American Idol: Gives Back

I am having a hard time really expressing all the things I felt during last nights American Idol, "Idol Gives Back." In two hours they managed to be poignant, corny, moving, awkward, and powerful. I loved every minute of it.

In her post on Slate Katherine Meizel wrote:

This week, for one brief moment, American Idol put the reality in reality television. We saw the burden of reality on little tear-stained faces in New Orleans and the recognition of reality in the eyes of a genuinely devastated Simon Cowell in Kabira, Kenya. We've heard stories of suffering before on the show, but they usually lead to happy American Dream endings for single teenage mothers and abandoned children. This time it was different. I'd like to say something cynical about selling altruism for ratings and ad time, but you wouldn't be able to understand me through all the Kleenex and the sobbing.

I am sure some of the Idol haters out there will scoff at the notion that a big corporate, capitalistic, pop-show really wants and can make a measurable difference in the world beyond giving us Sinjaya. But perhaps this big show, full of superstars and super ratings does have people who lead it that care about the world at large. Perhaps all the money, fame, and success everyone has experienced hasn't gone to their heads as much as we think.

The highlight of the night for me was Kelly Clarkson and Jeff Beck performing "Up to the Mountain." To me it was an absolutely amazing performance and shows why Kelly is light years ahead of any previous Idol winner. Sis you were right, she has the heart and pipes to match!

I didn't like Carrie's video at all. Meizel wrote, "I thought the video with Carrie Underwood hugging African children was a touch icky in a post-colonial cliché way..." Totally agree, and Josh Groban came close to that line, but I think it was an issue of how he and the kids were placed on the stage. The kids should have been on risers to the side or behind him. But man were they adorable, inspiring, and convicting. At the end of their performance Allison, with tears in her eyes, handed me the phone and the debit card and told me to give some money. That's exactly what I did, and it was the best $50 I had spent all week!

Is charity enough? We know it takes more than just giving to make lasting change. But before that can happen people have to be willing to see that there is a problem in the first place. What is happening in Africa, as Bono puts it, is stupid poverty. Thank God there seems to be a desire and the will to do something about that. However, what was striking to me was the bureaucratic poverty here in the US. New Orleans, The Appalachians, food centers, all of it were highlighted last night in striking detail. Families, some of them with up to six children in them, still living a FEMA trailer almost two years after Katrina? That should be scandalous enough to get the Bush administrationn, Ray Nagin, and Kathleen Blanco thrown out of publig office right FREAKING now! But it's not, and that's where American Idol did it's most good last night. A show that's all about making a persons wildest dream come true made us look into the faces of peoples whose simplest dreams are nowhere near a reality, and moved us to change that.