FOX
Quick spoilers for American Idol coming up after the jump:
American Idol winnowed itself down again in its second semifinal round. I tend not to analyze these rounds too much since they’re mostly getting rid of cannon fodder, which was certainly true on the men’s side: I was fine with John and Jermaine going home, but would have been just as fine with the alternatives. While there were no shockers on the women’s side, I question the order: I would have kept Michelle and Haeley over Didi and Lacey. (Even though I don’t think Haeley had a chance to win, and she may have gone on Idol a couple years too soon, I was interested to see more of what she could do, more so than the other three.)
Over at HitFix, Dan Fienberg has addressed the elephant in the room, that the first six of eight contestants eliminated have been minorities. Every once in a while the question comes up of whether Idol’s voting is racist (see the controversy over Jennifer Hudson’s ejection way back when); then again, the show has elected minority winners three of eight times. It’s possible that in the early culling, personal identification matters more—and maybe, before we’ve gotten to know a lot of contestants well, unconscious bias plays in more. I really can’t say; there were a half-dozen other contestants who could as well have gone home, but I don’t think anyone was robbed here. (Update: Reality Blurred seems to feel likewise.)
Did you think America made the right choices, America? And had you forgotten that Danny Gokey still existed?