Paula Abdul has announced via Twitter and Fox has confirmed that she will not return to American Idol this season. This will ruin American society.
Some cultures have centuries of high art tying them together, but Americans have TV....
and American Idol is the one program that really stands out for building a mass audience. Everybody from 2 year-olds to their great grandparents can watch and form an opinion. In a time where people watch DVD's and YouTube videos, often on individual-sized screens like computers, Idol commands a mass audience and a shared base for small talk.
With sadness in my heart, I’ve decided not to return to Idol. I’ll miss nurturing all the new talent, but most of all being a part of a show that I helped from day one become an international phenomenon. What I want to say most, is how much I appreciate the undying support and enormous love that you have showered upon me. It truly has been breathtaking, especially over the past month. I do without any doubt have the best fans in the entire world and I love you all.
Yes, it was an international phenomenon, not even invented in America, but our society, more than others where people share a longer history and common ancestry, needs an invented culture that all can share in. It's why American TV and movies are popular around the world--we need to do this to survive as a people. After all, politics can divide us in difficult times like these. The stakes are real. But people can safely argue about their vote on Idol. As cheesy as it can be and rambling as Paula Abdul's commentary can get, it is a shared experience in American culture that only a "mainstream" or "mass" media can provide. The mass news media certainly needs to be shaken up by new forms of journalism, but we need some of our mass entertainment media and Idol is mostly good family entertainment.
Simon Cowell has said he doesn't want to do the show without Paula. What does this mean? What will replace it? Will we just fragment into our blue state/red state programming?
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