American Idol, perhaps in an effort to restore some of its' luster after a couple of years of Corey Clark & Paula, those twins from Atlanta with the jail records, and of course Sanjaya, did something really odd tonight. I'm not the biggest of fans, but when I'm visiting family, I can't really avoid it. Thus, I was subjected to the rapture of the first inaugural episode of "American Idol Gives Back". It came off as more of a "Save The Baby Negroes Marathon", which I suppose is a noble cause in some way.
I'm not really sure what the whole point of it is, but apparently they are trying to draw attention to the plight of poor folks worldwide, from New Orleans to Mozambique. While that's a laudable goal, the execution sucked. There were vignettes of Randy Jackson, supposedly a Louisiana native, returning to the N.O. for the first time post-Katrina. (!?!?) There were lots of self congratulatory-shots of Madonna, Bono, and the other usual suspects who adopt or otherwise pose for photo-ops with poor Kenyan orphans. And of course, there was lots, and lots of very bad singing, courtesy of the Idol contestants. What a hot, albeit not quite ghetto, mess.
Mixing pop culture with serious philantropy isn't new (Jerry's Kids, anyone?), but Fox's effort to milk as the somewhat faltering American Idol franchise for all it's worth by using poor black kids (apparently poor white kids simply don't exist, in America, or anywhere for that matter) as props comes off as pretty disingenuous, even for a network that founded itself on AL Bundy and Bart Simpson.
Where's Sanjaya when you really need him?
