SPIN AND IDOLATRY: Get a belt
and other wishes for ‘Idol’

February 8, 2010 by Haley Etchison 

I had really, really wanted to avoid spending ink and paper on the inevitable bad audition craze that comes with each season of American Idol, which I have always felt is a bit of a disgrace, but alas! The news dictates its own publication, it seems.

I’m sure many of you have heard about the ”Pants on the Ground” hype that has made General Larry Platt an e-celebrity on the scale of… I don’t know, some other big e-celebrity.

But did you know that the Idol contestant’s original composition was inspired as a message of civil rights?

It was. Trust me. Otherwise I couldn’t justify writing about it.

Platt, though a truly heinous singer, has this redeeming quality (something I cringe to think most other terrible contestants do not have): He’s a civil rights activist.

He proudly shows photos of himself with Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Congressman John Lewis, and he regularly takes to the streets of Atlanta to protest injustice.

The song, which goes, “Pants on the ground, pants on the ground! Lookin’ like a fool with your pants on the ground!” and includes other such poetic lyrics, was written as a call for change.

Platt said he and his fellow civil rights activists worked too hard for America’s youth to walk around with sagging pants.

Well said, General. Well said.

Why are you called General, exactly? Huh.

I think that’s a pretty decent justification for what would otherwise have been simply an offensivve assult on the the eyes and ears of American viewers (Platt sang really badly and then, as if that wasn’t enough, finished off the performance with the splits. He’s 63, by the way.)

What’s the most amazing about this whole ordeal is the support of actual celebrities.

On Jan. 17, Brett Favre led the Vikings in a rousing round of “Pants on the Ground” to celebrate their victory over the Cowboys. The next day, Platt appeared on “The View,” to talk about the song and himself, and then Jimmy Fallon, with a damn good impression of Neil Young, aired the first remake of the hit on “Late Night.”

I’m pretty sure none of these people were going for a festive pre-February celebration of Black History Month, so I have a theory as to why real celebrities keep promoting this song:

Simon said so.

More accurately, Fox aired the segment of auditions where Simon said, “I have a horrible feeling that song could be a hit,” in the interest of generating loads of Web traffic from people wanting to get in on the fad.

I can’t help but think that the willful exploitation of America’s bored television public is exactly the kind of thing Platt would oppose if he stopped to think about it. But I doubt he’ll have time to give it much thought between golf with the CEO of Fox, and meeting the Queen.

Spin and Idolatry follows the stories and contestants of American Idol Season 9. It runs every Monday. Catch Haley’s twice-weekly Idol blog at blogs.unlvrebelyell.com/idol.