‘Idol’ judges have grown into their roles

Randy Jackson: Sliding towards Simon
Randy Jackson may be a former member of Journey, and a record executive and manager, but his talents have been reduced to uttering the same phrases over and over again from his seat on the far left-hand side of the judge’s table.

“Yo, yo, dawg,” he might say, “that was pitchy.” Entertainment Weekly’s Michael Slezak organized Randy’s comments from one episode last season into poems, and the results are hilarious: “Yo, baby, Elliott/So check it out, dawg/Elliott/So check it out, man/I hated/Check it out.”

Unlike Paula, however, Randy actually says something. He’s willing to challenge both Paula and Simon about their opinions, but he’s also willing to tell the contestants when they’ve screwed up.

For nearly every evaluation, Randy goes first, and that works because if he criticizes a performance, then his words are softened by Paula Abdul’s disagreement — and she usually disagrees. As a manager and producer, he’s essentially guided by the same principles as Simon, but he offers more constructive criticism. He sometimes even offers actual suggestions or points out what someone did wrong.

But like Paula, he’s moved more toward Simon’s end of the spectrum in recent seasons, as he’s willing to tell contestants — especially those who are auditioning — that they’re pathetic and awful. He can even be cruel, telling one auditioning contestant last season that she should be “doing voices. ‘Rugrats,’ or dogs, or whatever,” not singing because of her odd voice.

Simon Cowell: Mr. Nasty
The person who's really in charge of insulting the contestants is Simon Cowell, who was known as “Mr. Nasty” during “Pop Idol,” the UK’s predecessor to “American Idol.”

Slide show   Singing in the rain See and hear “American Idol” auditioners singing in the rain

Without Simon there would be no series, and not just because he came up with the concept.  After the karaoke ends, he is the entertainment. The lemmings in the studio audience may boo him, but most of the time, he’s right, even if he’s an obnoxious jerk.

The audience boos and pretends to hate Simon because he goes beyond criticizing contestants’ vocal abilities, although often he’s the only one to do that even after a truly terrible performance. He often adds comments about how fat or ugly or weird contestants are, and it’s because of this that he gets his reputation as a horse’s ass.

Still, his behavior is somewhat defensible, in that his role is as a record executive who’s there representing his own financial interests (his label signs the winner and any other finalists it wants to).

In his book, he says he told Paula Abdul, “you and I know what the music industry is like, and we have promised the American audience that we’re going to portray it honestly.” In other words, record-label executives are going to make decisions in part based upon a person’s appearance, so the judges (e.g. Simon) might as well be honest about it.

Does he have to be so vicious and cruel? Of course not. But he — and his fellow judges, but mostly Simon — are the reason why America tuned in back in the summer of 2002 to a show that otherwise would have seemed like a cheesier version of “Star Search.”

Andy Dehnart is a writer and teacher who publishes reality blurred, a daily summary of reality TV news.

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