American Idol = American Duty
Posted April 14, 2008 byCategories: Culture Matters?
Tags: American Idol, Beach Boys, Clay Aiken, John McCain, Presidential election, Rock the Vote, Vote or Die
Published in Chicago Flame 4/14/08
Love it or hate it, you can’t deny it; American Idol is a pop culture sensation. Who would have thought that American Idol would be as big of a hit as it is today? When the series premiered in 2002, fewer than two million people tuned in. By the season’s end, nearly 19 million viewers watched the finale. From these humble beginnings, American Idol has become a global pop culture phenomenon, which still attracts viewers today.
Americans are living in an interesting time right now. We are in the middle of many major events, two of which I would like to highlight: a new season of American Idol and the race for the 44th President of the United States.
We have been hearing about how voters have been turning out in record numbers in both of these campaigns, and I would like to take a minute to examine them a little bit deeper.
Currently in its seventh season, the typical season for American Idol runs from mid-January to late May. For those that are not abreast on Idol’s format, a season begins with auditions (you probably have seen those commercials featuring embarrassing and eccentric performances by John and Jane Does from across our fair land singing Elton John and Whitney Houston songs). After a few rounds of auditions, finalists are determined and the remainder of the show consists of performances by said finalists, who are voted for by the television audience.
According to Telescope, a mobile phone and interactive TV solution company that keeps track of American Idol’s viewership and features the largest phone voting system in the world, the fifth season of Idol (which took place in 2005) received nearly 580 million toll-free telephone and mobile text votes (”Telescope Announces Yet Another Huge Voting Season With FOX’s ‘American Idol,’” Trans-World News, May 30, 2006).
I would like to once again highlight that this all took place in a period of five months, of which voting was held on 11 different days. This means that an average of 53 million people voted each episode. I find this to be extraordinary.
Now let’s turn to American politics. In 2004, roughly 122 million people voted in the Presidential election, according to the Federal Election Commission. This all took place on Nov. 2 (with the exception for absentee ballots and perhaps a few other stragglers).
The current race for the Presidency, according to a report by “US News & World Report,” has seen 19.1 million people cast Democratic ballot while 13.1 million cast as a Republican in the first five weeks of the overall election, from the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3 to Super Tuesday on Feb. 5 (”High Democratic Turnout Sends a Mixed Signal for November,” Feb. 28).
Looking at these numbers, I find our current voter turnout rate to be a bit discouraging (and I know I am not alone in thinking this). It’s odd that we have something such as American Idol that appeals to people who get absolutely nothing back from voting for a contestant, aside from the satisfaction that they helped someone’s position on the show. What baffles me is that many of these same people (and this is completely my opinion here and I have absolutely no evidence when I say this) probably do not vote in the Presidential campaign because they believe their vote doesn’t matter. This is what I have heard many young people say lately, that they are not interested because it doesn’t matter to them.
To me this is really frustrating because it is a) a really bad excuse for not voting and b) hypocritical of them to say. It is a bad excuse because it is the simplest and easiest way of claiming no responsibility. It really means they are too lazy/busy Facebooking/disinterested in taking an educated look at the people that will have perhaps the greatest effect on the individual lives of every citizen in our nation (George Bush has really proved this point to be true. If the average person really cared, they would likely find G.W. to be absolutely intolerable and might go about trying to impeach the man). The reason the above excuse is hypocritical is because the same statement (my vote doesn’t matter) can be said about American Idol. But that’s the interesting disconnect that we have between pop culture and civic duty in the United States today.
We think we do have a voice when it comes to pop culture, but not when it comes to politics. Many people do not feel it is part of their civic responsibility to vote for the governance of our country. I would argue that this (voting) is perhaps one of the most easily accessible and acceptable ways of displaying civic participation.
But then again, I guess American politics do not have as much sex appeal (although plenty of sex…i.e. Eliot Spitzer, Mark Foley, Ted Haggard, Larry Craig and good ol’ Bill Clinton) as the stars of American Idol. It is hard to sell politics to young people because it is not sexy, and quite frankly, sex sells, as we all know. Instead we resort to things like Rock the Vote or the Vote or Die campaign to create public awareness for voting among young people.
These things won’t fully work, though. They are nice attempts, but we need to re-think and re-teach our young people that not only should (and that it is OK) for them to care about pop culture, they must also care about American politics, because after all, the future is theirs. So when this election season rolls around, in May for American Idol and November for the politicians, take the time to get educated in order to voice your choice. Otherwise don’t complain to me if Clay Aiken ends up running the country and John McCain lands a record contract featuring the classic Beach Boys song “Barbara Ann.”

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