Soft Bigotry And Scott MacIntyre

Scott MacIntyre: Good or bad, American Idol isn't going to tell you. Fox

 

by Linda Holmes

Scott MacIntyre isn't a terrible singer. He's an accomplished guy, as a matter of fact. He's not a great singer, or he probably wouldn't have chosen American Idol as his ticket. But he's not a terrible singer.

Not that the show would know how to break it to you if he were.

Patronizing with lavish praise, after the jump...

MacIntyre is legally blind -- he describes his own vision as similar to looking through a straw. Of course, given its lip-smacking enjoyment of stories it can market as inspirational, Idol immediately fell in love with him the moment he auditioned.

The problem for those trying to market his tale is that MacIntyre has not developed into one of the show's better performers. He doesn't have a natural feel for Idol-ish pop music; his sensibility is very Josh Groban, riding the line between pop music and a night at the Pops.

As wretched stereotypes about nurturing and pity would have it, it has been the two women judges, Kara DioGuardi and Paula Abdul, who have taken to treating MacIntyre like an inspirational pet, a Disney character whose job it is to stand for hope, to send a message of love into the universe for all to enjoy. This is his task, whether he wants it or not.

The problem continued last night after MacIntyre's performance of Billy Joel's "Just The Way You Are." DioGuardi, who favored discussions of "his message" in early weeks, spoke in cooing tones about the "honest place" from which his "moving performance" came. Nothing about the singing. Just his honesty. And how moving he is. And some praise for his haircut. She might as well have patted him on the head and given him a lollipop.

And then Paula Abdul: "So, Scott, I must say that of all the contestants that have graced the stage, I am most proud of you. And I want the audience to know it has nothing to do about [sic] your challenge, but everything to do that makes me [uhh...sic] forget about that challenge."

What she said was accidentally very honest. She's not praising him for being blind; she's praising him for the fact that he makes her forget he's blind. She's praising him for the way it makes her feel to say to herself, "I forgot he's blind!" Here's a question: why do you have to forget he's blind? Do you tend to forget Ray Charles was blind, or was it just not relevant?

What's interesting is that by and large, the fans actually don't care that he's blind. They've seen single moms and diabetics and a guy with deaf parents and a guy with a very dramatic tale about his life-saving tracheotomy and a guy who had paralyzed vocal cords and might have never sung again.

Fans dumped MacIntyre into the bottom three last week. Unlike Paula Abdul, they actually do forget he's blind; at least in the way the show thinks about it, in which "he's blind" means "he's inspirational" and "he's inspirational" means "hooray."

But for Abdul and DioGuardi in particular -- and, really, for the show as a whole -- there are still expectations both higher and lower than anyone else's. They won't attack if he's bad, but if he's good, it means he's a messenger of hope who makes them feel great about forgetting he's blind.

It's unfair, it's insulting, and it's not going to end until he goes home -- and just wait for the sobfest that will turn out to be.