'Idol' Favorite Adam Lambert Called 'Coy,' Universe Guffaws

Adam Lambert: Loud, yes. Cagey and coy about the personal questions? Maybe not. Fox

 

by Linda Holmes

This ABC News piece about current American Idol front-runner Adam Lambert has perhaps the most unintentionally hilarious opener I've seen in the recent entertainment press, all under the headline, "Adam Lambert: America's First Gay 'Idol'?" and the subhead, "'American Idol's' Adam Lambert Leads Competition, Keeps Coy About Sexuality."

There's the eyeliner. There's the YouTube video in which he declares kissing girls is "not necessarily" his preference. There are the Web photos of him making out with guys.

Wait, he...wears eyeliner? Why, that is a powerful clue!

Why "coy" is not the right descriptor for this particular young man, after the jump...

For those who haven't been watching Idol this year, Lambert is...well, it's hard to explain. Here he is on last night's show, singing "Born To Be Wild." He's one of the most intensely theatrical, over-the-top contestants the show has ever had. He's also very polarizing: people tend to either love this stuff or hate it.

The gist of the piece is that Lambert looks like the odds-on winner, now grabbing most of the judges' most enthusiastic praise and key endorsements from guest judges like Smokey Robinson. And if he wins, he'll be the first gay winner of American Idol, as far as we know. Or maybe we don't know, since the writer alleges that he has been "coy" about his sexuality.

(Part of the spin in this particular article is that widespread discussion of Lambert's sexuality has not hurt him, "signaling a shift from the moral scrutiny once piled on Idol contestants." Isn't a more interesting question whether Idol viewers are as judgmental as ever, but a critical mass of them simply don't care about this?)

While not a fan of Lambert's singing (it's too screechy for my tastes), I find myself awfully sympathetic to his position when someone claims he's being particularly cagey about all this. After the public confirmation that yes, those photos depict him tongue-kissing men? After the decision to alter song lyrics so the love song he's singing doesn't appear to be directed at a woman?

Okay, it's neither the "Yes, I'm Gay" cover of People nor some kind of spirited denial (and what kind of message would that send?). But he's not employing any particularly aggressive subterfuge, either.

In fact his behavior seems less than usually coy to me, particularly in the context of American Idol, in which all the contestants are always under close supervision in dealing with the press — and in which "It's really not all that relevant" seems to have more than the usual resonance, since nobody really discusses his or her romantic life. (Unless of course he or she has a spouse who can play a role in the story of his or her Personal Journey Of The Heart.)

As the piece notes, Lambert isn't "flaunting his sexuality," in the sense that he's not kissing anyone during his performances. But the thing is, nobody on American Idol flaunts his or her genuine — as opposed to commercially positioned — sexuality. It's not a particularly sexy show.

No, really: We're talking about an environment in which you can still unironically sing that Bryan Adams "Tell me, have you ever really really really really really really really ever loved a woman?" song from Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves Don Juan de Marco. It's the only high-visibility showcase that could possibly still exist for "The Search Is Over," which the now-booted Scott MacIntyre sang in his final performance last week, explaining that he performed it with a guitar in order to bring out the "punk" portion of his personality.

Where "The Search Is Over" exists to show your punk side, we are already in a land in which married couples sleep in twin beds.

I could live the rest of my life without ever watching Adam Lambert's rendition of "Ring Of Fire" again, but is he really dodging anything here? He does, after all, go out in public with his eyeliner on.