"It feels good, man, but Adam deserves this..." - Kris Allen after winning American Idol
"Adam was just too edgy for mainstream America" -Simon Nasser, marketing director of Warner Music
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This is unjust, and America got it WRONG.
Let's set aside the fact that I am a long-time Adam fan...and let me tell explain why this year's Idol results have left me so dissatisfied.
For anyone who has followed this year's competition, Adam's genius has been undeniable. Week after week, the man has truly proved himself as a wildly talented and creative artist, setting himself up as the judge's obvious favorite. (A standing ovation from Simon? Are you kidding me?)
So what went wrong? How did he come in behind Kris Allen, the 'little contestant that could' as one blogger called him? Here is my theory (one I've found all across the blogosphere today...)
From the beginning, Adam was a bold character--outrageous fashion, black nail polish, and eyeliner. His 'questionability' escalated when 'gay-kiss' photos that surfaced early in the Idol season, and probably contributed to his second-place finish.
I personally have heard many Christian/conservatives around me bring up his ambiguous sexuality--labelling him as 'gay' and shaking their heads/shrugging their shoulders as if that was the end of the matter. I confronted one of my friends, in a conversation that went about like this:
Friend: "I'm voting for Kris"
Me: "I think Adam is way better."
Friend: "Yeah, but he's gay."
Me: ...blinks, wondering if Friend realizes what an illogical statement that was... "This is a SINGING competition..."
Friend: "Yeah, I was just sayin'..."
Me: "Okay. That makes sense. As long as you follow every mention of Kris with the statement, 'he's straight.' Or we could just concede that sexuality has nothing to do with an individual's artistic merit..."
Friend: ...gives me a look...
It's this kind of unconcious, unfair leap that gets me so infuriated. As a Christian, I can appreciate that many of my conservative friends do not feel like they can approve of homosexuality (Adam has never confirmed he is gay, in fact.) But translating Romans 1 into the a wholesale rejection of any person who may be a gay/lesbian, regardless of context--this offends my logical mind as well as my conscience.
I found it very maddening that so many Christians seemed to feel morally obligated to support Danny Gokey or Kris Allen--both clean-cut, wholesome, former worship leaders. (I concede that both men were talented, especially Danny, in my opinion). When Danny disappeared the week before the finale, I was not surprised to see my Danny-fan-friends flocking to Kris. Performance and talent were, admittedly, second in importance to them--they took comfort in the warm-fuzzy videos of Kris' Arkansas family and his cute, blonde wife. With Kris, everything was just...so...NICE.
As one blogger put it,
Maybe it was foolish of me to think that a copiously mascara'd,
leather-sheathed, rock-operatic free spirit from Southern California could
actually beat out a clean-cut, happily married church worship leader from
Arkansas who kind of looks like Joey from Friends
Simply put, I think that America wasn't ready for a (potentially) gay American Idol. There is no other explanation in my (perhaps biased) mind for why the wildly acclaimed, thorougly original, incredibly gifted Adam Lambert was forced to forgo the title of 'Idol'. I believe his loss was, at least in large part, due to the unfortunate but all-too-common phenomenon of Religion-Applied-Wrongly-In-An-Irrelevant-Context.
Ah, I've cooled off a bit today. I really wasn't a very faithful viewer of Idol, but the injustice of last night's results got me riled up nonetheless. (Blogpost titles like "America gets it Wrong", "Intolerance Wins Out" and "Adam Robbed" show I'm not alone in these sentiments)
I'm not worried about Adam, though. He's a musical gem, and, to use a Biblical reference for good measure, "he will appear before kings, he will not stand before ordinary men." (Prov 22:29)
I restmy case. But if you haven't had theopportunity to hear the musical mastery that is Adam Lambert, look up "MadWorld" or "Feeling Good"or "One"...or whatever. And enjoy.
