Prolific Twitter-er and Executive Producer of American Idol Nigel Lythgoe is on his way to the Super Bowl. And he’s Tweeting from his limo!
I am in a VIP police motorcade going to the stadium. We’ve just gone passed the “grassy.knoll” it’s all very exciting. GO PACKERS GO!!!
The Super Bowl is in Dallas, of course, and Lythgoe just went past the infamous grassy knoll. I’m pretty sure you may have heard about this grassy knoll before. And that book depository. Dealey Plaza. And that big assassination of that American president back in November 1963.
What does this tell me? Nigel Lythgoe just loves the excitement of a tragic story. Its as if this entire statement offers all the insight one needs into wondering why contestants seem to need a bigger sob story than actual talent. He’s in a motorcade. He’s being driven past the grassy knoll. IT’S ALL VERY EXCITING. You can feel his excitement growing. It’s probably much like how he felt upon finding out one of this year’s Idol hopefuls had a non-speaking fiancee confined to a wheelchair.
Perhaps Lythgoe is as rich and successful as he is because he is keenly aware of what works with the majority of the public and with a show like American Idol. Tragedy. Sob stories. Those one can view from the safe distance of your living room. Those which have no direct effect on one’s actual life. Let’s take a sob story and make a star out of them! Cancer doesn’t cut it anymore. Too many people get cancer. Boring. But how many people have dead or almost-dead significant others, can carry a tune, and be under 29 all at the same time? A young girl who came to this country as a refugee from war-torn Kosovo doesn’t cut it. You have your old girlfriend ready to pimp from your wheelchair and you have a penis, bullseye. You’re going on Oprah before they even show you in the Hollywood rounds.
