AMERICAN IDOL: Official Ledge Thread

[vermicious knid]

Nathaniel is a straight up MESS. I think voters will remember his ridiculous melodrama.

Kris Allen is some nice eye candy. I haven't noticed him if they have shown him.

[TrueFaith77]

Originally Posted by vermicious knid

Kris Allen is some nice eye candy. I haven't noticed him if they have shown him.

Yeah, he's the closest thing to it of the guys (though Jorge is the only one who is MY type). Why can't Idol find cute guys? I mean: that's what a pop idol should be.

[Chrislit18]

Originally Posted by TrueFaith77

Yeah, he's the closest thing to it of the guys (though Jorge is the only one who is MY type). Why can't Idol find cute guys? I mean: that's what a pop idol should be.

Yeah, this year I haven't noticed that many hot guys.
Last year they had Michael Johns, and the year before...Blake Lewis and one of the Chris' I think [right?]

And season 5 Will Makar was soo hot, but he was voted off before the top 12
There was another decent looking guy that season though.

I mostly watch Idol for the auditions, and the hot guys. This year I thought the auditions were lacking btw.

[TrueFaith77]

Originally Posted by Chrislit18

Yeah, this year I haven't noticed that many hot guys.
Last year they had Michael Johns, and the year before...Blake Lewis and one of the Chris' I think [right?]

And season 5 Will Makar was soo hot, but he was voted off before the top 12
There was another decent looking guy that season though.

I mostly watch Idol for the auditions, and the hot guys. This year I thought the auditions were lacking btw.

Chris Richards(?) was definately attractive. Though not exactly a dreamboat. But Michael Johns was gross and Blake Lewis was grosser.

I am in complete agreement about Will Makar.

[GoldDustOrphan]

This season of AI seems designed to torture Tatiana Del Toro.

I liked David Hernadez, in a dirty stripper kind of way.

[TrueFaith77]

Originally Posted by GoldDustOrphan

This season of AI seems designed to torture Tatiana Del Toro.

Exactly. It's very sad, in that sense, but I also love her resilience. She is the star, for me.

Originally Posted by GoldDustOrphan

I liked David Hernadez, in a dirty stripper kind of way.

I don't think think they or DH capitalized on DH's dirty stripper appeal. So instead, he was just boring and prone to unflattering make up and clothes. ugh.

[TrueFaith77]

American Idol - Season 8
Hollywood Week (Episode 3) Recap

Only a miracle can make reality Tatiana Del Toro's psychic friend's prediction of a place for her in the Top 12. The miracle: that the television audience will stop passively taking emotional cues from the Idol producers' crude manipulations. Nobody's survival has depended this much on audience participation since Tinker Bell. The show presents an exaggerated portrayal of Tatiana as the show's villain -- as if she were any more ambitious or proud than any of the other contestants! or anybody else in Hollywood! Wake up! Appreciate that Tatiana is the only one who makes showbiz aspiration... interesting. As one Worster summarized: "No need to elaborate on how awesome she is. She already is." In other words, when she exits the stage from her full-band solo audition and she twirls and smiles and breathily exhales that she feels "incredible" and that she was "awesome," she not only feels relief after a job well-done in the high-stress audition atmosphere, she actually expresses that relief in a way that makes it indelible.

And for the first time on the show, her singing is as indelible as her persona. The show makes light of her tendency to whip out new songs to contradict the judges' initial negative appraisals: the tactic of someone who knows how to claw her way to the top in Hollywood. You know: like all those aspiring stars who keep handy a copy of their portfolio in case opportunity arises -- another reality the show simply mocks, even as it promotes stardom as the noblest of goals. "That ain't your thing," Randy Jackson chastised her for doing to Aretha and Whitney, but defiant Tatiana shows that she makes the Baby Face composition "I’m Your Baby Tonight" entirely her own. When she sings the song for the judges, she has new intensity (for some reason, she reminded me of Jessica Harper in Brian De Palma's Phantom of the Paradise: entranced and entrancing). She digs deep on the low notes and then seems to cut off the back-up singers for a high-pitched vocal run at the end. It's utterly memorable -- and a psychologically apt expression of the song. . .

. . .unlike, say, Alex Wagner-Trugman (despite this, still a fave) and Anne Marie Boskovich's massacre of Fleetwood Mac's "Don’t Stop" on last week's Group Night show. From the literalizing of the song's lyrics in their cheesey group choreography to Alex's face-pulling -- misreading the song's profound rhythmic, poetic, pop-lore expression of Love and perserverence -- this encapsulates the danger American Idol poses to our shared pop heritage. The show threatens to separate expression from pop (especially exquisite pop like "Don't Stop"), individuality from performance.

This threat manifests itself in the show's establishing that Danny Gokey's schmaltzy -- cliché -- take on the schmaltzy "I Hope You Dance" somehow expresses genuine uplift: cue Paula's standing ovation. Sight-impaired Scott MacIntyre's schmaltzy, cliché, and, besting Gokey, off-pitch "Home" also got a standing O from Paula. The gesture was meaningless since he couldn't see it. Fitting. Joanna Pacitti forgot the words, but the failed pop star -- already rejected by the American public after being given major industry support -- serves the show's purpose of supporting the myth that Idol -- and Hollywood -- offers "second chances." You fail: try out for the show. You forget the words: You're in the Top 36. The show's real challenge, however, is for Idol viewers to redeem themselves.

No wonder the producers of the show heighten tension, keep viewers tuned in but tuned out, by moving Tatiana Del Toro from one winners' room to another, simultaneously encouraging a Tatiana freak-out (who wouldn't react after such a ploy?) and creating the impression that she was the bottom of the heap (so everyone will hate her for taking their loser favorite's spot). As GoldDustOrphan at the Fleetwood Mac fansite, The Ledge, put it: "This season of AI seems designed to torture Tatiana Del Toro." That's what Tatiana is up against in appealing to the television audience. On her myspace page, Tatiana describes her "mood" as "determined," signified by corresponding smiley. Tatiana Del Toro believes in miracles.

