Idol Gives Back

I've found everybody's thoughts about the whole Idol phenomenon very interesting. It seems to me that Idol is just one of those things that you either love or you hate, you know? I fall into the love category, I've watched every season and every version of Idol that has aired in NZ, plus Malaysian and Singapore Idol because it's closer to home. ;)

I guess what I love about the show is the point that Nabeel brought up in his lecture today, and that is the process and labor that is involved in changing an ordinary person into a star. The one contestant that I feel has undergone the biggest transformation is American Idol 2nd season runner-up Clay Aiken. While I totally believe his amazing voice earned him his spot in the top 2, it is undeniable that the "styling" and "packaging" that was involved to give him his new look had some hand in it too. The industry is all about image, as we all know, which explains the importance of the whole morphing process as an integral part of the series.

Anyway what I actually wanted to focus more on is the special charity episode "Idol Gives Back" that aired a couple of weekends ago. To me, that just gave the series and the idea of it being a new aspect to "popular music on screen" a whole new dimension. Before this the music that featured on Idol did what music predominantly exists to do - to entertain. But with "Idol Gives Back" a new element comes into play - charity. Even prior to the actual event, the episodes leading up to it actively pulled at the heartstrings of the audience with images of poverty and deprivation. As sincere as I'm sure the whole thing was, I could not help but feel really overwhelmed by the constant insisting and almost guilt-tripping to donate.

I did, however, enjoy this episode tremendously, mainly because most of the artists that performed on the night were ones that I liked. I just thought it was nteresting to bring this up in keeping with the Idol topic for this week because it showed that music can also be used, albeit indirectly, as a means to encourage good will which in turn, in this instance, resulted in making a donation for a good cause. They were very clever in this area, I have to say, making the charity's donating system equal to the show's voting system. This way, not only were they able to generate an incredible sum for charity but by doing so they were also able to greatly increase the show's ratings. In my opinion, the entire format of this "Idol Gives Back" episode was especially engineered, scripted, for just that. They knew exactly what to say, what to do, to tug at the hearts of the American public.

To finish off, I thought I'd post up a video of one of the performances that night, and a very interesting one at that. Another clever way, a gimmick even, of using popular music on screen - in this instance, music artists - to stir a call to action (ie. donation)? You tell me.



PS - Nabeel, I have this episode on tape if you're interested in having a copy ;)