OK, I get that the tween girls who vote can't actually vote against somebody, they can only vote for people. So it doesn't necessarily mean that they hate Pia, just that they're indifferent to her.
This is an excellent point, thank you for making it. With all the Monday morning quarterbacking we're all doing (myself included ) to explain Pia's exit, we should all remember that the voting isn't set up to vote someone
off. If it were -- if Idol asked you to vote out the worst singer -- then we could argue that Pia's lack of stage presence of whatever was the main reason for her boot. However, with the competition set up as voting
for your favorite, all it means is that she got less votes than the other kids. This slight (but crucial) distinction in logic favors the theory that 1) teen girls power-vote for the boys and simply garnered them more votes than Pia and/or 2) a lot of Pia's fans felt she was safe anyway and didn't think they needed to vote.
However you feel about the following people, Idol has a real problem now with consistently good female singers not winning against lesser competition (Crystal/Katherine McPhee), missing out on the finals (Melinda) or just plain going way too early (Pia). Want a more sobering statistic? In the past three seasons since power-texting among teen girls has developed, the Final Four has only yielded three female contestants. Think about that. THREE out of TWELVE. And this season will likely make that statistic even worse.
Here's how I think idol should proceed in the future to deal with this problem. Why not make the judges actually do something? What if every week, the judges picked a winner -- the best performance of the night -- and that person essentially wins immunity that week, and is therefore automatically safe from elimination? They could do this until say, Final Three week. I think it's much better than the stupid save twist because it would achieve the following:
1) Make the judges seem relevant, and it would actually force them to choose the best person each week, rather than just giving bland "A for Effort" critiques to everyone.
2) Allow the show to save a consistently good female performer each week and at least give her a shot at the finals.
3) If the same person kept winning week after week, it would build a narrative that this person DESERVES to go to the finals, and America responds to that kind of narrative (it's why America always roots for challenge winners on Survivor/Big Brother etc).
Other talent-based reality shows like Project Runway already incorporate this into their schema, and it works well. I mean, they could also just allow one vote per phone each week, but I doubt they'll ever do that, because then they won't be able to boast those ridiculously inflated numbers ("50 million votes came in"...never mind they're all from an All-Girls' prep school in the South). I really think this could spark new life into the show and remedy a glaring problem. Otherwise, we'll never see a female winner on this show again.
Maybe his DUI and drug bust will cost him some votes. #fingerscrossed #teamhaley
