American Idol 6: All Eyes Are on Antonella

Tonight, American Idol features the ten remaining women competing to move into the finals. There are several who deserve special attention and notice, given their performances of last week and what we’ve seen of them previously. But when it comes right down to it, all eyes will be on one contestant who is not among that elite group: Antonella Barba.

Certainly there will be some viewers who are unaware of what’s been going on with the Antonella photo scandal. These will be the viewers who live in caves and use rabbit ears to get their Fox TV signal. (Note to younger readers: Not real rabbit ears – that’s what antennae on the tops of TV sets were called before cable and satellite dishes.) Everybody else knows by now about the various and sundry pictures that have been floating around. (In case you’re not fully up to date, here is the latest as of yesterday.)

So what will viewers be thinking when Antonella takes the stage? A large part of this will be determined by what – if anything – Ryan Seacrest says in introducing Antonella. If he says nothing, viewers will continue to scratch their heads, wondering what is going on and why nobody official is saying anything. As I noted in the article linked above, the silence is deafening – if I or any of my family were implicated in something like this and I knew the worst of it was false, I would be telling that to anybody who would listen. I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way. In general, silence tends be associated with a cover-up, whether it’s the government, business, or American Idol.

While nobody (apart from Antonella’s friend, who didn’t say anything of note) has had an official comment, All Headline News reported today that “the producers have said that if it was confirmed that Barba was in the degrading photos, they would then release a statement.” But even that doesn’t really answer anything, nor does it address what they will do about the other pictures if she isn’t in the worst ones. All we know from that statement is that the producers don’t know for certain if she was in the most pornographic of the pictures.

That brings us back to Antonella. If she is introduced for her song tonight just like all the other contestants, what will viewers think? Will they think, “Aw, that poor girl,” because they believe she’s been unfairly persecuted? Or will they think, “That slut!” because they believe somebody who has been in racy photographs cannot ever be the American Idol. Of course, asking the question this way makes it sound like Idol viewers are one homogeneous group when they obviously are not. It’s likely there will be some of each in the viewing audience. But which group will prevail?

If Antonella is not booted by producers and does not resign on her own (both of which seem unlikely at this point, given that she was in attendance when the guys performed last night, and news is starting to trickle out that a producer told Extra Antonella would stay), I believe she will make it through to the next round. (I recognize this appears to contradict what I said in my prediction article, but in that article I said I expected her to be booted; here I am talking about what happens if she’s not – also, that article was written before more doubt was cast on the worst of the photos.) Why do I think she’ll make it through? Because there are ten women competing and only two going home. She will have people voting for her just because they feel bad about what she’s gone through. Her friends and family will pull together. She will have a voting bloc. At this stage of the competition, that will likely be enough to put her ahead of some of the other contestants who pair up weak performances with fade-into-the-background personalities.

Of course, if she does pull through as I predict, this story will continue for at least another week. And likely the cone of silence emanating from Idol will also continue, which means the questions will continue.

All eyes will remain on Antonella rather than the rest of the Idol competition until she is sent packing or viewers start getting some answers.

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out these other recent articles on Foxes On Idol:

David Bloomberg is the Editor of Foxes On Idol, and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com.

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