Idol Gives Back
Saviours or Performers?
After reading the cynical but mostly correct
TWoP recaps of these two episodes late last night, and then reading Cloud’s cynical but oh so correct thoughts on these two episodes this morning, I’ve decided to give word to my thoughts on the deal.
Overall the cynical side of me has won out, but there were truly both the good and the bad to these episodes.
I’ll just go with what I can remember and what I felt at first airing and rethinking of the events.
For the first twenty minutes or so I had been blissfully unaffected by the episode.
The contestants sang their little songs of apparent inspiration, I didn’t feel a connection to this so-called inspiration from most of them (the only exceptions for me being Blake and Jordan), but hey, they tried…
Ryan kept trying to urge the American Public to vote, because you know, picking up your cell phone and doing what you most probably would have done in anycase DOES make you a hero…
But overall, the cynicism hadn’t yet settled. I hadn’t yet seen just how frakked up these episodes can be. Because it’s good, but then it’s also so… so bad, that it’s hard to describe what I’m feeling now.
And then, in a matter of seconds I skipped directly past cynic to MAD. Why? What possibly could have had this effect on me?
They mentioned the dreaded “cap”. The “cut-off” point, where your votes won’t help to save a life anymore, because the sponsoring company is only going to “give” up to that point, and then, to hell with the rest. Yes, I tend to have a problem with the “cap”.
Because, now, you have that feeling of, okay, you’re a hero if you’re one of the first 50 million votes. You’re a hero for that 10 cents given by your votes, but oh, dear, if you vote after that, sorry you’re not a hero anymore, because the sponsoring company can only “give” so much before it becomes a burden.
And you know, I’m not even going to look up who the sponsor was that paid the 10 cents per vote, that’s not necessary, because it’s always the same thing.
If it had been AT&T I would probably have moved past mad straight into pissed, because, you know, they still make money from those votes that’s more than 50 million. And Idols are still getting some kind of revenue from it, they’re getting a ton of money from companies who want to get a chance at that lucrative advert spot. But no, the “cut-off” is there. You’re a hero up to 50 million, after that, you’re nothing…
You know what’s the worst part? That sponsoring company would, most probably, have given 5 million dollars with or without Idol Gives Back. We all know the wonder that is Tax Rebates…
You get to put one over the dreaded Tax Man, whilst making yourself feel good for all of five minutes – It’s the American (No, wait)… It’s the GLOBAL dream.
So for the rest of the first episode I was seething, and telling myself to calm down, I may be misinterpreting what’s going on. But I know I’m NOT. And that’s the problem… 99% of the viewing public wouldn’t see that, wouldn’t see that they’re being scammed. That they are being made to feel good about themselves, whilst these big corporations are the ones ACTUALLY smiling all the way to the bank.
But we’re not supposed to be that cynical, we’re not supposed to see the darker side of Corporate America (No the Corporate World). We’re supposed to only see how much GOOD these people are doing, they’re the saviours... They’re not performers…
And so, this first episode left me feeling wrong and mad and I couldn’t look at those poor children they’re showing, because I know, even they are being fooled by these guys. Everybody is being fooled…
But then, the second episode came along and it dispelled some of my cynicism.
It showed this plight, this absolutely horrific plight of people who lives both in our backyard and further North on this beautiful but plight-ridden continent of ours.
I’ll admit it right now - I had tears streaming down my cynical face for most of this episode. But that still didn’t dispel all the bad that I saw in this, but at least it also brought the good…
When they showed Simon and Ryan in Kibera [Kenya] (FINALLY we have a name, although it was only mentioned twice, and so fast I had to check again to be certain I had heard correctly.) I could see how affected they were. Because THAT wasn’t fake. That absolute horror at what they were seeing, at the plight of these people… That was REAL, that’s what gave me hope for these episodes. Simon crying and Ryan speechless - that is what it was about. That was when I realized, it wasn’t just about the money, it was about people and people being affected by what they saw, and maybe, just maybe that could lead to good…
First, another bit of bad, before going back to the good. I wanted to see what I could find out about Kibera because I’d never heard of the place before. When I did a Google search I was surprised at the amount of results I got. 310 000. It looks like a lot, it seems like this is a place we should know about, but really, if you know Google, and you know the Web, you’d realize that is NOTHING. It’s not even a drop in the pond.
Do a search for “Sanjaya Malakar” and you’ll get more than 1.2 million results.
This “hell on earth” as proclaimed by Simon, has 310 000 entries, but SANJAYA has more than 1.2 million (and that is when you include both the Name and Surname!) Why, how could we have let that happen?
It’s a rhetorical question. There is no answer. But we have all led to this degradation of society. We are all to blame…
Back to the good. I was affected by what I saw. I felt for those kids, and I knew, I have to do something. I still don’t know what, maybe volunteer, maybe just send a prayer, but I HAVE to do something. That was when I realized, if I had been affected in a way that wasn’t just about money, because, really, that money won’t even be like a band-aid on cancer [tm. Jason on TWoP], it would help some kids, but it WILL NOT save the world. Money (even if it's more than $70 million as I believe the official figure was on Tuesday Night) CAN’T save the world. But maybe, just maybe, humanity can…
If I had been affected by what I saw, and I try to help somebody less fortunate, maybe just maybe, somebody else felt the same way, and they try to help somebody less fortunate than them. Maybe just maybe, that person will then help somebody else, and we can form our own sort of “Pay it Forward” and man this episode made me cry as much as that movie…
I know it won’t save the world, but if it can save one life, if it can bring JOY to one person, maybe just maybe the good would have won over the bad in this episode.
Maybe not…
But it MUST...
Oh American Idol, go back to being a show that’s only about mindless entertainment, because this thinking is giving me a headache…