Trot out a few freaks, get a slick Hollywood type or a person with a posh accent to dress them down in front of millions of people, and print the money.Ĭowell was the best at it, because he appeared to take absolutely no pleasure in demolishing someone’s dreams. Shows like The Weakest Link and Idol were British imports that us Yanks found novel in the post-9/11 years. Sure, much of the genre still focuses on lunatics metaphorically (or literally) baring their arses to a camera, but they’re either totally aware of what they’re up to or the producers have a modicum of sympathy for them. He doesn’t need this, does he? What possessed him to come back after exiting the stage before his first love, American Idol, finally curdled into pure tedium? Couldn’t he have hired Alec Baldwin or a CGI rodent like the little guy from Ratatouille to take Howard Stern’s place after he left AGT? Wasn’t the shame of the disastrous American run of X-Factor enough humble pie for one man to eat?Īmerican reality TV is not in the business of overtly shaming people any more. The reality TV Mount Rushmore bears the faces of Real World creators Mary-Ellis Bunim and Jonathan Murray, Survivor producer Mark Burnett, The Bachelor’s Mike Fleiss, and Cowell and Simon Fuller. He probably owns more homes than I own pairs of socks, which would be quite a feat. He’s not Lord Sugar rich, but he’s certainly better off than, say, Rowan Atkinson or the combined entire cast of EastEnders. Thanks to AGT, The X-Factor, American Idol, and all the global spinoffs of each of those franchises, Cowell is one of the richest men in Britain. He’s Superman after eating a large bowl of kryptonite. This is the least edgy, least negative show on broadcast TV today, which has rendered the one thing people liked about Cowell totally, completely useless. In lieu of an actual competition, the producers trot out a series of hard-luck cases, weirdos, precocious children, and wild-eyed eccentrics to warm the hearts of sleep-deprived Americans. AGT, as it is colloquially known, is a treacly bowl of corn syrup disguised as entertainment. He chose America’s Got Talent, one of his “brilliant ideas” from the previous decade, to be his comeback vehicle. We’re currently trying to suss out whether to elect a reality show host as the next leader of the free world, so why not dig up the original bad boy of crap television so that he might reclaim his throne in this moment of ultimate cultural triumph? The only snag in this scenario is that Cowell’s gone native on us, trading in his natural British cynicism for a healthy dose of aw-shucks American cheese. Simon Cowell, the spoon-faced prince of reality TV train wrecks, is back in America and not a moment too soon.
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