No Talent Required

By James Poniewozik

On American Idol, calling a performance "bad karaoke" is the worst insult the judges can hurl. It is also the greatest compliment they can bestow. Idol viewers, after all, have made the caterwauling audition episodes the highest-rated, except for the finale. In their eyes, karaoke is the Mae West of entertainment: when it's bad, it's better.

It was only a matter of time until some attentive reality producer figured out a way to remove all the bothersome competence from Idol and isolate an extract of 99.44% pure bad karaoke. Enter The Singing Bee on NBC and Fox's knockoff, Don't Forget the Lyrics, the No. 1-- and No. 2--rated new shows of the summer.

The shows' viewer appeal is simple: they're family-friendly, good-natured and easy to play along with. Harder to explain is what draws the parade of contestants to screech, warble and croak in front of millions, without the aid of melon-ball shooters. Is it all for the money? Isn't it humiliating?

How you answer the questions has a lot to do with when you were born. If you are over 35 or 40, you were probably raised to guard your privacy and hide your slipups. But reality TV, Web 2.0 and social networking have accustomed people to public performance. Karaoke shows, which reward correct lyrics, not proper pitch, fit the new American belief that lack of talent is no reason not to command an audience. The Singing Bee's slogan--"You don't have to sing it well, you just have to sing it right!"--would make a great national motto.

Karaoke--and the performance culture it stands for--is not just about ego and entertainment. It's a way of playacting the skills of a networked world, where shyness is a handicap. In the YouTube era, overcoming shyness is the equivalent of killing a mammoth in the Ice Age: an essential survival skill and milestone achievement to be celebrated in picture and song. There is no greater go-to movie scene today than the one in which people throw inhibition to the wind and perform: the climactic Super Freak dance in Little Miss Sunshine, the Age of Aquarius singalong in The 40 Year-Old Virgin.

Why are karaoke shows painful? Because they make you cringe. Why are they fun? Because they make you laugh. Cringe humor--the humor of awkwardness and faux pas--may be the defining element of early 21st century pop culture, dominating entertainment from Borat to Knocked Up to The Office. It boils down to encountering a social problem or taboo, facing up to it and getting past it by laughing. Likewise the singalong shows: their cathartic message is that none of us are above it all. No, you don't have to sing it well, America. In fact, we'd prefer if you didn't.