Subscribe to Print Edition | Mon., June 08, 2009 Sivan 16, 5769 | | Israel Time: 22:33 (EST+7)
Haaretz israel news English
web haaretz.com
Haaretz Toolbar
Diplomacy
Defense Jewish World Opinion National
Print Edition
Car Rental
Books Haaretz Magazine Business Real Estate Focus U.S.A. Travel Week's End Anglo File
Share |
Last update - 22:36 28/05/2009
In Israel, Adam Lambert would have won
By Bradley Burston
Tags: American Idol, Israel News 

Click here for more articles by Bradley Burston

If it had been up to Israelis, "American Idol" runner-up Adam Lambert would have won.

Not because he's Jewish. And not because the vote may have been rigged. Because he can sing.

Israelis keep asking me why Adam Lambert, whose gargantuan talent clearly places him in the category of Touched By God, didn't win. Here is one reason:

Because many, many Americans don't want to think that God works that way.

I should state at the outset that is not a column about music. This is, at heart, about deviance, and how societies respond to the deviants in their midst - whether with fascistic denial ["In Iran, we don't have homosexuals"], or with an unease that spurs them to seek desperate refuge in the bland.

Seldom has a singing contest been so clear-cut a case of no contest. In a final duet alongside eventual winner Kris Allen, Adam Lambert sang him off the stage. And no one knew that better than Kris Allen.

So what was it about Lambert that moved tens of millions of Americans to make sure that he would not win?

Some, at least, decided to take a stand. It was time to cast a vote against deviant behavior. Against men who keep their eyeliner thick and their sexual preference determinedly indeterminate. Against a polite, generous, fearsomely gifted deviant.


Adam Lambert performing in the 2009 American Idol final (Reuters)


When the internet brimmed with photos of what appeared to be a femme Adam kissing men, his response was one which triggered every trip wire of passive-aggressive American grundyism. "I have nothing to hide," he said. "I am who I am."

Through no fault of Kris Allen's, who, by all accounts, is exactly the unassuming, more-surprised-than-anyone small-town Arkansas guy he appears to be, many Americans seem to have viewed him as holding the fort against the darkness of diversity and/or non-Christianity.

"The battle of good versus evil, dark versus light, played out in the context of a culture war," wrote Danielle Berrin in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal. "The nation's conservatives changed the game by voting their conscience, not their common sense. And in the end, 'Idol' viewers proved that they're not that interested in the best singer. They don't even care about electing a star. All that matters is that they get to worship their Idol, the one who is just like them."

Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, while declaring that the best man should win, displayed a bowdlerized version of the photographs, and could not resist asking a guest expert: "Can illegal aliens vote in this?"

Which brings us to Israel. Soon after the Idol finale aired in the Jewish state at the weekend, the crowning segment of Israel's version of "Survivor" was broadcast live from the ancient Roman amphitheater in Caesarea.

Perhaps the most telling moment in the broadcast was a look at the daily life of Arik Alper, a slight pediatrician with deer-in-headlights eyes, who would go on to survive all other contestants and win the million shekel grand prize.

"I wasn't one of the more popular kids in the class," Alper said, on a filmed visit to his boyhood school. "I was on the sidelines. I was different. I was in the closet. I was the ugly duckling."

The day before, the mass-circulation Maariv newspaper published an extensive article detailing how "Over the past decade homosexuals have turned from an exotic detour on [talk-show host] Dan Shilon's panel, to the kings of prime-time." Among the gallery of famous gays were two of the 20 Survivor contestants, one of them Arik Alper.

"To me," he told the camera, "being the last survivor is to be the most popular kid in the fourth grade, which I never was."

Say what you will about Israel, this place has developed an exceptional tolerance for behavior traditionally deemed deviant. One of the judges on Kochav Nolad (A Star is Born), Israel's version of American Idol, is Dana International, a post-op transsexual singing star whose unapologetic exuberance persuaded Israelis to choose her as their representative to the 1998 Eurovision Song Contest, in which she took first place.

Perhaps a certain tolerance, or predilection, for flamboyantly deviant behavior devolves from the way Israel is itself seen as deviant in its region and in the world. In this world, all Israelis have a certain otherness about them, a statistical minority status.

Certainly, any American in Israel can relate. All American Jews who live in Israel are, by definition, deviants, no matter how conventional their lifestyle may be. They have done what only one out of 100 American Jews does - and, for that matter, just 0.02 percent of all Americans chooses to do - live in Israel.

