American Idol – The New Morality Police

Here’s something interesting some fellow American Idol fans have been stringing together … what’s with the auditions suddenly being a place to display your morals? We don’t just have funny bad auditions this time, we have people using this as a forum to tell us how to live our lives the right way. What’s unclear is whether the producers caught on to the phenomenon this year and forced them into discussing it if they wanted to audition, or if these contestants just chose to use the auditions as their forum.

First, we had Milo Turk at the Philadelphia auditions. He was too old to audition for the show and knew that, but he had a song he desperately wanted the judges and kids to hear called, No Sex Allowed. It preached about abstinence. It was quite odd, as was he. The singing was bad, his moves were bad, and him singing the song made him seem like a child molester. Simon thought in Britain they would call him creepy, and I think they would call him that everywhere.

Brooke White is a married 24-year-old nanny. When Simon asked her for something interesting about herself, she offered up that she has never seen an R-rated movie. While at one point it was forbidden by her parents, she has now kept up with it, making it her choice, along with not smoking or drinking. Her husband also doesn’t watch R-rated movies. Ah-ha. But what about XXX? She got through to Hollywood, with Simon mentioning he’d like to bring her over to the dark side. I bet he would. At least she wasn’t preaching, but just talking about her own personal choices.

Jessica Brown, 24, is a former meth addict, but is now clean and sober. Her mother mentioned that it’s like having the old Jessica back. She seems pretty spiritual now, as she said the first time she sang in public it was Carrie Underwood’s Jesus Take the Wheel, which made her feel very emotional. She got through to Hollywood after singing I’ll Stand By You. She seems to be on some type of a mission, as she said if her story can save at least one person, it’s worth it. Again, at least she’s not preaching, yet there’s a definite pattern going here.

It was back to the creepy, as we met Bruce Dickson and his father. At 19, Bruce has never even kissed a girl, as he seems to be waiting for his father’s approval. His father has a heart on a chain, and Bruce has the key that fits in the heart. When Bruce meets the right girl, and his father approves, he’ll give the lock to the “lucky girl.” Telling the judges the story, they seemed dumbfounded. He didn’t make it through and was offered the advice to kiss some girls. My advice would be to stay away from his dad. There’s something very unsettling there. Again, he wasn’t preaching, but it’s sticking to a certain moral pattern.

The highlight of Dallas was a guy with a definite message to tell, Renaldo Lapuz. He came in dressed in feathers and what looked like garbage bags for wings, with Simon’s name on his fuzzy hat. Asked why, he said Simon seemed to be the king of all media, but maybe he had him mixed up with Ryan Seacrest. Regardless, he sang his own composition, a song called We’re Brothers Forever, about uniting as one with Simon. It was all very odd, especially as everyone but Simon was eventually singing and dancing along with Renaldo. And the funny thing? This song is actually catchy somewhat and sticks in your head … “forever.”

The girl that actually brought up this whole conversation about the morality people of the season is Amy Flynn. She’s not only the captain of the dance team at her high school, she’s also a member of S.T.A.R.S., Students Teaching and Respecting Sexuality. She doesn’t just live it, she really does preach it … to students and anyone else that will listen. Simon asks for a lecture and gets one, as she goes on and on about the importance of waiting. I’ve never understood how someone that has never done it can preach about why it’s better to not do it, but that’s just me. Oddly, she made it through, shocking many that thought the Air Force pilot was better.

It’s not that there’s anything wrong with having strong morals; it’s a great honorable thing. Yet, the ones that were preaching, what’s with that? We’d get maybe one preachy person a year before, but what’s with the preachy people and all the others with really strong morals? It just seems like they’re out in force this year, and makes you wonder how intentional this is. Many Idols have had strong morals before; they just didn’t make a big deal of it. Clay wore a WWJD bracelet all over, but really didn’t talk too much about it. Last year Chris Sligh talked about his parents being missionaries and himself being in a Christian band, but he didn’t preach about it, and there wasn’t a point made to let us know that’s how he felt that early on.

Could it be with the news that American Idol is planning another Idol Gives Back special that they’re trying to load up on the morals early on? Are they just trying to set a different mood for the season? Is this an answer to some type of backlash about the show? There just has to be a reason for it somewhere, as it seems too … pre-planned.

For more information on American Idol, see SirLinksalot: American Idol.

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