An Open Letter To “American Idol” Contestants

Dear American Idol Contestants:

I just saw parts of the show tonight, as I’ve watched the beginning of the season of American Idol in past years. And once again I’m struck by how wonderful it is that it’s a show that gives young people a chance to shine and to focus on music that is family-friendly.

But I’m also struck by how so many young people’s dreams have been shattered over the years by insulting and humiliating remarks by (wealthy and successful) judges who roll their eyes, make comments about someone’s looks, their weight, and deliver zingers that at times have left some of you crying and sobbing in the hallways.

Please read this sentence:

Most REAL auditions are NOT like this. Again: Most REAL auditions are not like this.

I don’t care how “bad” someone says you are — or even if you ARE.

Don’t let people who are being paid huge sums of money to draw in and keep viewers watching by heightening drama, conflict and emotion steal YOUR dream.

If you think you can sing and the judges laughed at you or insulted you, what did YOU see when you saw the tape of your performance? Can you stand back and see if there are things about it where they were correct and also where they were wrong?

Can you fine-tune it?

Can you take even part of that talent that gave you the courage to get up there in the first place — that self-assuredness that someone will not just watch you but might consider you worthy of signing a recording contract — and use it in some other aspect of the arts or even some other job (if YOU choose)? Or, perhaps you realize when you see the tape that you need to work on it a LOT. Fine.

I can’t watch the show like most people do. And perhaps it’s because I’ve “been there” — and also know how the REAL world of auditions works. REAL auditions are far less traumatic…and if you’re not going anywhere you get the message and either evolve or quit on our own.

In a typical audition, you go up there (usually after you’re given very little notice about the audition time) and you show them what you can do. In a typical audition, they won’t roll their eyes, say you’re ugly, say you have no talent, use a Don Rickles-style insult and make you feel like two cents and like you want to die because you went in there thinking you had something to offer.

In a typical audition, they’ll say “Thank you.” And the move on to the next person. If they don’t want you, they won’t call you.

So you audition again. And again. And again. Until you decide to change how you do it, or that it just ain’t gonna happen.

Stand-up comedy is the same way: most of the folks you see on TV who started in comedy clubs started in open mikes and, as they got better, became opening acts, then middle acts and finally, headliners. They honed their acts by being just OK or bad and then adjusting until they were good.

The ones you saw on TV didn’t give up because someone insulted them on national TV.

So in most real auditions, the people don’t leave crying or humiliated.

But that would make for boring TV, wouldn’t it?

Still, if it was boring you wouldn’t see so many truly-crushed young people. Perhaps some of them would even be able to go home feeling like they were worth something even if they didn’t make the cut. The could take a deep breath, go home and see if they could improve or funnel their talents into a related area.

It WOULD be boring to see if the judges politely said “Thank you,” and move onto the next one.

And boring doesn’t make for a good show.

I’ve auditioned countless times, mostly for movies, TV and commercials. I’m five-foot-one-inch tall. No one ever said anything about my size.

No one said I have a big nose (which I do).

It was always a polite “thank you” or I’d get a “call back” (I got lots of those) where they invited me back to try again. I LIKED all of the people who auditioned me, even if I didn’t get a part, which most often than not I didn’t.

And, since I live in San Diego, each time I went up for an audition I’d spent 3 hours driving up and battling the traffic to LA and three hours back. I’d return not having made a cent on it. But I did it because I wanted to keep trying and not ONCE during an audition did anyone make me feel like two cents.

I finally did get one TV gig. I was hired to do a stunt on the Candid Camera-like show “Spy TV” on NBC a few years back. In this episode titled “Dummy Escape,” I left the room and my dummy came “alive” and asked a four year old to run away from me. The show aired twice on NBC, was highly popular (they used it in promo for weeks on the air for the commercials) and every few years I get a residual check of about $7 when it’s shown overseas (which will buy me a cup of coffee at Starbucks).

But I’ve only had one agent when I first started out who said “you have no act” –and in later years he’d come over to me at trade shows in Vegas where I was pitching my act (and being represented by another agent, who made lots of money off me) to fairs and say how he had heard how good a family show my act was I still have his letter somewhere where he told me when I was starting out that I had “no act. I want to find it and frame it. BECAUSE I IGNORED HIM.

I may have financial problems. I may not be Tom Cruise. I may not have the biggest weblog in the world. And it may never grow beyond what it is now. But I DO have my aspirations and my dreams and I will be DAMNED if at ANY age I’m going to let anyone try to stop me from pursuing them until the day when I MYSELF feel it’s time to move on.

Yes, I laughed with the others when I saw some of you flop and be insulted in past years.

And I felt like I needed to take a shower for doing it.

Do NOT give up. If you didn’t have guts, and grit and weren’t admirable, most of you wouldn’t have gotten in front of strangers that you knew could cut you down verbally in front of the world. And they often did it with a smile.

Pursue your dreams. Which doesn’t mean your dream will remain the same.

Sometimes our dreams change.

Sometimes we conclude that a dream isn’t quite possible to translate into reality.

BUT YOU decide that. Not Simon. Not Paula.

I love American Idol and America’s Got Talent because of how they can build someone up and give them a chance.

But to get there, the show also tears some people down who did not HAVE to be ripped down and who, in a real audition, would most likely be let down easy (unless they got one of the show judges in a real audition).

American Idol and America’s Got Talent are HIGHLY admirable for keeping family-friendly entertainment not just alive but in the minds of young people as something worth doing and lucrative.

So if you were devastated realize: not all of us think you are hopeless.

Some of us (and I have met others) don’t think you’re “losers.”

And some of us don’t think wealthy judges insulting dream-filled people decades younger than they are necessarily “winners.”

Real auditions don’t operate that way.

Try some real ones.

The worst that’ll happen is they won’t call.

But they won’t call you anything, either.

Sincerely,

Joe Gandelman