The Adam Lambert Problem
- Thursday, December 17, 2009, 21:09
- Entertainment News
- 961 views
- 10 comments
The news came in numbers and the numbers were fairly grim, all the grimmer for being unsurprising. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll reported this week that more than half of Americans, 55%, think America is on the wrong track, with only 33% saying it is going in the right direction. A stunning 66% say they’re not confident that their children’s lives will be better than their own (27% are).
It is another in a long trail of polls that show a clear if occasionally broken decline in American optimism. The poll was discussed on TV the other day, and everyone said those things everyone says: “People are afraid they’ll lose their jobs or their houses.” “It’s health care. Every uninsured person feels they’re one illness away from bankruptcy.”
All too true. The economy has always had an impact on the general American mood, and the poll offered data to buttress the reader’s assumption that economic concerns are driving pessimism. Fifty-one percent of those interviewed said they disapproved of the president’s handling of the economy, versus 42% approving.
But something tells me this isn’t all about money. It’s possible, and I can’t help but think likely, that the poll is also about other things, and maybe even primarily about other things.
Sure, Americans are worried about long-term debt and endless deficits. We’re worried about taxes and the burden we’re bequeathing to our children, and their children.
But we are concerned about other things, too, and there are often signs in various polls that those things may dwarf economic concerns. Americans are worried about the core and character of the American nation, and about our culture.
It is one thing to grouse that dreadful people who don’t care about us control our economy, but another, and in a way more personal, thing to say that people who don’t care about us control our culture. In 2009 this was perhaps most vividly expressed in the Adam Lambert Problem. More on that in a moment.
America is good at making practical compromises, and one of the compromises we’ve made in the area of arts and entertainment is captured in the words “We don’t care what you do in New York.” That was said to me years ago by a social conservative who was explaining that he and his friends don’t wish to impose their cultural sensibilities on a city that is uninterested in them, and that the city, in turn, shouldn’t impose its cultural sensibilities on them. He was speaking metaphorically; “New York” meant “wherever the cultural left happily lives.”
For years now, without anyone declaring it or even noticing it, we’ve had a compromise on television. Do you want, or will you allow into your home, dramas and comedies that, however good or bad, are graphically violent, highly sexualized, or reflective of cultural messages that you believe may be destructive? Fine, get cable. Pay for it. Buy your premium package, it’s your money, spend it as you like.
But the big broadcast networks are for everyone. They are free, they are available on every television set in the nation, and we watch them with our children. The whole family’s watching. Higher, stricter standards must maintain.
This was behind the resentment at the Adam Lambert incident on ABC in November. The compromise was breached. It was a broadcast network, it was prime time, it was the American Music Awards featuring singers your 11-year-old wants to see, and your 8-year-old. And Mr. Lambert came on and—again, in front of your children, in the living room, in the middle of your peaceful evening—uncorked an act in which he, in the words of various news reports the next day, performed “faux oral sex” featuring “S&M play,” “bondage gear,” “same-sex makeouts” and “walking a man and woman around the stage on a leash.”
People were offended, and they complained. Mr. Lambert seemed surprised and puzzled. With an idiot’s logic that was nonetheless logic, he suggested he was the focus of bigotry: They let women act perverse on TV all the time, so why can’t a gay man do it? Fifteen hundred callers didn’t see it as he did and complained to ABC, which was negligent but in the end responsive: They changed the West Coast feed and apparently kept Mr. Lambert off “Good Morning America.”
Mr. Lambert’s act left viewers feeling not just offended but assaulted. Again, “we don’t care what you do in New York,” but don’t include us in it, don’t bring it into our homes. Our children are here.
I don’t mean to make too much of it. In the great scheme of things a creepy musical act doesn’t matter much. But increasingly people feel at the mercy of the Adam Lamberts, who of course view themselves, when criticized, as victims of prudery and closed-mindedness. America is not prudish or closed-minded, it is exhausted. It cannot be exaggerated, how much Americans feel besieged by the culture of their own country, and to what lengths they have to go to protect their children from it.
It’s things like this, every bit as much as taxes and spending, that leave people feeling jarred and dismayed, and worried about the future of their country.
Truly, 2009 was a bad year for public behavior.
There were this year the party-crashing Salahis and their amoral assumption that their needs—fame and fortune, which are the same as Adam Lambert’s—trump everyone else’s. You want public order and security? We want a reality show. And there was their honest and very modern shock that people were criticizing them. “It’s ruined our lives,” Michaele Salahi told the Today show in a bid for sympathy. She and her husband in turn were reminiscent of the single woman who likes to have babies, and this year had eight, through in vitro fertilization, and apparently expected to win public praise.
