The Second Coming

The new season of American Idol has cemented two things in my mind: firstly, that there is a myriad of talentless people out there who have somehow been tricked into believing that they can be the next Susan Boyle.

Secondly, that I love love love Victoria Beckham.

For some reason she has been “panned” by critics; allegedly (according to some tabloid whose name I have forgotten and probably just made this up) sinking into depression and heightened-anorexia as a result.

I don’t get it. She is amazing. Did you see her flawless skin and hair? And not only that: she was so nice. And it really seemed

 genuine. Did this disappoint some people, expecting her to be a cold-hard-ice-queen? American Idol already has its fair share of judges who think they’re too cool for school (Kara and Randy, I’m looking at you). It must be very disconcerting for the contestants to come into the judging room, having passed a screening process (their passing of which has no doubt persuaded them that they do indeed have talent), only to be openly laughed at almost as soon as they open their mouths.

Victoria Beckham managed to remain poised in the face of such amusement. While I am content to laugh also, shielded behind my TV screen, there is no way that I would be able to do so in real life directly to someone’s face. And it wasn’t, as someone told me, just part of her plan to never be seen smiling in public. Those days have long passed; she was seen to be smiling several times. And looking fantastic doing so.

It seems that we as a culture are content to build people up when we think they’re an epic bitch, but if we find out that they’re actually lovely will tear them down in six seconds flat. Perhaps this is why Karen Walker is content with her icy image in the New Zealand media, despite being very endearing in real life.

We need to do some real thinking here. If the message that “people won’t like you if you display any hint of being a nice person” is ploughed through our media, how are the next generation going to turn out? We understand that it’s ‘all-just-kind-of-a-joke’, that IRL nobody actually wants to be friends with the bitch on the scene. But I’ve seen enough of dear sweet Miley/Kanye/Spencer Pratt (see how I had to use his last name?) recently to know that some people just don’t understand such subtleties.