This year's crop of
American Idol contestants is different from previous years, in that they have reached new levels of cunning...
Misplaced beauty pageant contestant Haley Scarnato was called on the carpet by Simon, literally minutes after my husband and I tagged her strategy -- which is, in Simon's words, to wear as little in the way of clothing as possible to make up for her lack of vocal talent relative to the other singers. Bingo.
Blake Lewis, who just might win the whole thing, has staked out the "cool contestant who is signable right now" territory so completely, he's left little room for Chris Richardson to survive for too much longer.
Teeniebopper (and professional plus size model) Jordin Sparks' strategy: sell cute, sell bubblegum, woo Nickelodeon just in case you don't win...
Chris Richardson's schtick: get ... signed ... by ... P. Diddy.
I actually don't think Lakesha and Melinda have a strategy, per se. Both are under the perhaps naive impression that their clearly superior vocal talent IS their strategy. We shall see. I think it's probably truer for Melinda than Lakesha, though both are extremely talented. But Lakesha's personal story gives her a good shot at staying in this thing for a long time...
My man Phil Stacey doesn't have a strategy either, though in my opinion he has the best natural voice of any of the guys. Unfortunately, my Florida brother isn't going to make it... he's just not contemporary, or serious enough, for this competition... (had she not been given the boot, Gina Glocksen would have also earned points for her consistent portrayal of the patented Rocker Chick...)
And then there's Sanjaya, who probably is the smartest, most
diabolically cunning contestant I've ever seen at work in this series (Randy called it tonight, but I swear my husband and I had JUST said
that, too...!) Sanjaya knows who his audience is. He has embraced who HE is. He's the stealth "joke" candidate whose ace in the hole is his superior marketing -- The Hair (which is at this point more anticipated each week than anyone's singing, including the fabulous Melinda's...) the come hither looks into the camera (and you thought he was a weepy, naive teenager...) and the slightly cocky demeanor with the judges. He is selling exactly the pheromones that pre-teen girls are buying, and he knows exactly what he's doing. I mean, you don't think that mustache and goatee just got there by accident this week, do you??? For gods sake, he's got something only people like Sting, Hillary, Rudy and Cher can boast: one name only name recognition.
Besides... and this is painful to admit ... he really didn't sound half bad today.
In fact, Haley Scarnato has so far surpassed him in annoying unacceptability that I actually would pay money to watch him perform if God would only like me enough to get that irritating little pop tart off my television screen...
Sorry, hope that didn't come out too mean. ... I think it's all this Imus controversy. It's making me crabby...
