True fact. I am not watching this season of “American Idol”. There are two reasons for that. The first is that I’m out on Tuesday nights at trivia, an activity that I find much more exciting than watching a group of overentitled kids mangle popular music. The second is that since I started watching in Season 5, each ensuing year has kept me less and less interested. Now if you were to ask me, I’d say that the talent pool has gotten shallower-whereas there were 5 or 6 contestants that I thought were legitimately talented in Season 5, I lost interest last year when Carly Smithson was voted out. Nothing against David Cook or David Archuleta, but I like my singers to have a little bit of personality in their music, not to be vocally talented ciphers.
So, apparently this year, there’s this kid called Adam Lambert that’s the front-runner among all contestants this year. In my main man GG’s “American Idol” posts on Wednesday nights, he intimates that the race is Lambert’s to lose. Or is it?
Recently, photos have cropped up showing Lambert making out with another dude. Shock! Horror! There’s the possibility that a guy who sings might be shhhhh…gay!! The question then becomes, is America ready for a gay “American Idol”? Well, there are a couple of things about the whole story that bother me. Allow me to ramble:
1) With Friends Like That, Who Needs Enemies- Who’s the jackass that revealed the pictures to the media? Man, if you get even a little bit of notoriety, someone always finds something that will come around and bite you in the ass. The person that revealed those pictures is not only obviously jealous, but is cut from the same cloth as the idiot who sold those photos of Michael Phelps smoking out of a bong. A kid in his twenties with money smoking weed. OMG. That NEVER happens.
2) The Clay Aiken Effect- I wasn’t yet an “Idol” watcher when Aiken finished second, but, come on. Seriously. Clay Aiken coming out was news? Really? The people who were surprised that Aiken was gay are probably the same people who were stunned when George Michael got busted with the cop in the restroom. So, let’s make a far-reaching assumption and presume that most Americans are smart. I know, it’s difficult. The guy (Lambert) wears makeup. He was a theater kid. Stereotypes be damned and everything, but how much more obvious can the guy get? So there’s the possibility that Lambert could kick down the closet door that Aiken cracked open. (although we still have yet to see an openly gay male music star that wasn’t yet established when he came out).
3) Who cares?-If Adam Lambert’s sexuality makes a difference as far as whether you vote for the kid on “American Idol” or not, you probably shouldn’t be reading this blog. Not only am I gay, but several of the folks who’ve written for this site in the past are gay as well. If that fact makes even the slightest difference in how you feel about me, whether it’s as a writer or as a person, not only are you way behind the times and a hopeless case, but, again, you probably shouldn’t be reading this blog. The media loves to make a big deal out of things like this when, particularly in regards to America’s youth-people who are growing up with a much more open-minded attitude about things that shouldn’t be a big deal-it doesn’t really matter.
Bottom line-if indeed the kid is gay (and I would imagine that a picture of you with your tongue down some dude’s throat is fairly indisputable truth), it shouldn’t affect his placing on “American Idol” at all. You’re voting for vocal talent, not sexual orientation. Fuck you, Bill O’ Reilly. This will be one of the few times on this site that I allow myself to get on any kind of soapbox. The kid could have a midget fetish, and what would it matter as long as he’s talented?
vh1.com wrote a very cool article on the possibility that Lambert might be gay, although comparing the dude to Barack Obama is a wee bit of a stretch.
