"American Idol" and the Politics of Failure
we're going to hollywood! ...right?
I’m 11 years old and I’m watching American Idol on the couch. I eagerly count down the days until Tuesday and Wednesday each week. I live for the competition, the performances, the drama. Whenever a bad singer auditions, my dad cackles loudly — He lives for this part of the experience: the belligerent ridiculousness. The “glad it isn’t me”. I join in too. I laugh on cue and I tear up, in sympathy, with the “real” talents who deserve our hearts. I think that it’s silly when people show up in costumes for attention or embarrass themselves shamelessly with bad singing. I don’t cry when they break down, barraged with bad feedback.
And we live for this kind of thing. Together. And then we brush the popcorn crumbs off the couch, shrugging off yet another weeknight game of schadenfreude.
When we get to the later weeks of each season, most singers are passable. But if someone is pitchy or cocky or wears something gauche, Dad grows red in the face, cheeks hot with righteous rage. “He’s such an idiot,” he stews with a mutter, and later ‘…Get ‘er off my screen!’
It is such an evil thing to be talentless, yet to think that you are good.
The messaging is everywhere. Keep your head down. Don’t dream big. Don’t share work until it is perfect. Earnestness is embarrassing. If you try something and it doesn’t work, you are inviting ridicule into your life. And you deserve it. You are arrogant. You should know better.
By assigning moral and social value to “talent” and the way we share it, we deny ourselves a lot. Permission to try. Permission to fail. Permission to share work, publicly, which is the only way most people learn. Or find collaborators. Or receive encouragement and hope.
I don’t think American Idol is evil, an isolated case, or the cause of this problem. Frankly, I don’t think the show is even relevant in the year 2023. But the memories I have of watching it, and of seeing a role model laugh at the hopes of other people…were formative enough to leave scars. We learn a lot about trying from the way the people around us treat failure.
I went through most of college feeling angry at my confident peers — Angry that they had the courage to share work when I didn’t, or that they had a support system when I craved one. In my mind, if I were to do the same, I’d be the laughing stock from Audition Week. I didn’t have the right to take up that kind of space. I had to wait until someone, bigger and smarter than me, reached down a hand from above and let me know that it was safe. That I was moving on to Hollywood. That I was one of the good ones too.
But this never happened, and it seldom ever does for anyone. Most talents aren’t scouted and most risks aren’t endorsed. Many careers are founded on little more than confidence that refuses to quit. More are founded on the money of a parent or two. These are both rare commodities that render the owner quite lucky. But the former can be actively cultivated and fought for.
I used to think the journey towards confidence was the journey towards perfection, and that I’d feel confident once I became perfect. This is a trap. More reliably, confidence springs out of indifference: releasing unfinished, imperfect, not-quite-there-because-nothing-ever-will-be work. Allowing any resulting criticism to slide off your back. To the outside world, this will look like knowing: Knowing you are worth it and that you make good work. To you, it might feel foolish, but to others, it will be quite convincing. Enough so that some people will be mad at you. What gives you the nerve to think your art deserves an audience? But here’s the catch, and the antidote to the reality TV narrative: This doesn’t mean that you’re bad. It actually means that you’re on the right track.
And of course, it sounds impossible: Becoming indifferent towards the very things you care about the most. I want my music to be perfect, because I care about music. I want the theater I write, perform, and build with other artists to be perfect, because theater has been my only consistent and reliable outlet in this life. I want to give everything that I have back to it. I don’t want to embarrass myself or the artforms I love.
But what it really comes down to is ego: Removing it from the equation and being willing to give even that to the fiery forge. Being “all in” means giving yourself up too. The fear and the worry and the need to be good. Trying to please other people is too fickle a goal to be worthwhile.
Reality TV competitions would like us to believe that all art is about ego and necessitated by ego. That good artists deserve to have their egos stroked and bad artists desperately need to be taken down a peg, if they ever want to be better. But this isn’t true. Even its premise is brittle and shaky. There are no purely “good” or “bad” artists. And we could all stand to let go of the needs those words entail, if we feel we want to do this thing for real.
Competition shows on TV aren’t responsible for turning artmaking into a cutthroat sport — They just lift the curtain, revealing the all-too-eager visage of capitalism that leers behind. But let’s face it: Art takes time and time takes money. The money to be able to quit the job that grinds you down and takes away your time and energy. The money to be able to buy raw materials. The money to be able to take risks of any nature. Most of us don’t have that kind of money, so of course we feel in competition with those who do! Of course that’s driving most of us insane! Of course there is the burnout and the bad blood and the bitterness. It’s not that we need our art to be a commodity. It’s not that we want to tear anyone else down. It’s that profiting from art is, on most days, the only fulfilling future imaginable. How else can I pay my bills and also have time to do what I love?
This week, I’ve shed a lot of tears. My work burnout is reaching a fever pitch, and I come home most days too tired to think, let alone to write or record music. I’m scared, because I can’t afford the change that I need. But I know that I need it.
And I could see this need continuing. I can see it growing tired, breaking down, heaving: shards fractaling out, endlessly, into the future. Weeks. Months. Years. Until I no longer have anything “in the works” or at the back of my mind. Until I no longer receive joy from art.
I’ve cheated myself out of years of opportunities, rooms-worth of audience members, and endless, joyful selves. All because I didn’t want to be an embarrassment. I didn’t want to be a laughing stock. And I didn’t want to be presumptuous enough to imagine any other possibility.
The truth is: If you publish work nobody likes, it hurts no one. And if you spend a lifetime hiding …it only hurts you.
And of course, if you make work even one person loves…It’s all worth it. Fuck the rest.
I took the past month off of this blog, because my day job has been beating me into the ground. I haven’t had time or energy to do much of anything that makes me happy — Which includes my work here, but especially includes the music I’ve been working on privately, trying to make perfect, trying to make good enough to share.
But I don’t want to do it this way anymore. I don’t want to be perfect. I just want to give myself a chance.
These days feel apocalyptic. I’m tired of giving pieces of myself, daily, to shit that doesn’t matter. I want to give everything to the few things that do.
Stay tuned for more.
Be your own idol.
Don’t destroy your heart for other people.
xoxo
Clare