Deconstructing American Idol: Manipulation at its Finest

Last week, I wrote about the new season of American Idol, and its penchant towards displaying the lowest of the low, and even dedicating a fair amount of time to their portrayal. While I talked about the whole question of these bad singers and the like last week, this week I want to look at each episode as the manipulation of our senses, a pattern developing to best serve a particular audience. The directors, producers and editors on American Idol, in a way, are like journalists crafting a story. So, let’s analyze last night’s episode to test out this theory.

Act One: Bringing the Funny

Let’s face it, these early episodes of American Idol are designed to make people laugh and make fun of people who can’t sing in the least, or are entirely oddball in their ways. It’s important for them to do so because they want to hook people in their story. People with short attention spans are immediately drawn into the humour of it all, and you can’t really blame them. The segments are lasting a bit long this season, but let’s face it: it’s still funny to watch people get horribly rejected.

But, in terms of power, the judges are in control, and this first person always shows this. The judges are immediately able to say a resounding no to a contestant, which immediately establishes them as the quality control of the operation.

Act Two: The Montage of Mediocrity

Not looking to lose those viewers who entered for the funny, they parade some of the worst singers doing one of a multitude of things. They could all be butchering the same song, all pleading for an opportunity to do better, or all having major problems with their pitch.

This places the audience in a position to just sit back and enjoy themselves, and it’s non-stop entertainment. Not only will this keep them from changing the channel, but it also continues to condition them into thinking that these singers aren’t good in the least. It most definitely manipulates us, as it often shows us only the negative parts of their audition, and you wonder if perhaps the rest of the song was better.

Act Three: Hope for Humanity (But not too much hope)

Here, the show provides two things: singers who have potential to be good but fail to live up to it, and individuals who can actually, you know, sing. These include people from previous seasons who are back to audition, people who have training but just try too hard, or people who can belt out a good tune.

This helps to keep people around, and shows a vulnerability in the power of the judges. If we had a show of all failures, they would appear too difficult, too rigid. Similarly, an episode of all people like this would remove their power entirely. This section is also there to keep people tiring of the bad singers (Read: Me) watching.

Act Four: Emotional Manipulation

This is a two-stage process within Act Four. First, return to the bad singers a bit, to make sure that people remember that the show can be funny. However, that’s also there to allow for the next stage to have its greatest effect. Then, maybe bring in someone borderline, who get through or maybe not.

Because the next stage is to bring in someone who stirs up emotions deep within our souls. Last night’s example was a man, the pictured Sherman Pore, who, to lift his dying wife’s spirits, decided to make a petition to allow him to audition for American Idol at the age of 64; tragically, his wife died two days before the audition. His story was heart wrenching, his singing quite good, and in the end you couldn’t help but feel happier knowing that the project he prepared with his wife was able to come to fruition.

Coming right after someone purely funny, the emotional shift totally engrosses you in the episode, and displays the amount of power it enacts over the emotions of the viewer.

Act Five: The Laughingstock

They always save the best, aka the worst, for last, and last night was no exception. They started with a boyfriend/girlfriend, one of whom kept hitting on Simon awkwardly, and then they went to their big finale. The example was a male singer with an incredibly high voice. Simon razzed him about it, trying to make him sing lower, but the kid just wasn’t a singer. Of course, after leaving, Simon then read that he had taught himself to sing using Randy and Paula’s Singing Training DVD (Which I assume she was drunk for, considering his audition) so Simon ran out to chastise him some more and much running ensued (Also: they left poor Olivia Newton-John all by herself. She had her husband mysteriously disappear, she shouldn’t be left unattended).

And really, this is what the entire episode was building up to, and it’s that big finale everyone is looking for. However, directly after it, they show us those individuals who made it through to Hollywood, the “positive” if you will. But, when they show us to them, we see maybe three seconds of them, when we got a good two minutes on some of the most terrible.

So really, the entirety of an episode of American Idol is pure manipulation. It’s about controlling our emotions, our perceptions, and basically operates entirely to create a repeating narrative week after week designed to appeal to all viewers. And, while ratings may not be everything, they might as well be when you’re getting ratings like Idol is right now.

But should we be more aware of the amount of control that the editors/producers have over the show? Would public perception of the show changed if viewers were aware of exactly how manipulative the show is? Or, like most reality TV of this nature, would they simply chalk it up to entertainment? I tend to prescribe to that argument in the end, but I can’t ignore the facts: American Idol has a power over 25 Million Americans on a weekly basis that most governments would dream of. And, while I might be able to shut my brain off and just let this happen, I can’t forget about that fact, and I don’t think anyone else should.