Televising Talent

Musicality, Meritocracy, and the Aesthetics of Exclusion

Bibliographic Data

ID21789136
AuthorsLindsay J Wright (0000-0002-7229-3362, Yale University, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume18
Issue1
Pages33-55
Publication date2024-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the Society for American Music (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1752-1963 • E-ISSN: 1752-1971
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s1752196323000421
OpenAlexW4390695346
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited33

Throughout the history of television, American audiences have participated in a tradition of programs that follow a consistent structure: Amateur musicians and entertainers are offered an opportunity to display their talent on stage, competing for audience votes to win first prize and a chance at stardom. This article contributes to a growing literature on the significance of televised talent shows, demonstrating how their remarkable longevity and representational power stems from their configuration as a “format,” the set of guidelines that structure and constrain the content of each broadcast—an aesthetic process grounded in exclusion. Through their formatting, I argue, these programs reify the notion of “talent” at the heart of talent shows, transforming a multidimensional and context-contingent assemblage of musical abilities into a seemingly stable object able to be recognized, rated, and ranked. Musical auditions offer a microcosm of formatting's role as a means of training audiences’ attention. They normalize the practice of eliminating whatever (or whomever) is deemed unworthy—on these programs and in the wider world. Through analyzing examples from Ted Mack and the Original Amateur Hour (1948), The Gong Show (1978), and The Voice (2017), the article demonstrates how beneath the widely discussed content of contestant demographics, judge commentary, or audience voting results, the talent show format serves to obscure the contradictions upon which meritocracy's cruel optimism rests

Aesthetics · Amateur · Art · Epistemology · Exemplification · Highbrow · Impartiality · Linguistics · Literature · Meritocracy · Musical · Musicality · Political science · Sociology · Visual arts · Cinema and Media Studies · History · Law · Music History and Culture · Psychology · Theater, Performance, and Music History

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