Every episode is stunning proof to anyone curious as to how future anthropologists will view our society, that American Idol fans are to our artistic culture what teabaggers are to politics - the triumph of mob rule over public debate, victory for the fallacy that everyone doing the same dumb fuck thing is synonymous with "democracy". Sometimes, however, something manages to escape the dipshit event horizon of that insipid show, and somehow becomes a moment with actual relevance. In the late fall of 2009, that something is the ridiculous outpouring of Gasp-thinkabouthtechildren pearls-clutching over Adam "Glambert" Lambert's surprisingly interesting, if exceptionally unoriginal, performance at the American Music Awards .

Before we begin, it must be stated for the record that I've wanted to stay out of this whole conversation - I really have. I cannot stand American Idol. Forget how excruciatingly boring it is. Forget how it typifies the subtext of reality TV, which is of course that dumb dumb stupid heads love making fun of other dumb dumb stupid heads. Forget the weekly assault on good pop music at the hands of people who seem to think "singing" is a synonym for "bukkake". No, what really gets my goat 1 is that the show allows people who approach music in the same way they approach food - shoveling gallons of McDonald's down their throats at every opportunity, angrily avoiding anything that actually tastes good, because they don't actually like to eat, they just like stuffing their faces full of sugar and oil - to be treated with greater deference and consideration than people who actually enjoy music 2 .

UPDATE 2, 12/12/2009: Apparently DCP finally got around to realizing how it looked that most of the other performances were easily available and they've all been taken down. No more sexy young women stripping for good, wholesome American entertainment. Good job idiots, it only took you a few weeks.

Before going further, let's examine Glambert's performance, shall we?



Oh, wait, we can't. Dick Clark productions has issued C&D orders and threatened to sue anyone who posts footage of Glambert's act for copyright violations. Which is of course their right, since they own that footage. I'm sure they're just trying to protect their intellectual property, and make absolutely certain that all images from this year's AMA telecast is shown how they, and only they, wish it to be.

Oh, except look at this:

And this:

This must obviously be a simple oversight. Surely, the fact that almost every single performance remains online while Lambert's is brutally C&D'd is coincidental. Which means if you didn't see it on the night of, you're just going to have to imagine what it was like. Now, have a look at Madonna's biceps tonguing America's Sweethearts on the VMAs:





Set aside the awful singing, hackneyed faux lesbianism and the terrible continuation of Britney's career and concentrate on what matters - Glambert, in essence, he pulled off nothing more than a re-staging of Xtina's 2002 live show, with the sexual content reduced by 50%. His central innovation was to recast himself in Xtina's place, making bumpy-grindy faces at his male dancers. Yes, there was Kissing A Boy and Simulated Oral Sex, but let's be honest, the sexuality so stylized as to be sterile. The small minority of viewers who populate the few American cities that have actually made it past 1990 were interested for a second. "Oh my," we thought, "'sexy' people shoving 'sex' into our faces. again." "Ho-hum," we added as we changed the channel to watch CNN pundits masturbating to idle speculation that Obama might escalate the war in Afghanistan, at which point we forgot all about the BOY KISSES. Truth be told, for sheer volume of things to be outraged about, you simply could not find a more grotesque spectacle of bread and circuses than the cabaret of penis envy that is America's war mongering media class. Or so one would think, But no, this is America, after all, and this was The American Music Awards. That event's purpose is not to reward us for our excellence, but to reflect our image back at us for our endless onanistic delight.

We are, after all, a nation of prudish, preening moralists who bemoan our decay but simply cannot disguise the tenting in our pants at the thought of killing wayward a-rabs, of violent, homoerotic gay bashing, of militaristic imperialist fantasies, of obscene gore, and most of all, of hypersexualizing women while demanding their purity. And the younger the better, don't you know. As the last 10 years surely demonstrates, the sagging testacles of our middle aged men can only stir at the sight of underage, or believably underage trim, waving their girl bits into our faces while proclaiming their adoration of traditional values. And thank god for it, as this directs the barely contained pedophilic tendencies of America's elder gentlemen outward, at younger women on TV, instead of inward, at their daughters watching TV with them. Well, unless they're fundamentalist Christians of course. WWJD? Horny teenage Sluts, that's what. But I digress.

All of this is well and good, but American entertainment is just like porn, where the action is focused solely on the cooze, with any evident dicks strategically positioned so that the viewer can imagine, despite the fact that his name is Rick Warren, that he's looking at his own massive schlong rogering that broken young cokehead, You simply cannot interrupt the fantasy with petty reality without pissing off the viewers. Which brings us back to Glambert's lapse in judgement.

If Glambert is guilty of anything, besides being highly derivative, it's that he crucially overestimated the maturity and moral consistency3 of the American viewing public. And who could blame him? It's not like he pretended to be a strapping hunk of heterosexual role model when he competed in and nearly won the last American Idol. Who the hell did the people who supported him think they were voting for? Then again, perhaps it's like how Obama voters are feeling these days4 - "Sure", viewers thought, "Lambert might look like a queer but he's probably just currying favor with that English guy Simon. All Brits are gay, right?" That might make the hyperventilating ZOMGs somewhat understandable. Except no. It's not like Glambert spent the entirety of the final episodes of the last season insisting on his het. bonafides. Hell, maybe like Obama, he felt like he now had a Mandate and unlike Obama, he decided to use it.

