Sanjaya Crya

I am now a Sanjaya Crya.

But not for the same reasons that little girl had last week on American Idol. God love her, she was just overwhelmed with love and admiration of her "Idol". I can imagine that after he hugged her, she wept quietly into her pillow that night and swore she would love Sanjaya for life. "He's only six years old than me. Wait for me my sweet Sanjaya, wait for me..."

No, I'm crying because for the last several weeks individuals with more talent than this little fella have been voted off. Don't get me wrong; he's a cute as a button. But I'm guessing that the population voting for Master Malakar is as varied as the contestants themselves. You have your 11 year old contingent; your Michael Jackson - the "Thriller" years - fans; there are the myspace devotees jonesing to see a young girl starve herself, and Howard Stern sycophants who want to make their god happy.

I liked Chris Sligh. He had more character and class than a lot of the contestants I've seen, and he made me laugh. But, as our judges tried to remind us earlier in the season, this is a singing competition, and unfortunately, Chris did not perform at the Idol level for the last few weeks. Indeed, he hadn't even performed adequately and that was another reason he didn't make the cut this week.

Singing competition be damned in Sanjaya's case though. Incredibly, in last night's competition Sanjaya was the most relaxed I'd seen him; almost as though he said "Eff it"; embraced his legions and was going to ride the wave as far as it took him. In previous weeks, nerves and immaturity caused him to butcher every song he delivered to the audience, and yet, here we are. Not even in the bottom three.

What's my point? I don't know, I seriously hadn't developed one when I sat down to express my ire, hence the poor form. But the whole Sanjaya Crya Drama points to what this season says about the contestants and their lack of star quality, or the show and how quickly it became a caricature of itself, or maybe American Idol says as much about the audience and the culture of the American viewer than anything else.

Style over substance, beauty over brains, teeth over talent.