The American Idol contest has just concluded with victory going to Mr Taylor Hicks, another American Southener. The Singapore Idol contest, on the other hand, is just beginning, with the first auditions shown last week. I have always thought of the Idol contests, whether American or Singapore, as consisting of two parts - Comedy and Talent. The comedy act comes in during the audition phase and the talent part after all the comedy acts are discarded. I think one of the reasons for the success of the series is the audition phase, which is essentially a freak show. The most famous and successful freak of all must be William Hung. As it turned out, more freaks appeared in the Singaopre Idol edition and everyone, including the judges, had a good laugh or three over the idiotic hopes and dreams of the hopeless idol wannabes. Some of them were repeats - they had tried in the first idol contest and came back for an encore performance. So I cannot understand why anyone could take this so seriously as to rebuke the judges for laughing and ridiculing some of the performances. Well, how else do you want people to react when the contestants looked so ridiculous, acted so ridiculous and sang so awfully? When some of them came back for a second session of ridicule, what did anyone expect the judges, and indeed the rest of Singapore, to do? Send them to a psychiatric institution (i.e. Institute of Mental Health (IMH), also formerly known as Woodbridge Hospital) or send them off with laughter? Which do you think is kinder? To treat this first part of the show with anything but amusement will certainly kill the series.
Be careful what you ask for.
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