American Idol, Denial of Reality, and the American Spirit

If Survivor is one of my guilty pleasures (a pleasure I actually overcame once this past season simply had no interesting characters), American Idol is one of the guilty pleasures of my wife, Michele. Of the many fun things to do with my wife, two of them are 1) watching Ben Stiller movies with her and 2) watching American Idol with her. In both circumstances, you're waiting for a train wreck to happen. In Ben Stiller films, you wait to see how he can embarass himself next, and in American Idol, you wait to see how embarassing tryouts can be. In either case, it is fun to watch my wife get embarassed for these people.

But I digress...

I am profoundly astounded by the lack of perception and self-reflection in many of the people that audition for American Idol. There are many contestants who adamantly protest that despite the judges' decision to not accept them as contestants, they are clearly talented singers. Their reasoning: their friends and family told them so.

I am about to make an extreme generalization here, but I invite anyone who reads this blog to comment on it. There seems to be an American (and by that I mean, United States American) propensity to "puff up" or replace lack of talent with "smack-talk."

If I talk myself up or vehemently claim that I am "the shit,"
so to speak, then I will clearly enjoy success. I see this attitude in many American Idol contestants (albeit only the contestants that the producers of AI have chosen to include in their show, but contestants all the same). Despite the clear lack of talent in his/her singing voice, an American contestant will often still use a strong display of attitude and naive, baseless self-confidence in order to present him/herself. I suppose the most obvious trait of this attitude is that they lack humility.

I believe there are two examples that I can cite in American culture to propose as influences on this American spirit of "smack-talk without the walk."

In Donald Trump's show The Apprentice, contestants are quickly axed for one thing alone: admittting you did something wrong. If you do not present yourself as a cut-throat and flawless leader, you will be fired. If you admit to any hint that you made a poor choice or may lack some kind of leadership quality, you will be fired. Humility is not the key to victory in this show.

President George W. Bush often employs the rhetoric of "smack-talk without the walk." He will consistently tout America as a bastion of freedom, truth, and democracy. He constantly uses phrases such as "we are a proud and strong nation;" "we will succeed;" and "we will prevail." I do not believe that I need to take up a large portion of my post here with examples where America has clearly not provided a practical example of freedom, truth, democracy, strength, and success. When it was discovered that Iraq had no WMD's (the initial primary reason for Operation Iraqi Freedom), Mr. Bush did not go on public record with an apology to the nation. Instead, he claimed that Operation Iraqi Freedom served a purpose by deposing Saddam Hussein and bringing democracy to Iraq. Humility does not appear to be a prominent quality in the American federal leader's rhetoric.

Therefore, I wonder if this is not an indication as to why American Idol contestants often employ the rhetoric of "smack-talk without the walk." They see it exemplified through much of popular American culture and through their national leader.

I hope that this may serve as some kind of insight into the current American mentality as far as "what it takes to succeed in the world." But then again, I could just be talking about American Idol. I invite anyone to comment...