Let's discuss the American Idol result, shall we?
As with last year, I'm doing my regular Idol blogs in italics over on Chris's blog, but right now I have a lot of feelings:
Goddammit. Every year this happens to me - I get overly-invested in a contestant who gets a raw deal with the voters, and every year I vow to watch the next season in a state of complete emotional detachment, and every year I fall right back in there.
Pia Toscano going home at Top 9 is serious bullshit. I've watched a lot of reality shows and witnessed a hell of a lot of bullshit eliminations in my time, but this tops any Daughtry/JHud/Alexis Grace situation you may wish to throw at me. Pia was my favourite this year, and though the general bloodbath of female contestants in the finals left me doubting her ability to win, I never thought for a second she'd even be troubling the bottom three this early on, let alone actually get sent home.
I've seen a lot of comments from people saying that they're fine with her going because she was "boring", a "robot", a "pageant princess" and all those other TWoPpy comments that people attach to women who are proficient and don't appear to have unpleasant personalities so that they can continue to hate them with impunity. And fine: those are all fine arguments for her not winning the whole thing. But as arguments for her going home when Casey/Paul/Stefano are all still there, they do not cut the mustard at all. I hate to pull out the sexism card, but it just feels like people are willing to cut the guys slack for things that the woman aren't apparently allowed to get away with. For example, I have nothing against Scotty, but no one's been calling him on the fact that he's every bit as reliant on one style of performance as Pia is, and he's no natural at stagecraft either.
When Naima got cut last week I thought it sucked, because she may have been wildly inconsistent as a singer, but she was at least someone who was dependably entertaining as a performer. The one solace I took from her elimination was "at least my favourite's not going anywhere for a while". Then this happens. Stupid show.
So who do I throw my support behind now? James, I guess. Jacob was a favourite until that frankly unpleasant display this week where he said that if he's B3 it's because America hates itself, and as much as I'm enjoying Haley, she might scrape Top 5, but I can't see her getting any further than that. Maybe I should just accept the inevitability of Scotty winning at this point so that I've made my peace with it in time for May.
Goddammit. Every year this happens to me - I get overly-invested in a contestant who gets a raw deal with the voters, and every year I vow to watch the next season in a state of complete emotional detachment, and every year I fall right back in there.
Pia Toscano going home at Top 9 is serious bullshit. I've watched a lot of reality shows and witnessed a hell of a lot of bullshit eliminations in my time, but this tops any Daughtry/JHud/Alexis Grace situation you may wish to throw at me. Pia was my favourite this year, and though the general bloodbath of female contestants in the finals left me doubting her ability to win, I never thought for a second she'd even be troubling the bottom three this early on, let alone actually get sent home.
I've seen a lot of comments from people saying that they're fine with her going because she was "boring", a "robot", a "pageant princess" and all those other TWoPpy comments that people attach to women who are proficient and don't appear to have unpleasant personalities so that they can continue to hate them with impunity. And fine: those are all fine arguments for her not winning the whole thing. But as arguments for her going home when Casey/Paul/Stefano are all still there, they do not cut the mustard at all. I hate to pull out the sexism card, but it just feels like people are willing to cut the guys slack for things that the woman aren't apparently allowed to get away with. For example, I have nothing against Scotty, but no one's been calling him on the fact that he's every bit as reliant on one style of performance as Pia is, and he's no natural at stagecraft either.
When Naima got cut last week I thought it sucked, because she may have been wildly inconsistent as a singer, but she was at least someone who was dependably entertaining as a performer. The one solace I took from her elimination was "at least my favourite's not going anywhere for a while". Then this happens. Stupid show.
So who do I throw my support behind now? James, I guess. Jacob was a favourite until that frankly unpleasant display this week where he said that if he's B3 it's because America hates itself, and as much as I'm enjoying Haley, she might scrape Top 5, but I can't see her getting any further than that. Maybe I should just accept the inevitability of Scotty winning at this point so that I've made my peace with it in time for May.