Much Ado About Sanjaya

The moment that Simon Cowell has been waiting for has arrived. Sanjaya Malakar has been voted out of the American Idol contest.

I am not a big Sanjaya fan as well. He reminds me of this character in the American Idol parody: American Dreamz (Yes, I watched the film. The date didn’t work out fine, but I’m glad the movie was senselessly hilarious. At least I was entertained.)

The Mandy Moore starrer had a lot of interesting characters, including this clumsy terrorist named Omar, who joined the American Dreamz contest in order to kill the President of the United States. Omar had a gay cousin, who had been dreaming of joining American Dreamz. I found that character so funny, especially since I haven’t really seen a gay Arab in a film before.


Back to Sanjaya Malakar. He is admittedly, not the best singer in this season of American Idol, he doesn’t have the best moves, and he doesn’t have the best hair. Obviously, I am not a fan.

But Americans seem to be amused by him. And they seem to be upset that Simon doesn’t like him. Ryan even had the nerve to ask Simon if his comments were because the performance was so bad, or was it because it was Sanjaya. Simon got infuriated with Ryan’s comments and rightly so.

Simon wasn’t really appalled with Sanjaya the first time he heard him sing. In fact, Simon was impressed that he told Sanjaya: "[You are]A lot better than your sister... she has the stage presence and I think you have the better voice. You're like a shy little thing who's got a good voice." The problem with Mr. Malakar is that he wasn’t able to have a good follow through with this first impression.

There’s this one interview Ryan Seacrest did with this girl on the street and she said something about Sanjaya and William Hung.

But Sanjaya shouldn’t be compared with William Hung. Mr. Malakar CAN sing. He can sing pretty decently. If we look back at his audition, I’d say he was alright. He had all the reason in the world to audition for American Idol:


William Hung, however, cannot sing. He had no business auditioning for American Idol.


And that enlightened me as to why Americans are so amused with Mr. Malakar. I thought at first they liked him because of that whole “Michael Jackson” kind of aura he has. But I guess it’s because he’s undoubtedly Asian-looking. They think he’s a comic character, a funny guy. His “popularity” is borne out of America’s tendency to become racists: Dude, Asian guys are so hilarious.

I bet even if good belters like Dessa or Jed Medella make it to American Idol, they’d still be ridiculed. Unless of course they say they are from Hawaii and not dwell too much on their Filipino heritage: case in point, Jasmine Trias. Then again, what’s Jasmine doing now?