Something has happened to America. And it ain't pretty.
Or rather, it is pretty. Pretty in a mainstream, bourgeois, pop-flavored, and often vulgar kind of way. And that's basically the problem: mind-rotting mediocrity veiled in an attractive package.
I'm speaking more specifically of 2 things: America's manic obsession with celebutantes and biddies such as Paris Hilton and Mischa Barton, who are only marginally talented (if not talentless) yet command legions of rabid fans who would do no less than sell off their first-born children in order to attain the same levels of flagrant opulence, idleness, and scandalous behavior (hey, here's a whole movie about that subject!). The second phenomenon is how we are beginning to feel the more disturbing repercussions of this obsession in the performing arts. Case in point: American Idol.
The most recent clamor over Season 6's contestant Antonella Barba and her party-girl antics is symptomatic of the way in which reality television has seemed to have bamboozled the majority of Americans into thinking that the truly unextraordinary are worth hailing as our worthiest (for lack of a better word) idols. I don’t think it out of line to sugges
t that anyone who has been following the show and actually cares about musical talent should be outraged that Antonella has even lasted this far. Nevertheless, it seems that America has chosen to place the entertainment value of her scandalous, tabloid-worthy exploits at a premium over the show’s actual performances. Thus, the most confounding result of all-- and not as it applies only to AI, but to our post-modern culture in general: many Americans these days seem only inclined to embrace “reality” (whatever that means) so long as it is a mediated one.
This is both a sad and disturbing trend as one considers that most American media is controlled by a select few who can hardly claim to be appropriate representatives or delegates for America’s increasingly diverse population; the same is especially true if one is speaking purely in terms of the Hollywood dream machine.
For eons, we humans have both proliferated stories as well as mythified heroes in order to sustain dreams to which we may someday aspire or, in most cases, into which we can escape. However, it wasn’t until recently, with the invention of the motion picture, that these dreams took on a radically new dimension within the framework America’s collective dreaming. Suddenly, it appeared as if our dreams could come to life on the screen; in a way, they could be realized… and be distributed in the form of a mass-produced commodity. Unlike theater, whose artifice is a given and whose art can never be reproduced from one night’s performance to the next, movies seemed to be able to “capture” reality and could be screened, bought, and sold depending on how quickly manufacturers could turn out the reels. It came as no surprise then that with the rise of the Hollywood studio system that movie moguls such as Carl Laemmle and Adolph Zukor began to turn to the Great White Way in order to amass their own personal arsenals of showgirls, starlets, and bona fide talent to act in their pictures. Along with these lucky recruits came thousands of others who migrated to California each year with hopes of someday getting their “one big break.” Indeed, not only did the Hollywood Dream Machine generate big profits from its box office revenues, but it ensured that would-be celebrities for generations to come would continue to buy into the idea that they, too, could attain unimaginable fame (or infamy; pick your poison), wealth, and glamour.
The reality was, however, that most people who attempted to make it in the biz never did and instead either nursed their heartache in drugs and alcohol or were resigned to settle into their reinvented but ordinary lives. Meanwhile, back on Broadway, the most elite of America’s truly gifted stage performers continued to uphold the tradition of theater as an art-- not as a venue in which only the merely beautiful could achieve some sort of acclaim (the best Antonella could have even hoped for up until the 1990s was to make it as a chorus girl). Thus, ‘tis a pity that ever since Broadway underwent a pop music, Disney makeover and reality television programming gripped America in its exploitative, wife-swapping, race-baiting, and unspectacularly chaotic grip that even the theater no longer remains hallowed ground for those truly committed to performance integrity.
What am I talking about, you might say?
