Lambert, “I’m Not a Babysitter”

Another lewd cliché-driven song-and-dance act broadcast during a pop music awards program has outraged middle America, the US-based Parents Television Council, and a handful of conservative radio talk show hosts. We at AHM are outraged that a little implied sex on TV has gotten people so fired up, and that the audience’s reactions can be so easily manipulated.

The current offending artist is Adam Lambert, a product of the American Idol pop star factory and last season’s runner up. His performance of For Your Entertainment, the closing act of the American Music Awards, included faux-oral sex, gay-male make-outs and implied bondage and S&M play, as well as the music industry stalwarts crotch grabbing, hip thrusting, and vulgar gesturing. The audience’s reactions ranged from cheers to jeers, despite the fact that we’ve seen it all before.

Lambert banked on his act being controversial. “It’s gonna be sexy, I think,” Lambert told MTV News last week about his planned AMA performance. He also declared that anyone who criticized his display of sexual liberty was endorsing a double standard that says straight women can explore their (bi)sexuality onstage, but gay men can’t. Adam, where have you been? Karen and I can recall watching David Bowie exploring his sexuality with Trent Reznor during a concert in Toronto about 20 years ago. Lambert’s parents might’ve caught David Bowie cavorting with Mick Ronson back in the early 1970s, long before their lives were encumbered with a kid named Adam.

Lambert repeated the double-standard line of reasoning with Rolling Stone backstage after the show. “Female performers have been doing this for years — pushing the envelope about sexuality — and the minute a man does it, everybody freaks out. My goal was not to piss people off, it was to promote freedom of expression and artistic freedom.”

Straight men are usually turned on by watching women explore their sexuality regardless of who their partners are but the “oh yeah” becomes “uh-oh” as soon as a gay man becomes the explorer. When I asked Paddy, our male intern with wide-ranging sexual preferences, about this he simply shrugged his shoulders, and said, “They’re either insecure and feel threatened, or jealous. Straight guys are jealous of hot gay guys because they think the fags are getting more sex. So many people like their gay men to be like Will from Will and Grace, you know: gregarious, well-dressed, girlish and harmless. A fag like Lambert is threatening because he seems dangerous and straight girls think he’s hot. Insecure dudes think they can’t compete so they hate him. It’s pathetic, really.”

As a hot button issue Lambert’s homosexuality is trumped by the overt sexiness of his act. Since 9-11 conservative fundamentalism has dominated North America and many Americans react to commercial displays of sexuality as if they were evil temptations rather than forms of art, entertainment, or marketing. These critics of televised sex regularly trot out children as examples of vulnerable innocents who need protection, as if ‘tweens will bleed from their eyes if they see a naked breast, or two men kissing. This tactic exploits children and relieves parents from taking responsibility for what their kids watch on TV. Lambert’s response to this form of attack, as told to Ryan Seacrest, is perfect, “I’m not a babysitter, I’m a performer.” The larger issue is that television sets, and computers, are also not babysitters; concerned parents should stop complaining about what entertainers do and spend more time parenting.

Adam Lambert said he’s defending artistic freedom and freedom of expression but his act was not high art. His performance was an ad for his upcoming album For Your Entertainment, released the next day. He knew that the more buzz he could create prior to the release the better, and the nature of the publicity was irrelevant as long as everyone spelled Lambert’s name correctly. It seems everyone did; music industry number crunchers say FYE could sell at least 225,000 copies in its first week. Not bad for a glam gay also-ran.

Research: Angelina Pieros

Sources: Fox News, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, MTV, ryanseacrest.com

Tags: Adam Lambert

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 28th, 2009 at 11:59 pm and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.