The False Hope of ‘American Idol’
by Ernie MannixWhilst basking in the creature comfort delights of their Hollywood stardom, movie stars and rock stars tend to appeal to the materialistic desires of the high school set. Kids please; think again. For every George Clooney that makes it, 10,000 Brad wannabes think: hell if he can do it, so can I. Probably not. These success stories are not the norm, kiddies, they are the mega-millions lottery winning few. Fortune and pure luck play a large role in the selection of the famous.
For every star you see on TV or in a flick, remember there are 10,000 or more with no hope of a future. “American Idol” itself serves up the false hope burger to countless teens. It’s okay if it just ends in disappointment, but the real problem is when you toss away school, and think, “It’s my destiny… I’m gonna be famous.”
In this economy kiddies, Mommy and Daddy’s credit limit might be getting a bit maxed out. So it’s time for plan “B” my young friends!
Want that new GSX for graduation? Dream on dudes! Had your heart set on the Aspen snow this season? Tough crap, Chad! How about shoveling your neighbor’s driveway for 5 bucks, Todd? That spring break vomit-fest might have to be called off this year too, Dylan!
WAKE UP KIDS, it’s really time to buckle down. You are all fortunate enough to be endowed with a wonderful public education (save the leftist political brainwashing), so it’s time to take stock of that and realize you can no longer afford to just walk through it. This economy and a very competitive job market will demand much more than just passing your SAT and getting some “sick” scores on Wii.
You have to have the drive and purposefulness of a leader, and the thing you are leading is your own destiny. The fat times are gone, so put down the PDA and pick up a chemistry book. Ditch the ear hoops and cram some trig. Or hell, what about an old-fashioned trip to the library?
Sorry Jake, you can’t all party like rock stars. Oopsie Sasha, “American Idol” isn’t calling for you. Who the hell is gonna build our bridges, fight our fires, and adjudicate trials for the real out of control rock stars? America needs you!
We need doctors, teachers, scientists, engineers, policeman, firemen and every great job that builds and maintains a society. We don’t need any more out of control brats thinking they are entitled to be the next big thing.
Billy Joel once called stars, “just a big ball of gas.” I think he was referring to the West Coast variety as the East Coast stars, like him, get to camouflage a bit in their more common-man type affectations, but I digress. Let’s try to take his point seriously.
We can’t all be holier than thou types, insulating ourselves with political correctness whilst looking down our noses at lowly conservatives. Hell no! That job is for the ‘privileged’ few (and quite frankly, if SAG keeps it up, they will all be fighting amongst themselves real soon, anyway).
In these times kiddies, if you really want to be a star, the one that will shine the brightest will be the star who can navigate these scary economic times to a fine job and lasting career.
You think that’s boring, Josh? There is nothing boring about sweating a mortgage payment, or a sleepless night worrying about how to make the health care payment. Rethink boring, Trevor.
And Danielle, stop with the clothes change every five minutes. Your parent(s) are paying for that. And Cameron, pick up your underwear, it’s getting old.
Most of all kids: STAY THE HELL OFF MY LAWN!
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17 Comments
The same goes for every High School Jock that plans to make it into Duke and then on to the NBA. The “Smart” Ones make a real life, and not a life in the spotlight.
Wow…criticizing American Idol…talk about an “edgy” topic for this website. Way to really be ahead of the pop culture curve, dude…
Yeah, but TITOV, he DID throw in the curmudgeon card at the end… By the way, Ernie, why didn’t YOU follow one of the worthwhile professions you mention above? What fool encouraged you to take up a life in the arts?
Yeah yeah, we know dude. Way to state the obvious. A huge thanks to you and the rest of the parents for sticking it far up my generation’s collective ass (sans grease). Please don’t think we’ll be putting you in a fancy retirement home. We’re pushing you all off a big cliff and washing our hands of you. Don’t waste your time writing history books because all record of your generation’s time here on earth will be erased. Its just too embarrassing a blight on our otherwise awesome history.
But…Pope Linus, the whole “if you work hard enough” mantra is one of the central tenants of modern conservatism. I mean, if a person is unemployed, it isn’t because of economic conditions, educational disadvantages, cultural biases, to the conservative it’s because they are “lazy” and “don’t want to work hard enough”.
If a person is bankrupted by medical bills, it’s not because of the inequities of the insurance industry, or out of control costs, to the modern conservative it’s because the person “just didn’t work hard enough” to pay their debts.
Thank goodness that you’ve seen via American Idol that the myth of the self-made person is exactly that, a myth. Now if college dropouts Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh would acknowledge the concept of LUCK in success, we’d all be a lot better off.
Titov,
Luck can bring a lazy person success, but if you work hard enough, you don’t need luck. Maybe if some of those poor people waited to get married and have children and instead concentrate on their careers, they wouldn’t have difficulty paying their bills.
I get an inordinate amount of pleasure from seeing self-important imbeciles taken back a notch. I only enjoy the first few weeks of American Idol in which there are a few talented individuals interspersed with an army of talentless buffoons who are being told so for the first time in their lives. This is much the same reason I enjoy watching Kitchen Nightmares.
