If You Fall, They Will Laugh

True story: a colleague walks up, says something forgettable, and walks away, tripping over a backpack. She stumbles and the group of us laughs.

"What is it about people falling that is so funny?" someone asks.

"I think there's something about watching a train-wreck," says another. "That's why America's Funniest Home Videos is my favourite show."

Agreed. There's something elating about watching middle-aged men breaking tire swings or face-planting in mud, and laughing at their expense. It's a fascinating dark side of human nature that's pervasive in almost every major television network: the vicarious thrill of watching people fail.

This is emulated perfectly in American Idol, North America's favourite mock-fest, wrapped in the guise of a singing competition. Perhaps it is a singing competition, a month after it premiers, but what pulls in the viewers immediately is the promise of some truly terrible singers making fools of themselves before Cowell and Co.

This is an awfully shady standard of practice. Watching the auditions, the impression is of a nation teeming with freaks. The American Idol editing team has done a fine job depicting an America where genuine eccentricity vastly overshadows the talent.

It's a depressing portrayal of these unfortunate, talentless beings. The judges send them through the preliminary auditions, bolstering them with false confidence, and setting them up for some hard-core ego-shredding on the national stage, by the Mean Machines, for entertainment's sake. This is not innocent groin busting; this is pure sadistic entertainment at the expense of some unusually nai¯ve contestants.

And the fans laugh it up. We may feel a detached embarrassment for them, maybe even touches of sympathy, depending on our chemical make-up, but we don't turn away. Thirty-seven million people tuned in to Idol's premiere last month; it's as popular as ever.