Re: Easy, Tiger
Adam Lambert, the runner-up from the most recent season of American Idol, performed the first single from his new album at this year’s American Music Awards. Pre-show, Lambert told MTV that his performance of For Your Entertainment was going to be sexy and it was–in a bondage, fetish, Bruno kind of way. All smokey eyes and shiny silver suit, Lambert was glam and gay, literally. He kissed a male band member and simulated oral sex by grabbing a male dancer’s head and grinding it against his crotch. He also lead a dancer around on a leash and flipped the audience off. This was not your mother’s American Music Awards.
Lambert officially came out post-Idol in an interview published in the June issue of Rolling Stone but suggested that his announcement shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. He added that he’s proud to be gay but he’s “trying to be a singer, not a civil rights leader.”
Yet, the choices he made during the AMA’s suggest that Lambert’s apolitical stance is a shaky one. The performance spoke more to cultural politics than it did to his musical talent. There were female dancers on stage but Lambert’s version of sexy had a clear gay sensibility that was guaranteed to generate controversy. This was not Showtime or HBO. This was ABC during prime time. After the broadcast, Lambert said that he was “just trying to have a good time onstage” and “it’s time to take more risks. It’s about entertainment…It’s too bad that people are so scared.” Responding to a rumor that his performance might be edited for broadcast on the West Coast, Lambert called the potential censorship a double standard, using the Madonna/Britney Spears kiss as an example. The problem with this argument however, is that Madonna started out singing Lucky Star and creating fashion trends before she moved on to sexually explicit coffee table books and girl on girl action. Lambert has only just begun. He is talented but his AMA performance was more about entertaining himself rather than his audience. People might be “scared” but so too should he. Going from applying guy-liner to making out with a man is perhaps too great a leap when trying to capitalize on a fan base built from American Idol. Baby steps, Adam.
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