It goes beyond schadenfreude. It’s a question of people who have been deluding themselves their whole lives. I always knew that the phrase “you can be anything you want” was not entirely true. If that were true, I would be “dressing for the job I want” by walking around in either a Starfleet uniform or Jedi robes. I have about as much a chance making it in either of those careers as I would as a singer.
Being dope-slapped by reality is the first step towards real growth. It is a painful one, but a necessary one. My wife is a big fan of “What Not to Wear.” Far from being a mean show, it is truly uplifting to see people who started off looking like freaks walk away looking good and feeling much better about themselves.
Some people will never learn. We can laugh at them or pity them. I suggest we at least get some laughs. After all, if they never get their acts together, they’ll be living off us.
L.A is a great big freeway. Put a hundred down and buy a car. Maybe in a week or two they’ll make you a star. Weeks turn into years how quick they pass. And all the stars that never were are parking cars and pumping gas.
Hal Davis
Why Ron Kean, one might think you knew the way to San Jose! I gave up on AI ages ago, bit considering the median age of contestant is, what, 20? They’re not really in the worst place of their lives to discover they have no talent-they’ve got plenty of time to get real jobs. Personally, though, I prefer Top Chef.
I taught public school (high school math and chemistry) for a few years in a big city, and many of my students thought the only way they could get rich was to be rap star or win the lottery. Pretty sad.
Hi TITOV, I don’t think that is what we conservatives believe.
Conservative thinking encourages people to take responsibility for their circumstances instead of seeing assistance or the “right” not to suffer as an entitlement.
You’ve probably heard it all before TITOV, but it really does make a difference how you get up each day and live your if you beleive that God created you with an unimaginable amount of potential; potential that is often developed to it’s fullest through the experience of hardship.
I am fairly sure I was created to be an artist, and I continue to do all I can to acheive the dream of just making enough money producing my music so as to break even. But it’s not my day job, and you know what? I am happy! I don’t believe I’ve been shortchanged, and no one makes me stay where I am in the little town where I live. I live in THE greatest country on the planet, and I and my family are blessed with good health. Right on. Right ON!
….which is precisely why, Titov, you will ALWAYS be on the government dole and at the mercy of others for your life’s sustenance. You will NEVER succeed at anything because you think that anything and everything that comes your way is a result of luck rather than choices YOU make. You are lifelong mailman material. But anyone with half a brain knows that DRIVE is the common trait in most American success stories. Please tell me how/why Steve Jobs (Apple) or Bill Gates (Microsoft) were LUCKY to get where they are today?
If you want countless examples of undeserved wealth, you have to go no further than the political establishment in liberal Washington DC (i.e., “Kennedy”), truly dumb people with no obvious talents other than being the children of wealthy parents.
Or how about every kid in the ghetto that shoots hoops thinking he will be one of the few hundred in the NBA? It’s OK to aim high but one should have a “Plan B”
On the other hand, if William Hung can make it…
“These success stories are not the norm, kiddies, they are the mega-millions lottery winning few. Fortune and pure luck play a large role in the selection of the famous.”
While it is certainly true these days that fame is often not correlated to talent, true success–in the entertainment industry as well as any other endeavor–is rarely the product of pure chance.
Success in this sense means making a living at a chosen vocation that is deeply fulfilling to an individual’s life, at a standard of living that is necessarily different for everyone according to his or her’s tastes and needs. I agree with part of the thrust of this article in that it is absolutely essential to have self-knowledge about one’s talents (or lack thereof), but to conclude that the best thing to do in these “scary times” is to hope for a job that will pay the mortgage is falling much too far into the other extreme.
No one, ever, escapes pain in their lifetimes; not physical, mental, spiritual, or economic. And, if we’re being truly honest with ourselves, we have to admit that the “bad times” in this country (and yes, I fully admit that they are the worst in many years) do not equal what most of the world goes through, and has gone through, on a daily basis. I myself am a writer in his early twenties who is attempting a career (not unbridled fame, but a real, lasting, rewarding career) in television, and, having lived at what is considered the poverty line in this country for a year, I have never once come close to starving, or lacking a place to sleep, or been in danger of not procuring safe drinking water. Poverty in this country is already above the standard of living of 90% of the world, and it would do all of us good to remember that.
Why? Because I strongly believe that a fear of poverty cannot be a motivating factor in determining how and at what to spend one’s life pursuing. You have to love what you do, and you have to be realistic about the fact that financial security is not ever truly possible. Even millions of dollars can be taken away, if not from something as drastic as a massive economic collapse, than simply the fact of getting divorced or unfortunate medical bills. Launching a successful career in accounting or law is just as challenging as a career in the entertainment industry (and it is an industry, just like any other, with hundreds of thousands of employees that work and exist behind the American Idols).
The American spirit that is emobodied in the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs was never one that promised security. It promised something much more: a life that is actually lived, not feared. This, I think, is the correct philosophy for happiness, whether you’re aiming to be the next President or a sucessful plumber.
[...] build our bridges, fight our fires, and adjudicate trials for the real out of control rock stars? America needs you!“ “If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body [...]
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[...] Ernie Mannix: Most people who go on American Idol won’t win and nobody will take a lunch with them after they lose. Trust me this one, kids. [...]
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