If you don't know by now, the winner of season 8 of American Idol (announced last night) was Kris Allen; an amiable young man from Arkansas. There has been conspiracy theories this season that the best singer on the show, Adam Lambert is gay. After all, he wears "guyliner", paints his fingernails black, wears far-out clothing, and has always answered "I know who I am" when asked if he is gay. So one has to wonder, why did the best all around singer lose the competition? Could it be a red-state vs blue-state dynamic playing out in front of our eyes. Let's look at the history, shall we?
Clearly, if we could get a state by state break down of the voting, we'd be able to definitively report on if there is a conservative bias in the actual voting patterns. But we can’t. We can only look at what has happened thus far. Every winner of this show has been from a southern state. Every winner. Now the "true" south may be the states from Texas to Florida (including Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South/North Carolina, and Tennessee). But for the purposes of this diary, I’ll include Arizona and New Mexico. Here are the winners of American Idol for the 8 seasons, and the states from where they come:
- Kelly Clarkson: Texas
- Ruben Studdard: Alabama
- Fantasia: North Carolina
- Carrie Underwood: Oklahoma
- Tayler Hicks: Alabama
- Jordin Sparks: Arizona
- David Cook: Texas
- Kris Allen: Arkansas
As for the red state bias, every one of these states was a red state (i.e. voted for the republican presidential candidate) in each of the last three presidential elections (the entire time the show has been on the air) EXCEPT for North Carolina in 2008...which went "blue" by 39,000 votes.
So I don’t think it’s complaining, whining, or a conspiracy theory to believe that there is a southern bias to the results. It’s true that southern contestants ALWAYS win. What is much more difficult is to try and explain WHY that is. Are people from the south voting for their own over the contestant that is (arguably) a better singer? From my perspective, Adam was a much better singer and performer. He certainly has "star power" -- whatever that is. I think that voters from the south are voting for the "home player" over the "visitor" and I think that voters from the north are voting for whomever they think is better. Either that, or the show is simply more popular in the south. Or, for some reason, if the viewership of the show is evenly distributed, then the people in the south are more enthusiastic about actually picking up their phones and voting!
What I find equally interesting is that when two southern contestants have made it to the final round, the one with the better voice usually wins. Kelly Clarkson beat Justin Bell (Georgia). Fantasia beat Diana DeGarmo (Alabama), Carrie Underwood beat Bo Bice (Alabama). The only exception to this is (debatably) Ruben Studdard beating Clay Aiken (North Carolina). I think Clay had the better voice, better stage presence, and later, better star power. But the same claim now applied then: Clay lost because he was presumed to be gay, a rumor that he later confirmed.
There is really something about American Idol that brings out the viewers who live in the southern part of the United States. And there seems to be a trend where southern candidates win the over all the competition.
Is this really an injustice? Do we really care? Pop culture doesn’t really matter that much, does it? I have no idea. But it does give us all something to talk about other than politics! My idea for a solution is to tally the votes by state (for the final two contestants). So Alabama only gets one vote and California gets only one vote, etc. I think we should add Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands to get an odd number. The winner with 50%+1 gets the crown. That might solve the southern bias. I hope the producers of the show recognize this imbalance, as the contestant with the best voice SHOULD win the competition.