The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
b-side
Thursday, January 24, 2019 — 5B

‘American Idol,’ American audiences and America

VH1

ITV

“DE AQUÍ NO 
SALES”

Rosalía

Universal Music 
Group

MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW: ‘DE AQUÍ NO 
SALES’

“DE 
AQUÍ 
NO 
SALES 
(Cap.4: Disputa)” stands out 
as one of the most antagonistic 
songs off of singer/songwriter 
Rosalía’s dynamic 2018 release 
El Mal Querer. “Yo que tanto 
te camelo / Y tú me la vienes 
haciendo” she howls at the 
space around her, and the 
words have only just been 
wrenched 
from 
her 
body 
before they are swallowed 
whole by the snarl of revving 
motorcycle engines. The song 
inspires the same kind of 
images that are reminiscent 
of Mad Max’s apocalyptic 
wasteland — as hostile and 
wretched as Fury Road itself.
The 
recently 
released 
music video for “DE AQUÍ 
NO SALES” does not stray 
far from these preexistent 
associations. It starts with 
Rosalía half-submerged in a 

pond, dressed as an incarnate 

of Björk’s Vulnicura cover 
and surrounded by twisted 
hunks of metal. From there, 
the 
images 
flash 
between 

shots of Rosalía dressed as the 
ultimate badass of any of “Fast 
and Furious” film, doused in 
flames and back again in water, 
yet each time we come back to 
this shot, she sinks lower and 
lower. By the time the song’s 
last spoken line “Caramelos 
también tengo” is uttered, her 
head is the only appendage we 
can see above the water; she is 
nearly consumed by the murky 
depths. Then, the tempo picks 
up, and a shot of a windmill 
exploding into flames takes us 
into the image of a trumphiant 
Rosalía rising from the fire. 
She 
boards 
a 
motorcycle 
and rides into the moonlight 
countryside. She doesn’t look 
back.

— 
Shima 
Sadaghiyani, 
Daily Arts Writer

FABER AND FABER

ALLY OWENS
Daily TV Editor

It 
should 
come 
as 
no 
surprise 
that 
American 
audiences utterly devour the 
televised talent competition: 
It’s one part sadistic guilty 
pleasure, one part inspiration 
porn and one part fantasy 
fulfillment 
of 
having 
the 
same deciding power as an 
L.A. talent executive. Yet, at 
its core, the televised talent 
competition is emblematic of 
the “American Dream” ideal 
we claim our society operates 
upon.
Just in case you didn’t 
read “The Great Gatsby” at 
some point in your schooling, 
the American Dream is the 
common 
mythology 
that 
each and every U.S. citizen 
has 
equal 
opportunity 
to 
attain the highest of their 
aspirations. All it takes is 
hard work (and apparently 
not 
the 
right 
ancestry, 
genitalia or religion)! This 
rose-tinted 
idealization 
of 
the mechanics of our society 
is integral to the formula of 
the talent competition. Just as 
the American Dream blindly 
posits that the next great 
entrepreneur could very well 
be from Section 8, the talent 
competition promises that the 
Next Big Thing™ will not be 
found as a result of nepotistic 
connections, 
but 
could 
be 
spotted among the crowd at 
one of the many cattle-call 

auditions across the United 
States.
And while moments of shock 
generated 
from 
a 
random 
North Dakotan who can walk 
and pose like Naomi Campbell 
or a backwoods woman who 
can sing like Céline Dion 
seem 
to 
bolster 
belief 
in 
the 
egalitarian 
utopia 
the 
American Dream advertises, 
the lack of success for the 
majority of the winners post-
show reveals the true nature 
of the American Dream that 
many of us are more familiar 
with: a scam, unabashedly 
orchestrated 
to 
fool 
the 
masses and serve only the 
elites at the top.
In 2019, it does not take 
a 
seasoned 
cultural 
critic 
to predict that the winners 
of these competition shows 
will be has-beens by the time 
the season finale concludes. 
This is not a new pattern. 
Originally 
running 
from 
1983 to 1995, “Star Search” 
ironically did more for the 
contestants who did not win 
than those that did. Through 
its vague promise of stardom 
for an unknown and its use of 
a panel of judges to deliberate 
the skills of contestants, it 
is clear that “Star Search” 
walked 
so 
that 
“American 
Idol” could fly. And fly it did. 
For those of us born between 
1996 and 2000, we were too 
young at the time of its 2002 
launch 
to 
recognize 
the 
magnitude of its popularity. 
The widespread acclaim was 
in no doubt related to the 

