Beautiful Losers

Sunday, Jan. 22, 2006 By JAMES PONIEWOZIK

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I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear; Those of mechanics--each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong ... --Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

We haven't seen any mechanics yet at the American Idol fifth-season auditions. But there was a dental assistant. And a deputy sheriff. Twinsseveral sets. A husky-voiced Ukrainian chanteuse desperate for a performers' visa. The inventor of the Cosmic Coaster, a floating beverage holder. ("Center it!" he coached judge Paula Abdul as she set her glass teetering on the contraption.) A white guy who said he flunked the audition because America is "prejudiced and racist." And "Flawless," a wispy-bearded dancer of limited talent who appeared to be a perfect candidate for the job of Britney Spears' eventual third husband.

Most shows in their fifth season have begun to flag in the ratings, and nearly every hit reality show has faltered this season. But American Idol pulled 35.5 million viewers, its biggest debut ever. What's more interesting than how much the audience has grown is where it has grown. As the show has aged, the audition episodes--weeks of oddballs, naïfs and some of the worst singers God ever cursed with larynges--have become the most popular.

American Idol is really two shows. There's the American half, in which America turns up to petition Paula, Randy and Simon, that cruel trinity of fame gods. And there's the Idol half, which doesn't get going until March, in which the show hypes up its 12 finalists, the better to have a marketable product after one of them becomes champion. So why do the worst singers draw higher ratings than the best? You can thank in part microcelebrity William Hung, who tortured Ricky Martin's She Bangs during the third-season auditions and ended up with a record deal. But more than that, American Idol is the TV show that best understands America's schizophrenic twin desire to celebrate underdogs--and to destroy them.

America, after all, is an overdog nation with an underdog mythology. We were founded when a scraggly, improvised army of renegades beat a superpower. Now we're a superpower that squashes scraggly, improvised armies of renegades. Our popular idea of a self-made businessman is Donald Trump, the billionaire son of a millionaire. We cheer for Seabiscuit when the rest of the world knows that we're really War Admiral.

As for AI, the show that offers a shot to the little guy is not shy about advertising its overdog status. On the season debut, host Ryan Seacrest narrated a tribute to the show's popularity. "What started as a simple talent quest has become a national phenomenon," he said over video of seas of teen and twentysomething applicants thronging stadiums and audition halls like pilgrims on the hajj. "It's become a modern rite of passage, like going to the prom. You get your first car, you graduate from high school, and when we roll into your town, you audition for American Idol."