Surprising no one, white man bests black woman to become final American Idol winner

Less than two months after the curtain went down on #OscarsSoWhite — at least until 2017 — it seems that “American Idol” may be too white as well. Or, more specifically, too deferential to “generic” white guys, often wielding guitars.

This was the consensus on social media after Trent Harmon, a self-described white “dude from Mississippi,” defeated La’Porsha Renae, a black single mother from the same state. Renae, citing the first “American Idol” winner, Kelly Clarkson, said “a woman started it and a woman’s goin’ finish it.”

You may scoff at ‘American Idol’ now, but it changed pop culture forever

She was wrong. It was not the outcome some were hoping for. As one Twitter user put it: “ANOTHER basic white boy” had triumphed.

Today, a white man won American Idol. Today, a black woman lost. American Idol you're so white!

To be clear: Though it passed over Jennifer Hudson, “American Idol” has idol-ized people of color. The list of winners includes Ruben Studdard (2003), Fantasia Barrino (2004), Jordin Sparks (2007) and Candice Glover (2013). But as early as 2004, international idol Elton John wondered whether the show had a race problem. Three performers he admired “happened to be black, young female singers and they all seemed to be landing in the bottom three,” he said.

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“These three girls would have the talent to be members of the Royal Academy or Juilliard,” John said. “They have great voices. The fact that they are constantly in the bottom three, and I don’t want to set myself up here, I find it incredibly racist.”

But as early as 2006, Taylor Hicks’s win presaged the white-dude-with-guitar era.

“Hicks’s win did show how Idol’s format (people sing on TV, people at home vote, America figures out this ‘democracy’ thing once and for all) was not only imperfect, but could eventually serve as a liability, showing plainly the gap between the show’s graying demographics and the ever-younger pop market,” Maura Johnston wrote last year in a piece called “Wimpy White Dudes With Guitars Ruined ‘American Idol'” at the Concourse.

This wasn’t just an optics problem. As the show’s ratings faltered, it also became a business problem.

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“Why not let the excitable teenage girls (and the older women who should probably know better) have their fun and flood the phone lines with votes for these attractive, guitar-plucking fellas?” the Huffington Post’s Laura Prudom wrote in 2012 — amid a five-season long “American Idol” white-dude winning streak. “Simply put, because those attractive, guitar-plucking fellas don’t actually do that well once they’ve ventured out of ‘Idol’s’ protective embrace and are expected to sell albums under their own steam — and that’s a problem for ‘Idol’ as much as for the winners themselves.”

another boring straight white boy from the south won American Idol...I am so disappointed

https://twitter.com/julesinthemoon/status/718289138320023552

Indeed, in 2013, 10 former “Idol” contestants sued Fox, saying they were victims of racial discrimination on the show. Citing a statistical study, the plaintiffs argued there was a “less than 1 in a billion chance” their disqualifications weren’t race-based.

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The lawsuit failed. But litigation doesn’t have to be successful to reflect the word on the street.

“Calling American Idol just a singing competition is dishonest,” Melissa McEwan wrote at Alternet in 2011. “And all the little staged extras, and the opportunities to show ‘personality,’ and all the other ‘showbiz spectacle’ detritus that increases exponentially every year, favors the boys. Which would just be exasperating, and nothing more than a reason to change the channel, were it not for the millions of little girls vested in the show — and internalizing the lessons it’s teaching about how ‘America’ treats men and women, especially women of color.” McEwan added: “Note: All of the female finalists this year were also thin.”

America is so uncultured, yet another bland white male wins American Idol. No diversity in that show nor does talent ever win lately

Whether guilty of racism or not — or reflective of racism in America or not — “American Idol” is now taking its ball and going home. Harmon credited the black woman he beat on the way out.

“I know that I have a God-given ability, but I didn’t want to take it for granted,” he said. “I wanted to work so, so hard, and she pushed me to do it.”

Photos: Moments from ‘American Idol’

The Fox singing competition show “American Idol,” which gave the world Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood and Jennifer Hudson, ends its 15 seasons on television.

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