So poor Glambert performed a surprisingly interesting routine (to a spectacularly uninteresting song), not realizing that such a relatively tame display of homosexual amore` would send viewers running for the fainting couch as though they'd just found out that Strom Thurmond raped and impregnated his teenage maid, lied about it for 70 years, only to have his sacred memory disrespected by his illegitimate daughter who had the gall to actually admit her parentage5. Shrieking parents lamented the nefarious influence this might have on The Children! Moral scolds intoned with deep regret in their voice their "concern" about the message it sends. Pundits wondered aloud if this might be the end. Obviously, Glambert's interference with the child bride fantasies of the TV watching public was an unforgivable crime, at least where ABC (subsidiary of Disney, who inflicted Britney, Xtina and a host of other underage fertility goddesses on us) is concerned. It not only flouted the same traditional values that a half-dressed teenager shaking her tits at the camera apparently embodies, it was the ultimate vicarious cockblock. The powers that be clearly deemed that the Homosexual interloper must be stopped. STOP MAKING US THINK ABOUT BUTTSECKS, LAMBERT in other words.

So the complaints rolled in, and Glambert was castigated in the press. Then he was dropped from a scheduled Good Morning America appearance. Soon after, he was dropped from Jimmy Kimmel. ABC, it seemed, was letting the homo knowknow that ITHO being too ublicly-pay ay-gay was career suicide. Even so, Glambert admirably and accurately pointed out the insane double standard of which he was clearly a victim. So ABC pulled the trigger on his scheduled performance on New Year's Rockin' Eve. Astonishingly, we now found ourselves watching the network that airs Ugly Betty, whose most recent episode clearly depicted unapologetic gay sexuality, waging war on someone for the foolish sin of making old people uncomfortable with change.

The final nail in the dignity coffin was Lambert's recent appearance on Ellen. Contra his prior defiance, Adam now posed contrite, not apologizing, exactly, but "admitting" that his performance might have gone too far.

But before we address that, let's watch Madge covet Britney's Vadge again:

Poor Lambert, obviously ordered by his handlers to admit having gone too far for a country that actually pretended to believe Britney was a virgin. Awesome. That Lambert is now reduced to trying to thread the needle between standing his ground and begging for ABC to please-please-please-I'll-Be-nonthreateningly-gay-I-swear forgive him is enough to make one forget that his music is, objectively, bullshit. This whole thing has been particularly bitter tea to have rammed down your throat in 2009. California, New York, and Maine have all proven they're less morally developed than the American south - let's face it, at least Southerners will just admit outright they hate faggots and want to kick their faggoty asses. The Obama DOJ recently compared homosexuality to pedophilia and incest. Fucking Uganda might pass a law mandating the execution of gay people and the imprisonment of anyone who speaks up in their defense.

In the wake of Lambert's expulsion from the house of mouse, other networks and shows have jumped to have him as a guest. Which is smart, as you'd think that demographics are on our side. That it's just a matter of time before grumpy uncle Robert doesn't get to determine the national median anymore. That ABC would recognize the benefit of not coming across as a company full of gay hating dicks. Which is why, despite the fact that I previously couldn't bother to summon any interest in the man, watching America weep and rend its garments over something as mundane as overt gay themes in a stage performance is a living migraine. It feels a lot like an argument I had in 9th grade with a friend who insisted that a 3.5" floppy disc was a "hard drive". Except there's no science teacher to whom I can drag America's vast army of misanthropic troglodytes to verify that, no, you're not protecting family values-- you're just assholes.

If I could have one wish granted to me for Saturnalia, it's this: That every single one of America's God obsessed moral scolds will be forced to visualize, in stark detail, a simple fact that those of us who are sexually mature managed to grasp years ago: There are, right now, two or more people of the same sex having sex, in every neighborhood in America. With Each Other even! And assuming one of them isn't a Republican politician or an evangelical minster, they're probably enjoying it in the same wholesome way Granpa enjoys giving the missus the old pickle tickle. Those who don't claw out their own eyes with hypocritical disgust may find that it's really not the big deal they're making it out to be, and far from defending their morals, all their constant freaking out really accomplishes is to ensure that Americans continue to be the world's premier sexual neurotics.

Oh pish posh. Who are we kidding? The only way Adam's getting out of this one is if he sings "I Kissed A Girl" - both versions - on New Year's Eve6.



UPDATE 12/08/09:

We did neglect to point out that Lambert has been booked on ABC's The View. Don't get too excited though; his performance is going to be pre-taped. Because, you know, he might scandalize the children! Or something. It's not really clear why this couldn't be resolved with a simple pre-appearance contract negotiation with stipulated limits on his performance. It's particularly confusing since his appearance last week on Ellen was the dictionary definition of "reserved". You'd assume ABC is well aware that Glambert knows how to behave himself on daytime TV.

Let's also consider - and I'd love to find out either way but there's nothing online; Anyone out there work for the AMAs and can let us know? - that it's very likely, considering how racy and hypersexual the other performances were, that his appearance at the AMAs was well-rehearsed and pre-approved. Rather than simply admitting that Lambert's "mistake" was actually ABC's fuck up, they're making it absolutely clear to the dumb dumb stupid heads that the gaybo is going to wear the homo dunce cap and sit in the corner until he learns his lesson.

I'm sure Elizabeth7 Hassleback will still be allowed to spew her anti-gay venom without restraint, and Danny Devito will still be allowed to appear on the show drunk out of his mind, so it's good to know that ABC isn't practicing a double standard or anything.

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