On the surface, the choice of Kris Allen - not unlike the choice of George W. Bush - suggests that the more unreliable America seems, the more unsafe, the more threatening it gets, that is, the more diverse it gets, the more the people who used to call themselves Real Americans, that is, Christians, are going to look for a Kris Allen to soothe them.

"Though never referenced on the show," the Associated Press commented, "Allen's religious background may have also played a role. Allen has worked as a worship leader at his hometown church, traveling on mission trips around the globe."

It could be that the fight over separation of church and state is giving way to a struggle over separation of church and gays, one in which - as in the California referendum which successfully outlawed gay marriage - Christian churchgoers of all colors and cultures band together in common cause against societal acceptance of what they view as deviant sexuality.

The trend in Israel, meanwhile, may be just the opposite. A recent online poll commissioned by Channel 2 Television showed that 52 percent of all Israelis (and 76 percent of secular Israelis) favor civil marriage for gays; 51 percent of all Israelis back full equal rights for gays and lesbians; and 80 percent of all Israelis would be willing to be neighbors to gays and lesbians.

The military in Israel has also shown more openness to gays than its American counterpart. As one observer noted, "The policy in the IDF is, 'Don't ask, and nobody cares.'"

In the end, after a campaign year in which "Hollywood" was one of Fox News' favorite epithets, a euphemism for the unfair dominance of social mores, cultural attitudes, and political behavior by a small claque of non-Christians, is it any wonder that a starry-eyed, showbiz-bred Pacific Coast Hebrew should rub Bible Belters the wrong way?

So, from one Southern California Jewish deviant to another, I'd like to extend Adam Lambert an open invitation to come visit a world fountainhead of deviance.

Don't be shocked if you feel oddly at home.

__________________

Recent blogs:

Obama, Netanyahu, and two states for spoiled brats
How would Israel look if its left finally died?
Michael Oren, Ambassador, or, this is how the occupation ends
Could the Taliban get the bomb before Iran does?
Obama, Netanyahu, and Zionists Against Occupation
Pharaoh for Passover, a dead son, and the Jews
The Mideast conflict in 27 words or less
Why does the world media love to hate Israel?
The racist Israeli fascist in me
Bookmark to del.icio.us  
 