fresh (at the time) convention 
of allowing the audience, 
through SMS text, to have 
final say over who would 
ultimately become America’s 
newest sensation. Thus, it 
should come as no surprise 
that one of the show’s most 
(if not the most) recognizable 
winners, Kelly Clarkson, was 
crowned during the season in 
which the most people were 
glued to the screens watching 
her journey.
“American Idol” was so 
successful that it was only 
a 
matter 
of 
time 
before 
troves of imitators emerged, 
hoping to capitalize on the 
current trend of audience 
determinism. 
To 
name 
a 
few, there’s “America’s Got 
Talent,” “So You Think You 
Can 
Dance,” 
“America’s 
Next 
Top 
Model,” 
“Last 
Comic Standing,” “American 
Superstar,” “The Next: Fame 
Is At Your Doorstep,” and 
then a second wave led by 
“The 
Voice,” 
“The 
Four,” 
“The Face” and “The Rap 
Game.” Nevertheless, as the 
seasons of “Idol” and the 
others waxed on and their 
audiences 
diminished, 
it 
became evident that, despite 
the repetitive declarations of 
the “lucrative” prizes to be 
awarded to the victors, these 
shows were not even capable 
of producing a solid C-list 
celebrity, let alone the A-list 
icons they initially promised.
The people running the 
programs, 
those 
already 
entrenched in the business, 
have always retained the 
knowledge that it takes a 
bit more than a check and 
a competition prize (a six 
page spread in Seventeen 
magazine, a record deal with 
Sony, a contract with So So Def 
Records ... the list goes on) to 
conquer an entire industry. 
As the years progressed and 
more new shows continued 
to materialize, it has become 
clear that executives have 
exploited and are continuing 
to 
exploit 
the 
remaining 
audience’s 
belief 
in 
the 
American Dream, as well as 
our ignorance of how show 
business really works from 
the inside. After all, what 
experience does the average 
mechanic 
from 
Tennessee 
have in show business to 
know that a contract is not 
the surefire ticket out of 
obscurity?
Despite the promise of 
instant stardom, the talent 
contestants 
only 
have 
15 
fleeting minutes of fame to 
show for their participation 

while 
network 
executives 
continue to profit off of 
the lies they spin to both 
participants 
and 
loyal 

viewers. 
Don’t 
believe 
me? Consider the fact that 
Simon 
Cowell 
and 
Simon 
Fuller, executive producers 
on “American Idol” and “X 

Factor,” each maintain a net 
worth exceeding 500 million 
dollars, yet the only thing 
“Idol” season seven winner 
Taylor Hicks maintains is 
a spot on “Where Are They 
Now” lists. These executives 
treat the usually organic star-
making process as though 
it is mass production. And 
in recent years, as winners 
become 
more 
and 
more 
inconsequential, it appears 
as though they realized the 
futility in investing even 
the bare minimum of time 
and money in convincing the 
public to fall in love with 
a new “top” model, dancer, 
rapper or singer every year.
Thus, new strategies are 
undertaken to ensure that 
audiences are still engaged 
and, 
most 
importantly, 
profits remain high. This is 
evidenced in the shift away 
from 
contestant-centric 
content 
to 
content 
that 
overwhelmingly centers the 
already-established celebrity 
judges; or worse, a celebrity 
who 
creates 
a 
shameless 
vehicle 
for 
themselves. 
For “American Idol,” it is 
no 
coincidence 
that 
the 
high 
turnover 
of 
judges 
coincided almost precisely 
with mainstream audiences’ 
apathy 
toward 
whoever 
won the show. What’s more 
memorable in recent “Idol” 
canon: the Mariah Carey-
Nicki Minaj beef or the name 
of the season 13 winner? 
Another 
example 
of 
this 
phenomenon is exhibited in 
“The Voice,” where media 
coverage 
unmistakably 
touched 
moreso 
on 
the 
celebrity judges in the chairs 
and their relationships than 
the 
contestants. 
Even 
in 
cases of celebrity vehicles 
like Tyra Banks’ “America’s 
Next Top Model” or Jermaine 
Dupree’s “The Rap Game,” 
buzz is not generated from 
winners (in fact, I cannot 
think of a single mainstream 
sensation produced in either 
show’s 
history). 
Buzz 
is 
derived from the celebrity 
attempting to revamp their 
careers.
The 
contestants 
— 
the regular people — in 
their attempts to live out 
an 
idealized 
fantasy 
of 
transcending 
whichever 
barriers stand in their way 
of wealth and fame quite 
ironically end up becoming 
instruments 
perpetuating 
the system they tried so hard 
to confront.
So much for the American 
Dream.

ABC

As the years 
progressed and 
more new shows 
continued to 
materialize, it has 
become clear that 
executives have 
exploited and 
are continuing 
to exploit the 
remaining 
audience’s belief 
in the American 
Dream, as well 
as our ignorance 
of how show 
business really 
works from the 
inside

In 2019, it does not 
take a seasoned 
cultural critic 
to predict that 
the winners of 
these competition 
shows will be has-
beens by the time 
the season finale 
concludes

