Maybe that’s because I did know-her-when: Watching all of American Idol Season Six, I saw Sparks rise from her first audition to her win over beat-box-boy Blake Lewis in Hollywood last spring. In other words, I felt involved in her stardom. And even though I never pick up the phone to vote for Idol contestants (it’s not a civic duty, is it?), I liked Sparks and felt she earned her stardom: America literally did vote her into “office.”
This morning, Britney Spears crossed my mind (I was contemplating working mothers who have breakdowns,) and my first thought was: “Who elected her to be a star?” Then I laughed, remembering that, in fact, entertainment superstars are not elected. All of a sudden that seemed wrong: If you put “unelected” in front of anything — judges, superdelegates — they start to sound a little nefarious.
That’s when I started thinking about We Media: Could it be that when Americans get to vote on their pop stars guided by expert advice,(read: pro-am collaboration,) they choose talented, often-beautiful people but avoid super-sexed icons? Of course there are have various minor scandals about Idol contestants with their breasts bared (poor Antonella Barba discovered the dark side of the connected society,) but when I think about the American Idol winners and runners-up as a group, they are a notably wholesome bunch.
So is there a moral here? That the way to clean up entertainment is to make it participatory? All I know is, when it comes to teen-aged stars, I’d vote for Sparks over Spears any day.