Chris Cuffaro / FOX
Spoilers for last night’s American Idol coming up after the jump:
American Idol two-hour Hollywood episode—you are the reason TiVo was invented. I watched the first hour last night, before Lost. I just “watched” the second hour, in time-lapse, by fast-forwarding to the few parts I really wanted to know about. Guess which hour I enjoyed more?
So both Tatiana and “Norman Gentle” are through. I agree with Alan Sepinwall, who made the point yesterday that it looks as if Idol is aiming to be American Sanjaya this season, or at least making sure it has at least one finalist to keep the “it should be the best singer” voters outraged and everyone else buzzing and laughing. (For those of you who can’t get enough Sanjaya Malakar, by the way, he has published Dancing to the Music in My Head, a memoir—yes, a memoir—written “with” my former next-door neighbor Alan Goldsher.)
Now they will reap what they reap: America starts voting next week, and if America wants to keep the two around, the judges and producers can’t do takebacksies now.
But it will be interesting, in a season so far which is not that musically interesting, because Tatiana and “Norman” are two quite different specimens. Norman is literally a character (portrayed by real person Nick Mitchell), and thus, something we really haven’t seen on Idol past the auditions. (I mean, you could argue that Sanjaya made himself a character once that dynamic developed, but this is a whole new level.) And a pretty good one, actually, in that he seems fairly well thought-through—is “Norman Gentle” a great name, or what?—and is actually not a terrible singer.
Tatiana, on the other hand, is a real person who believes she is, and is trying to be, an earnestly good singer. (Before you comment: yes, I know this is American Idol. She could be playing a character herself. The whole giggly unbalanced thing could be a put-on—but from the voter-at-home standpoint, it doesn’t matter: she presents as an earnest contestant, which is what does matter.) She has not shown that much promise so far, although, to be fair, I seem to recall her having had a pretty good first audition. But by now she seems to have been put through largely for her ability to bring the crazy.
Speaking of which: I would like to defend Tatiana del Toro for a second. Is she annoying? Is she self-centered? Is she perhaps a little unhinged? A lot? Sure. Who cares? Ladies and gentlemen, I direct your attention to Amy Winehouse and R. Kelly. Battiness, eccentricity, call it what you want, is not a liability for a pop star. Harnessed correctly—into a fascinating public persona and creative eccentricity or stage theatrics—it is a huge asset. The crazy can be very, very good, used properly.
The problem with Idol, maybe, is that (1) it rewards people, very likely like Tatiana, who have the crazy but not the chops to back it up, and (2) it allows us to see performers in their raw state, before they and/or a crack team of managers and producers manage to whip it into shape.
(I also worry that Tatiana is actually seriously troubled in a not-so-funny way and is being badly used by the producers for the ratings, but I’m a TV critic, not a psychiatrist.)
Anyway, back to the Norman/Tatiana dichotomy. Tatiana is a sort of performer we’ve seen on Idol, someone whose reality-TV-friendliness exceeds her apparent talent. America may get annoyed fast, or may keep her around a long, long time for giggles. (Literally.) Norman, on the other hand, is a figure from a different genre of entertainment altogether: a performance piece, a kind of Tony Clifton with better pipes. He’s intriguing to watch, and voters may respect that—for a comedy performance—his vocals are not bad. Or they may decide that Idol is for singer singers, and drop-kick him.
In other words, Tatiana and Norman will be a battle of two different kinds of gimmick: Norman is a joke they’ve been let in on, Tatiana lets them believe they see a joke she is unaware of. Does America prefer to laugh with or laugh at its Sanjayas?
Either way, Idol has clearly decided to use the crazy, all the way to the bank. Mind you, I’m not suggesting either of the two is going to win. At this point, I’m all but ready to hand the crown to widower Danny. Anyone care to disagree?