Last night I cast 100 votes for Taylor Hicks to be the next American Idol. It took me 45 minutes and 243 phone calls to cast those 100 votes. Last month I wrote a
diary describing some lessons American Idol can teach us about political strategy. And during the time I sat at the phone hitting redial last night, I had some more thoughts along the same lines.
Why did I feel strongly enough about Taylor to vote 100 times? And how does this tie in to my political beliefs and actions?
First, I have a problem with people who succeed by placing style over substance, and Taylor IMO has more substance. American Idol is a performance competition and Catherine McPhee, the other finalist, is not a performer or an entertainer--she's just a singer. When she sings uptempo songs she doesn't display any ability to match body movements to the song's rhythm. So her best performances are slow songs where she can sit on a stool or stand still or otherwise not move too much or too fast.
Her performances last night were perfect evidence of this. In the first song she shared the stage with two men playing hand drums and she stepped awkwardly around them barely in relation to the music. In the second song--her high point in the competition--she sat in the middle of the stage with lighting effects and camera angles providing the visual movement in her sweet rendition of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Basically if you don't find her looks appealing, she doesn't do a lot else to hold your visual attention. She's a very good singer, but her performance skills begin and end with just standing there and being a pretty girl. Since this is America, that is enough to win several rounds of votes. She skated through several weeks of sub-par performances in early rounds because of her looks. I was annoyed by that. So often when people critiqued her songs they started with "you look amazing" or "you're so beautiful tonight." It's not a beauty pageant, it's a performance competition!
Taylor on the other hand, while I think his dancing is weird, is more of a complete entertainer--he throws himself physically into every performance. His moves don't seem stagy, they seem to come from within him and his response to the music, rather than out of the mind of some quack performance coach (now, point to the audience when you say the word "you", point to your own heart when you say the word "me", raise your arms slowly as you hold the final note....) blecchh.
Second, I am drawn to original, unpackaged personalities. There is a bland Wal-Mart quality to Catherine--she is indistinguishable from thousands of other young women who sing in front of the mirror with a hairbrush and pretend to be Celine Dion, or Whitney Houston, or any of a number of other pop stars she (unsuccessfully) tried to imitate. Taylor is one of a kind--he does not resemble any other current pop star visually or vocally. He sounds a little bit like Michael McDonald, and the grey hair adds to that, but Michael McDonald is of another generation. (Seeing Taylor on stage standing next to Burt Bacharach just now, they kind of look a bit alike also!) That bland, depthless quality makes Catherine a ilttle inaccessible in my book. She doesn't reach me or move me. I listen to her, and again, I think she is a very good singer, but something about her just skims the surface for me, there's no "there" there, nothing to draw me in. Taylor just seems to have a three-dimensionality to him, something that makes me want to keep watching him to see what he will do next. I can't wait to hear him play the harmonica and guitar. I want to hear a whole album from him, and if he goes on tour, I might even buy tickets. That intangible charismatic pull that draws people in is an element of star quality that you either have or you don't. Taylor definitely has it.
Third, the fan club labels "McPheever" and "Soul Patrol" make a statement too. Catch the McPheever, because it includes her name, is an inward-focused statement, a statement about her, while Soul Patrol is a label that reaches out to embrace the fans. It is a choice between "vote for me because there's something special about me" and "identify with a community--there's something special about us." I wuold characterize their performance styles similarly: the point of Catherine's performance seems to be: Look at me, and listen to how beautifully I'm singing! the point of Taylor's performance seems to be--let's have fun together with this fun song, or let's enter into this quiet song together.
Last but not least, I want Taylor to win because I liked him all along--from the very beginning. I rooted for him to make the Final 12. I never thought he had a chance to win and kept predicting other people to make the finals. Mandisa was the first one I was really attached to, and after she was voted off I expected Chris Daughtry and Catherine to be the final two. But every week that Taylor stayed in, I was really happy, and happy for him. And after Mandisa was gone, I realized that Taylor was the only one that I really felt any attachment to. For weeks I said, I like Taylor, but I don't think he can win. Now he's in a position to win, and I want him to win. I know he's from Alabama and may even be a Republican, and I still want him to win! (There was a Republican-affilated idol candidate in the early rounds from Massachusetts and I actively rooted for her to lose...)
I long for a presidential candidate who is more than just a pretty face. Someone with depth who understands that style without substance is boring. I long for a candidate who is going to put himself on the line for me--not just give me the appearance of putting it on the line but actually go out on a limb for who he is and what he believes. I want a candidate I am proud to identify with--one that will reinforce my pride in being a Democrat and my pride in identifying with the Blue Team. I want a candidate who appears to be in this for me and for the American people and not just in it for himself. I want a candidate who grabs me early and hangs in there doing his own thing regardless of what the competition throws at him. And I want a candidate who draws me out into participation and makes me want to go the extra mile and stay up late and work for him to win even when I am bone tired and half falling asleep. Someone who inspires me to make just one more phone call -- just one more, just one more, just one more. Because I really really care--I really really want him to win. I want a candidate I can care about. Someone who makes me feel like it matters whether we win or lose, and someone who when he wins, I feel like I have won too.
I'm old enough that i don't care whether people think I'm a square or an idiot for admitting to the guilty pleasure that is American Idol and for thinking that Idol has something to teach us about what motivates people to vote. If you think the show is stupid and didn't find this interesting, then go post on another thread. Maybe all the serious Idol fans are sitting in front of the TV and not on line now. But if anyone wants to share their observations (even Catherine fans!) I hope you'll use this as an American Idol finale thread while we wait for the announcement of the winner.