The Farce Factor

Don't you feel that these days farce and ridicule is a proxy for quality of entertainment? I do. We are bombarded on a daily basis by reality shows that bet on controversy, drama between participants, participants' lack of intelligence, and other things that I don't find synonymous with quality, for their success. At best, it is funny. At worst, it is insulting. Granted, I don't have to watch these shows and I don't, but I am still appalled by what this "quality of entertainment" suggests of people (i.e., consumers of TV programs) as a whole. It seems to suggest that most of us find joy in others' misery, embarrassment, lower intelligence, and social faux pas.

By now, I am sure most of you have heard of the Ken Lee phenomenon. A participant in the Bulgarian version of American Idol sang Mariah Carey's "Without You" for the audition, or rather - attempted to emulate the sounds of that song, all along thinking that the song was called "Ken Lee". If you have not yet been witness to this, check here. Well, only a few weeks later, she is the most famous participant in Music Idol to date and people across the globe have heard of her performance. She has been called on for multiple appearances both in Music Idol and other TV shows. Bulgarian news also reported that the head of EMI contacted the head of Universal for Bulgaria because he was really interested in her performance. You only need to search for "Ken Lee" on youtube and you will be presented with multiple instances of her appearances to date.

So, sadly, this is just another instance of what it seems to take to become popular. It has less to do with your qualities as a performer or ability to sing and more to do with the element of farce that you bring to your performance. But I guess that is nothing new. Singing puppets often dominate the music charts in Europe. Boy and girl bands assembled per recipe elicit strong fan followings. What I find interesting though is that the spread of technology (cable TV, internet, etc.) seems to have facilitated the distribution (and often encouraged the copying) of ridiculous and garbage performances. But perhaps that is a topic for another day :)