American Idol 6: Was Stephanie’s Exit the “Shocking Result”?

At the beginning of this season, I predicted there would be a “shocking” result on American Idol in which a more talented and popular contestant would be sent home before a less talented competitor. In fact, I made the same prediction last year too, and the year before that, and so on. Yet each time it comes up, I have to write another column explaining why a certain result isn’t really that big a surprise. Today, the question comes up as to whether Stephanie’s exit is the shocking result of the season.

Taking a quick look at Google News for American Idol, some of the top stories include titles like, “‘American Idol’ Makes a Surprise Cut” (a title shared by ABC News, Fox News, the Houston Chronicle, and more), SI.com’s “‘American Idol’ Has Surprise Elimination,” KOMO’s “Surprise in Latest Round of ‘American Idol’ Cuts,” CNN International’s “‘American Idol’ Has Surprise Elimination,” and even an article in a Chinese newspaper titled “‘American Idol’ Cuts Stephanie Edwards, in a Surprise.” So apparently, some people in the media, at least, think this was a huge surprise.

There are certainly factors that would weigh in on the “yes, this was a surprise” side. Stephanie seemed to have one of the better voices in the competition – certainly she was a better singer than the likes of Sanjaya Malakar and Phil Stacey. At times it was thought that she might rise to somewhere near the level of LaKisha and Melinda.

But everybody should know by now that while American Idol is a singing competition, Peter Noone was right Tuesday night in saying it’s also a “voting competition.” Singing and performing are extremely important, but as we’ve seen every year, they are not the only factor. Indeed, if we only were choosing based on pure vocal ability, we wouldn’t need to have an audience vote. We would simply have judges who score the performances like the Olympics – holding up scorecards. The person with the lowest total would go home. Period. Then the only arguments would be about whether the French judge was improperly scoring a contestant.

As I’ve discussed before, the issue of a “voting contest” vs. a singing contest is what plays the largest part in determining which of the results are “surprising” or “shocking.” The really shocking votes cause those of us writing about Idol to receive oodles of e-mails, overflowing our inboxes, starting mere seconds after the results are read. A couple years ago, when Constantine Maroulis was sent home instead of Scott Savol, it was a good thing I have a large hard drive to hold all the e-mails that came flying in. With Stephanie, nothing.

This speaks to the heart of the matter. Stephanie certainly had fans, but they did not turn into fanatics. There is no “Fro Patro” for Stephanie, no teenybopper girls gushing tears in the audience for her. And looking at Why Stephanie Lost, we see why.

Also, it’s hard to consider anything a surprise when it’s been predicted by multiple people. Last week, I said Stephanie would likely end up as the Jennifer Hudson in a rerun of the “three divas” – in other words, she would be splitting votes with the likes of Melinda and LaKisha, and end up going home sooner than she really should. And then just this week on We’ll Be the Judge of That!, Sandy predicted Stephanie would leave while three of the other judges put her in the bottom three! And those are just the published predictions, as I know others were saying it wouldn’t surprise them if Stephanie was voted out.

Maybe that’s the key. I don’t know who wrote all the articles I mentioned above with “surprise” in their title, but it appears they might not have been following matters quite as closely as they would have us think. If this result had been a shock to regular viewers and fans, e-mail barrages would have begun by now. If it had been a shock to those of us covering the show, we obviously wouldn’t have had so many people predicting Stephanie’s danger.

Yes, judging the Idols according to pure vocal ability would have created a different outcome, but that’s not American Idol. This is not a surprising result.

Of course, that means we still have plenty of time for a truly shocking vote this season!

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

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

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