All these things—plus Wall Street and Washington and the general sense that most of our great institutions have forgotten their essential mission—add up and produce a fear that the biggest deterioration in America isn’t economic but something else, something more characterological.
I’d like to see a poll on this. Yes or no: Have we become a more vulgar country? Are we coarser than, say, 50 years ago? Do we talk more about sensitivity and treat others less sensitively? Do you think standards of public behavior are rising or falling? Is there something called the American Character, and do you think it has, the past half-century, improved or degenerated? If the latter, what are the implications of this? Do you sense, as you look around you, that each year we have less or more of the glue that holds a great nation together? Is there less courtesy in America now than when you were a child, or more? Bonus question: Is “Excuse me” a request or a command?
So much always roils us in America, and so much always will. But maybe as 2010 begins and the 00s recede, we should think more about the noneconomic issues that leave us uneasy, and that need our attention. Not everything in America comes down to money. Not everything ever did. .
“With an Idiot’s logic, that is nonetheless logic”, you attempt to blame Adam Lambert, a rock singer, for the destruction of America? I have to tell you in all seriousness, that this has got to be the most laughable bit of journalism I have read in a long time. Now, just for grins, lets look at this horrific scenario in a different perspective. One that would make an “Idiots logic” ( that being yours) start at the “beginning” of the problem here, instead of at the end.
I can picture you and your children, in your living room having a peaceful evening, Your 11 year old and 8 year old are waiting to see their favorite formers that night of the AMAs. Its a school night and getting close to 11 pm…hmmmm. Children up that late, given special permission because they want to see someone sing on TV, even though, this show could be recorded and watched the next day after school. That must have been a hard decision to make… “Do we let them stay up to watch singers on TV or make them go to bed so they are well rested for school tomorrow?” Or does it really matter because Mom and Dad both work and probably wont be home when they get home from school anyway, so they can just take a quick nap then and try to catch up on their sleep. I mean, don’t we all see how important it is that our children are allowed to lose sleep in order to watch TV? Ok…you decided that the TV was more important, now on with the show. I’m wondering at this point, which one of the entertainers that night was your 11 year old and 8 year olds idol. Was in Janet Jackson? Of course I can see where she is such a role model there. Did they enjoy the “grab your crotch” performance she did that night? Or did they like it when she grabbed someone else’s better? But I’m just guessing their favorite was the rap singers on the show! What a conversation they probably had with their friends the following day when they bragged that they got to hear about “Slim Shady” having 16 rapes under his belt!!! I’m really hoping at this point that you didn’t go as far as giving them “nude” looking suits to put on and bottles of liquor to bust over your piano so that they could be like Lady Gaga. DId they get to practice sitting with their legs spread apart and humping? You know how they have that peer pressure thing at school. If you didn’t let them act like their “idols” that were on the show, they may have to reap the repercussions at school. Yes, I’m so glad that all these acts came long before Adam Lambert was even on the stage and your children got to see the “good stuff” first. Must I really go on or are you somehow getting the big picture here? What came first here, Adam Lamberts performance or your lack of good parenting? Adam Lambert didn’t”t have your children, he didn’t allow them to stay up late on a school night, he didn’t allow them to watch the raunchy “entertainment ” that came before his, and he sure didn’t steal the “OFF” button from your TV. Go back to being a parent and quit trying to be a writer, Right now your failing at both!
To be frank, I’d set the unease that sex exists and not all people are not the same (which the unnamed nebulous “American” masses apparantly feel) against the fact that performers and people like Lambert make the people who in the past lived miserable, individual lives due to their sexuality feel proud of themselves.
The role of the media in promoting controversy and celebrating unusual behaviour is the issue here – art or freak show. It’s not new, by any manner of means. Circuses? fairground sideshows? Make a cheap buck? I think what Lambert did was more about freedom of expression, albeit done in a way more suited to a theatre show than tv, but hey, no-one died. The media had a field day creating a storm. The media will always be vulgar.
I imagine the threat of losing your home would make this sort of stuff fade into insignificance – people will want progammes about the bravery of rescue dogs, or period dramas (not that I don’t watch those..). True creativity will go back to the clubs and smaller spaces, and it is the brave broadcaster who carries on making good drama.
Surely America is all about diversity and freedom – of religion, speech, expression.
