There's been some joking on various websites that this year's most flamboyant front-runner, Adam Lambert, will perform Jackson's early '90s hit "In the Closet" as a response to recently leaked photographs of him kissing a man and dressed in glamour-queen drag.
...The closet metaphor most often applies to hidden homosexual identities, and that's certainly a hot button issue for "Idol." The show has drawn its own curtain around apparently gay contestants over the years. So far, Lambert has been as matter-of-fact about his orientation as possible without actually uttering the word "gay" on camera. He's poised, doing his little dance around a major aspect of his private life; he's not the first to have to do so.
...Within a painfully immodest pop universe, "Idol" stands as a champion of family values -- and of the endangered naughty giggle. The banter between the show's male regulars, especially host Ryan Seacrest and judge Simon Cowell, is steeped in an outdated frat-boy homophobia that is never funny and often deeply uncomfortable. You'd think that the formal protest lodged in 2006 by the gay-rights organization GLAAD would have put a stop to such antics, but they've just kept coming.
"Idol's" closet contains much more than sexuality, though. It includes language differences, religious affiliation and its contestants' complex family lives. The daring Lambert might break down the wall of homophobia this season, but it's just as likely one of the show's several Christian worship leaders, including Lambert's main male rival Danny Gokey, will push the producers to let fundamentalist Christianity out of the box in which it's not very well contained.
UPDATE:
While writing this post, we were casually listening to the 4th grueling hour of The Today Show, hosted by that annoying twat and the drunken Mooslim.
After bouncing around from Cats to Billy Elliot to dirty contact lenses, they start in on Idol. Hoda starts giving Lambo praise, and Kathie Lee interrupts and says he reminds her of "Aerosmith....no, Steve Perry....no, Journey."
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