to have seen or sung about it all. But not quite everything. chart-topping seasons - two people of color in the finale.
With six contestants still standing - three white, two black and one biracial - the chance to break the show's ebony-and-ivory, or all ivory, finale cast has never been better. Indeed, in a season dominated by the XX chromosomes, two of the three women - Melinda Doolittle and Jordin Sparks - have yet to be in the bottom three, even "If you'd have asked me this two weeks ago, I would have probably said Melinda," said Simon Cowell, the "Idol" judge America loves to hate, in response to his take on the eventual winner. "If you'd asked me six weeks ago, I would have said LaKisha Jones .
If you asked me today, I would put my money on Jordin." Of course, the acid-tongued Brit has been wrong before - and his dewy-eyed colleague, Paula Abdul, has anointed the beat-boxing to his own drummer, Blake Lewis, as a potential "dark horse." Still, if any combination of the women survives to the final show, it could go a long way toward correcting a pop culture's ultimate singing contest.
British rocker and onetime visiting "incredibly racist" after witnessing Season 3's so-called three divas (Barrino, LaToya London and Jennifer Hudson, who are all black) land in the bottom three It's a charge that still hits a nerve among the show's creative forces. And rightly so, because if "Idol" were to be widely perceived as unfairly favoring one group over another, the show's meritocratic conceit would be destroyed. Richardson - even though, from the judges' comments, Jones hasn't lived up to her fantastic performance on Week 1 of the competition, when there were 24 should be weighed down by accusations of inequity, particularly when other programs with far less diversity escape similar notice.
After all, "Idol's" judges are a British white man, an American black man (Randy Jackson) and a Jewish woman (Abdul). And year after year, its contestants look like a new "We still hear people calling us a racist show, and I think it's so idiotic and such a stupid statement," Lythgoe said. "No.
1, you can see by the show itself that we're not racist. No. 2, it isn't down to the show at this point.
It's down to America." Well, is America ready for a nonwhite "Idol" final? This season will put that notion to the test, thanks to the pervasive belief in the The first three "Idol" finales starred a person of color, and two of them - And most recently, the show vaulted Sanjaya Malakar, a teenager from the Seattle area and of Bengali Indian heritage, into the pop stratosphere, Nevertheless, "Idol" still reveals a pattern of racially preferential voting among its massive viewership, according to Jungmin Lee, an economics programs.
Lee, who used the Nielsen's ratings demographic information about race, found after studying the show's first four seasons that race clearly is a factor in voting, especially as the competition narrows. "When there are 11 contestants, people aren't that concerned about race," said Lee, whose original aim was to show how race preferences affect labor markets. "But when the audience has to decide who is No.
1, 2 or 3 - these are big stakes and people are more likely to vote by their racial preference." The fact that viewers register their votes by phone encourages the phenomenon, he "People normally don't want to reveal their racial preferences in public," said Lee, whose paper is being reviewed for publication by an economics journal. "But since 'American Idol's' voting is anonymous, people feel freer to do so.
" Viewers' tendency to vote for performers of the same race could help year. The most glaring example is the "three divas" season - when even Lythgoe Hudson, who won an Academy Award this year for her stirring performance as a fictional diva in "Dreamgirls," only made it to the final seven on "Idol." London, currently starring in the Chicago production of the musical "The Color Purple," didn't make the final three, leaving Barrino to beat runner-up Diana one of the perceived weaker singers, namely Richardson or Stacey, advances past If Jones goes, who is most likely to benefit?
Conversely, if Richardson is booted off, who picks up his supporters? Because race, as demonstrated most recently by the Don Imus firing, remains a national issue, its importance can easily be overestimated. In fact, the "I think that's one of those ESPN stats that don't mean much," said Justin Guarini, Season 1's runner-up, who is biracial and today serves as an "Idol" commentator for the TV Guide Channel.
"I think it has more to do with being from the South." If you include Carrie Underwood, who hails from Oklahoma, And who is to say who is the best? Nobody really knows, but it's left to "The great thing about this show is that everybody has an opinion," said Randy Jackson in a recent interview.
"Everyone thinks they're an expert, but really there aren't any music experts, even those people sitting on their living room couches." And sometimes on "Idol," you're only as good as your last "It very much, very often, depends on the performance that actually they've just done," said Ken Warwick, one of the show's executive producers. "It's all about communication with the public," he added.
"There is the show. "American Idol" is, he said, a "talent show, a television talent show. Let's not lose perspective on what it is.
It's phenomenal in its own area. Outside of that it doesn't really mean anything in real life." Los Angeles Times staff writer Richard Rushfield contributed to this story.
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