiohead. When the system turns on
the audience, the audience has a right to wonder why it's following the system. The audience doesn't come into your living
room and tell you how to splosh (use the pudding, not the spaghetti). When you factor in the fact that there will be two months
of audition episodes (fuck you) on the air, and the viewing alternatives are slim-to-none (fuck you), you
hopefully can see as well as I do (fuck you) that you've put yourself in a precarious position (fuck you fuck you FUCK YOU).
The pump is primed for another Nader Sanjaya-like run at making your show irrelevant.
Decent human beings Those not obsessed with the Britney-Christina Era Of Pop-Rock or the Carrie-Clay Eras Of Pop-Country
or I'm-Sorry-I-Blacked-Out-During-The-Eight-Minute-Pitch-Finger-Thing Pop-Gospel may, out of boredom, fish around
your first episodes for a few weeks. And they may lose interest. They may. Or they may get hooked. Good, you say? Not quite.
They're not desensitized brainwashed blitzed-out-inured
used to the rote process of voting for the "right" candidate. Again, out of boredom, they may stick around. But
like impish children or Kirstie Alley, they may only stick around to fuck with your show gum up the works. Giving "Vote
For The Worst" (I'm not linking your site a second time, if you find this, you tools) time to drum up support for
its campaign, and AMMUNITION in the form of endless eight to ten hours of bad auditions mixed in with the
lame and retread good, is inviting a perfect storm upon yourselves.
The consequences of a Nader Sanjaya-type winning your beloved, steaming pile American
Idol? The hype machine turns on you, and the show's life hurtles towards its end. Just like democracy. If Nader had
won in 2000, I'd be writing in Canadian now. What you see as a miracle confluence of events that could gain your show more
viewers than ever before could wind up destroying your program once and for all. And then we'd have to watch Prison Break
and that Terminator show and try to imagine a mash-up between the two: Terminator Break, where Sarah Conner and
Michael Scofield battle to escape a prison planet, only to land on another prison planet and THIS TIME battle for control over it.
Or just turn off the fucking TV.
If you've decided to heed my words, you may note that I've not offered a solution to your problem. Or you've figured out
a way to spin it; 's'your funeral. And although I curse the banshees which spawned you am not a fan
of your show, I believe I have the answer you need.
Cancel the show. Pull out. Say you're showing solidarity with the striking writers, or that you need to seriously retool
the edited episodes because Randy Jackson can be seen doodling inappropriate sexual images of "Young Paula" on his notepad. Come back
with some fresh perspectives on music; come back tuned in to the elements of the industry driven by actual fan appreciation, and not agency-
saturated knee-jerk response. Do an episode where local bands with devoted bases get to play for audiences, not washed up executives and
singers who haven't had a hit in decades, and let the audiences decide--all the way--who gets a contract. Let the singers bring
their bands. Enough of this diva shit. It encourages inflated egos and substance abuse. And annoying fucking teenagers who are
always a half-step off when they sing in their bedrooms, or on the subway, or at
the pizzeria.
Do nothing. Keep the show on the air. Let the worst singer win over all the other candidates so I can watch gleefully on YouTube, CNN, and, let's face it, The New York Times website how dramatically destroyed all you fuckers seem. That Randy Jackson isn't fighting for his brother's respect, Paula Abdul isn't singing Arby's jingles, and Simon Cowell isn't taking it up the pee-hole for a stash of crack that could choke a pygmy is beyond me. But if you stay on the air, it'll happen, boy, and I'm gonna have my intern troll the web for a year, collecting the horror stories for a book I can then publish, titled See? I Was Right! By the way, my intern? Lead singer for Hanson.
Tits.
Move the show to FX, label it TV-MA, and show some boobage. If you move it to IFC, you can do some full-frontal male, too.
THAT'LL ramp up the hype, and keep the voting safe; that Nader Sanjaya wasn't much of a looker. I'm not much for
trendy programming, but I think nudity is what saves most things. That, convoluted plots, and monsters.
I hope they move Lost to Tuesdays so ABC can smoke your asses.
Respectfully,
Paul Vargas
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