“The noise
Of worldly fame is but a blast of wind,
That blows from diverse points, and shifts its name,
Shifting the point it blows from.”
-Dante Alighieri, Purgatory, Canto XI

If you actually bothered to tune in America’s Got Talent tonight, forgive me in advance for encouraging such a thing. Until now, I’ve been barred from writing anything about DG’s experience with it, but now that it aired (such as it was), all bets are off. As you may or may not know, tonight was their big TV debut (NOT). What really happened was that the majority of what they did ended up in the editor’s recycle bin with maybe a 2 second clip left for public consumption. That isn’t so bad, but for the fact that they showed none of their performance (unlike the other rejected acts in that montage), made it look like all of the girls were devastated by their rejection, and bypassed all of the testimonial footage where they let loose on Piers Morgan and Sharon Osborne, who richly deserved what they got from them.

The Backstory
Just as we were getting ready to leave for Reno at the end of April, we received a call from DG’s dance teacher. She said that America’s Got Talent was calling our dancers back from last year’s auditions and could DG go to the rehearsal on Sunday, April 29th and the taping April 30th? Of course, DG was privy to this conversation which left me little alternative but to say yes, yes, she could do it.

Then she said the girls would have to be in full costume, wigs and all, for the rehearsal and show. If the producers had the first clue as to what a pain in the butt it was to put these kids in full costume and wigs, not to mention the cost of the dresses they wanted my daughter to sit around in for hours on end, they might’ve thought twice about leaving them on the floor. After clearing the schedule with my mother-in-law for that Sunday, we left for Reno, confident that she was in good hands.

We came home from Reno at 4pm; she came home from the Sunday rehearsal at 9pm, completely exhausted. Their call time was 7:30 AM the next day in Burbank, which meant getting up at 5:30 to get the hair done, makeup done, dress ready, etc. Because of the limited room available in the green room, only their teacher and one other adult could accompany the girls, who ranged in age from 7 to 16.

Monday morning at 10am I received a frantic call from the show’s producer, saying that she didn’t have the proper releases for DG to perform. Given that I’d read and signed piles of releases in advance of the rehearsal, I was confused but willing to sign whatever had to be done. There was a flurry of faxes and email back and forth, but at last it was done and she was cleared to perform at about 11am that day.

They actually went on at 7:30. They were almost the last act, which is probably why the judges didn’t go for them.

The Other Acts

The most bizarre by far had to be Boy Shakira. When DG came home on Sunday night she couldn’t believe how bizarre he was. But there were others they got to know — the 4 girl singers who were hoping to make it into the cut because they were raising money and awareness of breast cancer to honor one of their moms who died from it, CoolAid the Clown, who she said was really nice and had some awesome dance moves and young hip-hop dancers, the singing ventriloquist, and of course, Sideswipe, the martial arts dancers that hogged the practice floor.

Leaving the comfort zone

They were required to each do a one-on-one interview on camera. One shot. They had the questions in advance so they could think about their answers, but otherwise it’s them, the inteviewer, and the camera. For DG, this was a definite step out of the box. These were questions she really hadn’t thought about before — things like “What would winning a million dollars mean to you”, etc. It was a stretch for most of them. These girls are competitive dancers who have a great deal of poise and presence as a result of their training. But even that doesn’t prepare you fully for the somewhat jarring experience of being in front of a camera, lights on, boom mic hanging between you and your interviewer, sharing your innermost desires. From all accounts, they did quite well with it.

The Performance

They knew their routine cold. They are all sharp dancers, even the little ones. Of course, the younger ones aren’t as sharp as the older — how could they be? But even the short little clips they did show of them, they were colorful, animated and interesting. I say that with complete mother-bias. So anyway, this is DG’s account, which she has decided not to blog herself right now because she is more disappointed about being cut from the final airing than she was about being cut from the audition.

As she tells it, they started their dance and about halfway in Piers Morgan buzzes them with that horrible “X”. They knew to keep going until they had all three buzz them out, and did. The audience was completely with them, clapping and cheering. At the end, Piers went first.