Consider that back in the ‘90s, one began to see more and more “guest” appearances by film and television celebrities acting in the featured roles of several very high-profile musical revivals and plays (Whoopi Goldberg and Rosie O’Donnell both played Pseudolus in A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum; Brooke Shields and-- yes-- Rosie O’Donnell played Rizzo in Grease). This trend has become even more commonplace in the new millenium (Natalie Portman in The Diary of Anne Frank and Chekhov’s The Seagull; Julia Roberts in Three Days of Rain; and Sean “P. Diddy” Combs in A Raisin In the Sun). Granted, film and television stars performing on Broadway is nothing new. Yul Brynner, after all, was the King in The King and I; and actors such as Ethan Hawke, Mark Ruffalo, Nathan Lane, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Julianne Moore continue to grace the stages of New York at least once a year. The difference is that this latter group came from the world of theater, were trained there, and actually honed their craft on the stage whereas names such as Julia Roberts and Sean Combs arguably have no place acting in plays (unless they are being filmed on studio lots, with craft service, lighting crews, agents, personal assistants, and stylists in tow). Clearly the decision to cast the former group was based more on the celebs’ speculated drawing power-- the producers having witnessed these star personas translate into box office smashes and platinum record sales-- rather than on their abilities as stage performers (which were oftentimes untested). Hence, what would eventually be the influx of mediocre Broadway stars had begun to trickle in. The dam inevitably broke with the juggernaut that is American Idol.
I won’t go too much into the travesty that is the current state of American musical theater (and how Hollywood has turned it to absolute rot). However, a quick survey of the most successful shows currently running in New York’s theater district includes the following titles: The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Tarzan, Mamma Mia, Hairspray, Spamalot, and The Producers. All but one are based on Hollywood films; and the one that isn’t relies entirely upon the musical stylings of a 1970s pop music group from Sweden. Looking ahead to the 2007-2008 theater season, other musicals slated to hit Broadway with a bang this fall are Edward Scissorhands (I kid you not), The Little Mermaid (Disney asserts its dominance once again), and Legally Blonde (shoot me). So much for cutting edge theater.
What I find even more tragic is the recent push by Broadway producers to capitalize upon American 
Idol mania, consequently lowering the bar even more for the standard of quality for which the theater was once known. In fact, not only is Broadway incapable of boasting any truly original and innovative shows these days (with the exception, perhaps, of Spring Awakening), not only have we seen a reversal in the flow of genuine talent from the stage to the screen (thus subjecting us to the torture of actresses like Brooke Shields pathetically huffing and puffing their way through renditions of “There are Worse Things I Could Do”), but now the stages of New York are being inundated by such mediocre talent as Constantine Maroulis that one wonders if there’s any integrity left in the theater at all. In a bid to prolong their fifteen minutes of fame, those who would never have been discovered otherwise are using their credits from reality television to bum-rush the stage just one more time-- no matter the cost to their own personal dignity or that of their fellow cast-mates.
I’d like to bring this post to a close with an anecdote.
Recently, a few weeks ago, I traveled back to the Garden State (that’s New Jersey for those of you not in-the-know… or haven’t seen the movie) for a dentist appointment. As I was waiting in line for the bus at the Port Authority, I heard my name called out from amidst the crowd that had gathered on the platform. Turning my head, I was delighted to see an old familiar face, my high school friend, Douglas Ullman. Even at age 14, those of who knew Doug had an inkling that Doug had something special. Having sung with a variety of professional-level choirs throughout his childhood, Doug scored the lead in the high school musical his freshman year (and every subsequent year afterwards), consistently earned a spot in New Jersey’s Bergen County choir, eventually sang with both the State and All Eastern choirs, and wound up attending New York University’s highly selective undergraduate musical theater program. Since graduating, Doug has had a fairly successful go at breaking into the professional theater world, first having toured in an international production of The Sound of Music playing Rolfe, and lately playing Matt in the current Off-Broadway production of The Fantasticks.
In the course of our impromptu conversation, I asked Doug what his future short-term plans were: would he soon look for another production in which to act or did he plan on remaining in the cast of The Fantasticks for as long as the producers would have him? With a sheepish grin, Doug admitted that the producers had opted not to renew his contract. When I indignantly asked him why, Doug’s answer made me so angry I could have shouted if not for the many onlookers who were clearly already eavesdropping on our little exchange: “They’re bringing in someone from American Idol.”
As our respective buses pulled up to their gates, Doug and I began to head in our opposite directions. I wished him well on his future auditions, to which he said thanks and that he had actually just come from an audition for The Little Mermaid.
Seriously. Someone shoot me.