Adam Lambert in person promotes equality, openness, positivity and has genuine talent to offer. This was one performance, it was meant to be shocking, and he probably won’t do it again, sadly. I think he is an inspiration to young people in America and elsewhere.
Oh, and he offers fun. Dancing, singing and having a good time, Forgot the most important thing..
I CANT BELIEVE YOU BLAMED ADAM LAMBERT FOR THE PROBLEMS OF OUR COUNTRY…AND YOU ALL YOURSELF A JOURNALIST ? GET SOME NEW MATERIAL !!
OH YEAH, THANKS GINA…I FEEL THE SAME WAY YOU DO, LOVE YOUR COMMENT !!!
A true conservative would focus on INDIVIDUAL responsibility including that of parents. If parents want authority, they must take responsibility –which means deciding which shows are appropriate. I find it fascinating that Noonan chose to ignore possibly-inappropriate heterosexuality on display MUCH earlier in the evening, such as the premiere episode of Cougartown which included simulated fellatio. Why is that unworthy of comment — let alone blame for the downfall of our country?
I am sure Adam Lambert and his parents must be utterly astonished to know that he is a god of Olympian powers — able to tear down an entire country with a kiss and crotch grind. Forget the two wars, forget the economy, forget the health insurance crisis — none of that matters in comparison to one young man’s sexuality. I bet gay folks didn’t know how powerful they really were, what with all the setbacks on the road to equality in this country — apparently all they needed to do was to send Mr.Lambert out on the road and obstacles to the “gay agenda” would crumble in the path of his platform boots or depending upon his mood, sneakers.
The REAL problem here is Noonan’s attempt to deflect attention away from the real issues of this country — which originated under her old boss, Bush — and onto a singer. How pathetic. Also pathetic is how conservatism has been twisted away from the notion of the best government is that which governs least into a perverted and McCarthyistic paternalism in which we all must hew to the same standards of the repressed radical right.
It is true that Adam has had a huge impact on America. His fans are addicted and love him and his foes are obsessed with him (Peggy N for example). This has created a real conversation in America and people are having to consider their loyalty to freedom of artistic expression and their biases toward gays which they have been hiding for a long time. Still, to blame 1 artist for the condition of the American Culture today is just nuts!! Anyone who was oblivious to the sexual content of the AMAs before this year, could not have missed it this year and to blame that on the final performance is just juvenile and truly confirms the double standard prevalent in the complaints. Aside from that, prime time TV on the networks is filled with violence, sex and murder – so why are we picking on one program. I for one though believe strongly in monitoring our own behavior and the use of remotes. I do not want the right wing nuts “cleaning up” programming and telling people what to watch. I also am a responsible parent and am careful what my kids watch and don’t want the govt or Peggy telling me what appropriate programming is.
Reprinting this trash opinion by the ultra conservative crackpot, Noonan, just makes you look as out of touch and insane as she is.
America was declining in all the areas you are lamenting long before Adam Lambert was born, first of all, and second, ABC’s treatment of him in cancelling his performances was grounds for a discrimination lawsuit under the Civil Liberties Act if you ask me. Instead of focusing on one kind of awkwardly conceived and executed performance (Adam himself says it was not one of his best, read between the lines) , let’s look at Adam Lambert as a whole person, his talent, his charity work, and his lovely impeccable manners in interview after interview. And finally, since you brought up “the precious children”, think what a shining light Adam Lambert must be to gay kids out there. Just think what it must mean to see him out their showing them it’s ok to be what you were meant to be. My uncle (born in 1934) lived a life of misery and pain as a gay man, expelled from college when he told someone, fired from a job when the company found out, always ashamed, SOME CHANGES IN SOCIETY ARE GOOD YOU KNOW. I’m so sorry he didn’t live to see Adam Lambert, he would have loved him. Some of those “precious children” are going to live gay lives, and Adam Lambert, just living his, is the perfect role model for them.
This is no class article, it was not Adam Lambert’s problem, it’s you who claimed to be a journalist! If I was a godly parent, I would not allow my children to watch this AMA from the beginning. I don’t understand why you can tolerate foul language in Eminem’s song, it’s a part of your daily life, right? You love a little bit of violence when Lady gaga broke the glass, smashed the liquor bottles at her piano, your kids love it,right? Rihanna showed her power with a gun it’s cute, right? Janet grabbed the crotch, it’s Okay since she’s celebrity, right? Please look back and tell me why you allowed your children to absorb these behaviors and put the blame on Adam! Why people have sex before getting married, no good parenting? Parents should solely responsible for their children to choose the right program for them. H