Piers Morgan is an unnecessarily cruel man

He starts by telling them that they all look like Christmas trees. Then he goes after the youngest in the group (who is also the teacher’s daughter) and tells her that they need to split the group because the younger ones are detracting from the older ones. Keep in mind that it is 7:00pm, they’ve been sitting in the green room since 7:30 am after being there all day the day before, she’s 8 years old and tired, stressed, and standing in front of a big studio audience without her mother (or her glasses), taking criticism from a very mean man. He goes on to say that some of them looked like a deer caught in the headlights (one girl does have an expression that looks that way sometimes), and sorry girls, but you’ve got to go. Frankly, he goes too far, particularly with the kids. He gets personal, that’s what’s not right.

Hasselhoff goes next. He tells them that his daughters were Irish dancers too, but he doesn’t think they have what it takes to go the distance, no vote yet. Sharon Osborne then has her two cents, basically criticizing the costumes but not much else, giving an indication that she intends to vote no.

The vote is in: XXX, they’re done.

Would she do it again next year?

My short answer: No. Had their segment aired in place of um… maybe the Liberace wanna-be, then yes, they probably would do it if invited. It wasn’t the disappointment of not making the cut that bothers her (and me); it’s how off-base the show is this year. It’s absurd. To have Piers Morgan put the talentless but bizarre Boy Shakira into the next round and hammer every kid who walks onto the stage is just weird and sick. It’s a true statement of how low the denominator has become when he thinks that behavior is entertaining. None of the adults harbored serious ideas about the kids going very far with this, but we did see it as a way for them to glimpse the hard reality of what it’s like to be on a television show and also to stretch themselves a bit. They did that.

One of the comments they all heard many times was how nice, how supportive, how friendly they were. The other kids and adults all liked them. They had an opportunity to be in a strange and surreal environment for a couple of days and learn to accept others as they are without any filters or parents’ preconceived notions. That was all good. But not good enough to subject them to the kind of unnecessary nastiness that seems to come with any Simon Cowell production these days. As an aside, Simon did come up to them after they’d come offstage and say that he’d have kept them on. Easy for him to say when he’s got his mouthpiece Piers out there doing the dirty work.

One highlight for DG was, believe it or not, Jerry Springer. He was very kind and funny, and they had a fun backstage moment teaching him how to dance. DG was a fan of his from Dancing with the Stars and he didn’t disappoint this time around either. Another highlight was using her cell phone to catch some photos and video of her time in the green room, some of which are in this post. If you click through the first photo on this page her Boy Shakira video is the YouTube link on the Zooomr page.

Post Mortem

One last thought from me on all of this. After the first show there was a huge backlash on their AGT message boards about the way Morgan was with the kids. There were some calling for NBC to cancel the show because of it. I suspect that subsequent shows were heavily edited to downplay that aspect of things as a result, which is likely why their performance was relegated to the reject montage. However, what people don’t get is that by the time they’ve seen it on TV, Piers has ALREADY been mean. By not airing the segment, they added insult to injury. Those kids (not just ours, but all of the ones on the reject pile) worked hard for the opportunity to be slammed by Piers Morgan, et al. They were ticked, but they got over it. All of them were looking forward to that fleeting moment of ‘worldly fame’, and to take that away from them really was beyond cruel. Up to this episode, the montages had all been adults. This week they put the kids there too, and that’s just not right.

The Verdict

So my verdict is that yes, America’s Got Talent, but you’re unlikely to find it in large measure on that show, because they are not looking for talent, they’re looking for weird, bizarre and stupid acts to parade past a zombie audience. So far there have been exactly two acts worth even a second look. This show doesn’t represent what I know to be the true talent out there — well-trained musicians, singers, dancers and others — who really are worthy of attention. It plays to the lowest denominator and the basest instincts in us all. This is not how it was last season and had I known it would be this way this year, I’d never have agreed in the first place.

The only consolation for me at this point would be for the hyperactive sax player from Episode 1 to win it all. But he’ll have to do it without my vote, because DG and I have decided it’s not worth following to the end.

And PS to Sharon Osborne: Lose the purple hair.

Technorati Tags: America’s Got Talent, AGT, NBC, Simon Cowell, reality TV, Piers Morgan, Sharon Osborne, David Hasselhoff