See no evil
Prosecution drops all charges against settler filmed shooting Palestinians in Hebron.
The downside of greed
T.A. court convicts former finance minister Abraham Hirchson of multimillion shekel fraud.
  1.   ממש לא נכון 17:28  |  ישראלית 25/05/09
  2.   Sour grapes 17:58  |  Mrs. Defarge 25/05/09
  3.   Adam Lambert 18:05  |  Kelley 25/05/09
  4.   Adam 19:07  |  catherine 25/05/09
  5.   Idol 19:28  |  Unchel 25/05/09
  6.   Adam vs Kris 20:00  |  Nikki 25/05/09
  7.   I disagree. 21:23  |  David Israel 25/05/09
  8.   Adam versus Kris 21:23  |  Judy 25/05/09
  9.   Idolatry 21:29  |  JW 25/05/09
  10.   Adam 21:30  |  Judy 25/05/09
  11.   Nonsense 22:00  |  Karen 25/05/09
  12.   The Arkansas Vote 22:21  |  Caroline 25/05/09
  13.   Grow up 22:22  |  Deer 25/05/09
  14.   It was the little children who voted Kris 22:25  |  Gil 25/05/09
  15.   Another Burston fantasy 22:42  |  Colin Wright 25/05/09
  16.   Mrs. Defarge 23:02  |  Beth 25/05/09
  17.   Other explanations? 23:15  |  Michael Greenberg 25/05/09
  18.   Adam`s non-win WIN 23:19  |  DeeDee 25/05/09
  19.   American Idol 23:44  |  Will 25/05/09
  20.   People have different tastes 23:46  |  Judy 25/05/09
  21.   Good News Mr. Burston!! 23:58  |  Lynn 25/05/09
  22.   Pathetic 00:03  |  wibism 26/05/09
  23.   English, please, Mr. Israeli 00:29  |  CA Bill 26/05/09
  24.   English, please, Ms. Israelit 00:34  |  CA Bill 26/05/09
  25.   If he had been arab 00:40  |  Pepet Grill 26/05/09
  26.   BB says 2+2 = 4879436 01:06  |  ZISD 26/05/09
  27.   dear deer 02:03  |  israelette 26/05/09
  28.   Thank You 02:25  |  Deviants for Adam 26/05/09
  29.   The Real Result 09:53  |  J 26/05/09
  30.   Not an A.I. viewer 10:20  |  David Zukerman 26/05/09
  31.   #5unchel,as for voting a Black president into office,they also vo 10:37  |  Susanna/Shoshana 26/05/09
  32.   Dear Bradley 11:57  |  Edith 26/05/09
  33.   To Susannah/Shoshana #33 12:19  |  Colin Wright 26/05/09
  34.   What A Load of Crap! 14:54  |  John Simpson 26/05/09
  35.   Adam is good, a little too good 16:25  |  Daniel 26/05/09
  36.   Girls attrected to Kris 16:31  |  Jeff 26/05/09
  37.   You forget 1 thing 16:34  |  Jeff 26/05/09
  38.   Miss California 16:54  |  ted 26/05/09
  39.   American Idol 16:59  |  Mary Newlon 26/05/09
  40.   WE WUZ ROBBED!!!! 17:15  |  JW 26/05/09
  41.   Colin Wright - selective ignorance 17:37  |  Magpie 26/05/09
  42.   No sour grapes please!!! 18:20  |  lily 26/05/09
  43.   When he put his "gayness " ahead of his obvious talent 18:40  |  Witness 26/05/09
  44.   haaretz, @1. exellent idea to permit hebrew comments 20:32  |  vladimir 26/05/09
  45.   Adam Lambert 00:58  |  Laurie Brooks 27/05/09
  46.   The best won 01:12  |  sh 27/05/09
  47.   If Chris had lost...... 05:18  |  Cyndi 27/05/09
  48.   Adam 15:29  |  Rolly 27/05/09
  49.   laurie brooks for adam 19:17  |  lou 28/05/09
  50.   Colin... 23:33  |  Michael 28/05/09
  51.   In Israel, I wouldn`t have wasted my time 22:59  |  W 29/05/09
  52.   Adam Was Great 19:28  |  Paul Halsall 30/05/09
  53.   Deviants 09:33  |  Mark Scher 31/05/09
  54.   wibism your comment about whining zionist was 18:01  |  x-ray 31/05/09
  55.   sh you obviously heard one song only be each 18:04  |  x-ray 31/05/09
  56.   Two times wrong 09:44  |  Adina 02/06/09
  57.   American Idol 12:33  |  Jew 03/06/09
  58.   Lambert`s face might have played better in Israel 20:54  |  joe 08/06/09
Special Offers
Advertisement
hotel Jerusalem
David Citadel Hotel, come stay at the finest of Jerusalem hotels.
ISRAEL ARMY SURPLUS STORE
IDF insignia,Uniforms, Paladium Boots Watches, Israel Army T-shirts & Collectibles
Dead Sea Skin Care
Quality cosmetics from the Dead Sea. Coupon code HAARETZ for 12% off!
Eldan Rent a Car
Israel's leading car rental company offers you a 20% discount on online reservations
Junkyard
Junk a car - get free towing nationwide and a tax-deductible receipt
More Headlines
19:46 'Obama peace push will fail without talking to Hamas'
22:22 Did the U.S. agree to Israeli construction in West Bank settlements?
21:47 Defeated Hezbollah accepts Lebanon election results
13:50 U.S. envoy: Obama wants 'immediate' Mideast talks
15:13 IDF kills four Gaza militants, thwarting apparent kidnap bid
19:49 Prosecution drops indictment against settler filmed shooting Palestinians
11:49 Live from Iraq: It's Stephen Colbert
20:58 WATCH: Daily news round-up from Israel
21:03 Ex-soccer star Revivo flees Israel due to mob threats on his life
18:37 ANALYSIS / Hezbollah may have lost, but it will still rule Lebanon
11:01 Ex-finance minister Hirchson guilty of multimillion shekel fraud
22:17 Netanyahu prevails as rightist MKs tapped for key judiciary panel
Home | TV | Print Edition | Diplomacy | Opinion | Arts & Leisure | Sports | Jewish World | Site rules |
| Israel 2009 election results | Makom: Engaging on Israel
| Search engine marketing
Haaretz.com, the online edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel, offers real-time breaking news, opinions and analysis from Israel and the Middle East. Haaretz.com provides extensive and in-depth coverage of Israel, the Jewish World and the Middle East, including defense, diplomacy, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the peace process, Israeli politics, Jerusalem affairs, international relations, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Israeli business world and Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora.
© Copyright  Haaretz. All rights reserved