[GoldDustOrphan]

This morning on The View, the women agreed that Tatiana has been singled out by AI producers for exploitation and they've been following her story. While it might be unfair to suggest the reason they moved her from one room to the other (was she originally placed in the elimination room?), but it I think it was engineered to generate a dramatic response and it felt cruel. I'm now behind her 100%, but I have bad feeling about tonight.

[Livia]

First Ryan attempts to high-five the blind guy and then Paula gives him a standing ovation.

[TrueFaith77]

Originally Posted by Livia

First Ryan attempts to high-five the blind guy and then Paula gives him a standing ovation.

"I just found out Paula gave me a standing ovation"

Originally Posted by GoldDustOrphan

This morning on The View, the women agreed that Tatiana has been singled out by AI producers for exploitation and they've been following her story. While it might be unfair to suggest the reason they moved her from one room to the other (was she originally placed in the elimination room?), but it I think it was engineered to generate a dramatic response and it felt cruel. I'm now behind her 100%, but I have bad feeling about tonight.

yay!!!!!!!!!

[GoldDustOrphan]

She made it through!

[TrueFaith77]

Yay! I'm running around my apt like Tatiana after she got the Top 36!

http://www.votefortheworst.com/20090...tti_out_barton
Pacitti Out/Barton In

Hot damn, Joanna Pacitti has been disqualified from American Idol!

It has been determined that Joanna Pacitti is ineligible to continue in the competition. AMERICAN IDOL contestant Felicia Barton has replaced Ms. Pacitti as part of the Top 36, L.A. Times reports.

A source close to the show now tells us that Pacitti was disqualified to "avoid the appearance of impropriety."

In the past week, tabloids had been reporting on a private relationship between Pacitti and executives of 19 Management - one of the companies which oversees Idol.

[TrueFaith77]

American Idol - Season 8
Hollywood "Week" (Episode 4) The Top 36 "Announced"

Last night announced -- officially -- The Top 36 of American Idol's Season 8. Scratch that. This morning, a Fox press release announced The Top 36. Fox did not include failed pop star and chronic lyric forgetter Joanna Pacitti on the list, though she was shown as getting a "break" from Simon & co. last night. (Idol replaced her with Felica Barton, who the world saw getting the boot last night.) When Vote For The Worst uncovered Joanna Pacitti's ties to 19 Entertainment excecutives, the mainstream media began questioning the show's legitimacy. Idol dragged Joanna through the mud -- exposing her tendency to forget lyrics, general lack of talent, staggering history of failure despite many many breaks in the biz, and emotional desperation. After using Joanna to create "the myth of second chances," Idol now uses her to create "the myth of legitimacy." The latter could not have existed without the former. This typifies Idol's one truth: Show business is cruel.

How appropriate, then, that the montage revealing Semi-Finals Week 1 competitors (6 guys, 6 girls) gets scored to The Pussycat Dolls' "When I Grow Up." As the song's chorus goes:

When I grow up
I wanna be famous
I wanna be a star

An aspiration the hook answers in a mocking tone:

But be careful what you wish for cause’ you just might get it

The dazzlement of Joseph Kahn's music video for "When I Grow Up" revealed the desire for fame as a desire for transcending the banal (the clip opens with a Godardian traffic jam). But, most profoundly, Kahn's video accompaniment makes visual spectacle out of the hard work that goes into achieving fame (showing the PCD dancing at a construction site). For me, the video's iconic image is lead singer Nicole Scherzinger's belly-exposed dance moves (off the wall) on the music video set (within the music video) that closes that clip. The music industry is hard work: those abs are the result of sacrifice and rigor.

Yet, there is that warning: But be careful what you wish for cause’ you just might get it. Joanna is now world-famous as "The Biggest Loser." Which of the 12 dancing to, but possibly not comprehending, "When I Grow Up" will be next week's causuality?

Last night exhibited, again, that Tatiana Del Toro, among next week's twelve, knows showbiz cruelty -- but is not defeated by it. In another montage mocking her emotional outburts, Tatiana declared, after her Hollywood Week Round 1 pass: "This proves it to all those guys who said I had to sleep with them to get my album recorded," followed by her thanking and hugging a crew member. She earns her moment of glory, just as she shares her jubilation after the announcement of her place in The Top 36. However, the last few weeks of television manipulation must have dashed this hope that Idol offers a new path to fame (and validation) away from Hollywood exploitation, encapsulated here by Tatiana as the casting couch.

Idol is the biggest, baddest monster yet: show biz cruelty turned into entertainment. The season's suspense for humane viewers, however, is built around the question: Can Tatiana slay the Idol dragon? To do so, she'll have to listen to Pussycat Doll wisdom -- that is, to grow up -- rather than holding onto the sentimental notion symbolized by the kitschy trinket she sports during the Top 36 judgement -- Paula Abdul jewelry that reads something like: "When you reach for the stars, you can become a star." There's a dragon hiding behind the stars' blinding light. Joanna Pacitti, mere leftovers, left the beast hungry.

[GoldDustOrphan]

Tatiana's fans are using the names "Tatianics" and "Matadors."

She is the most searched contestant on the Internet, but also the most ridiculed.

A segment on her led Yahoo's A&E coverage today.

[TrueFaith77]

Originally Posted by GoldDustOrphan

Tatiana's fans are using the names "Tatianics" and "Matadors."

She is the most searched contestant on the Internet, but also the most ridiculed.

A segment on her led Yahoo's A&E coverage today.

how did you get the most-searched data?