As his confidence increased, Sanjaya grew on 'Idol' viewers
Now that the dust has settled, the tears have dried, the laughs have subsided, it's time to pay a small but heartfelt tribute to Sanjaya Malakar.
He was our puppy-dog love, our dress-up doll, our national punching bag. He was a joke who came to understand the merits of the punch line. So much so that, when he was finally knocked from "American Idol" on Wednesday, he wiped away his own tears -- he's 17, he hulas, and he has the right to cry -- and sang a mock lyric to a Bonnie Raitt tune.
"Let's give them something to talk about," he crooned, quietly, as usual. "Other than ha-a-a-a-a-air."
What will we talk about now? What will we do with our Wednesday mornings, our Tuesday-night blogging hours? Who will demand our attention? (And will those of us in Boston ever shake him? He told reporters yesterday that he hopes to enroll at Berklee College of Music; we might someday see him busking shyly on the T.)
What's clear is that "Idol" contestants won't have quite the same intrigue without him. Some other contestants are good, though not as good as they think. Some other contestants are bad, but not as bad as we'd like. Sanjaya alone had that stunning mix of badness and showbiz savvy, of obliviousness and growing self-awareness.
He seemed as shocked as we were when he made the final 12, though his ascendancy, on closer look, was never such a mystery. He was cute enough to galvanize tween girls, sweet enough to appeal to their grandmothers. He was awful enough to interest their would-be-rebel uncles, who liked the idea of an "Idol" vote as an act of sedition. Some cheered at his endurance. Many complained. And though it seemed touch-and-go in the early weeks, Sanjaya never crumbled. Give him credit for that.
"Idol," after all, is a tough psychological gantlet. A history of singing in sweet church choirs can't possibly prepare you for national TV, the ridicule and pressure, the unsentimental eyes. So it was heartening to see a transformation begin. Sanjaya lost his wide-eyed innocence. He realized that his hair could be exploited. He started to sass the judges. He laughed -- first with us, then at us. In interviews yesterday, he said he grew more confident
There was even a strange, unsettling moment when it seemed Sanjaya might rise above his past, become -- well, not good, but maybe not-so-very bad. When he warbled "Besame Mucho" last week with a peach-fuzz moustache, a nation whispered: "He actually sounds OK." And for the most part, he always did. Sanjaya was never horribly off-key. He didn't squawk or shout. His sin, as a performer, had to do with omission: He suffered from an energy deficiency. Yet there were moments when it seemed he might break through. We'd watch expectantly, thinking, as Paula Abdul once said, "Come on."
In the end, he couldn't. On Tuesday, he covered Bonnie Raitt apologetically, as if he were singing in the shower and hoped the neighbors wouldn't hear. It wasn't awful so much as uninteresting. And as the competition narrowed -- as the lovers of good singing consolidated votes behind the remaining singers who were good -- boring was the one thing Sanjaya couldn't afford to be.
So off he goes, to the media circuit, the summer tour, the Disney Channel, where, apparently, he has a standing invitation to appear on "Hannah Montana." He will linger in the public eye for a while. He says he might hire a bodyguard.
The rest of us, meanwhile, will return to our Tuesday night ritual, listening obediently to singers who can sing, watching hair that obeys the laws of gravity. It's proper and right, and it all seems awfully bleak.
Joanna Weiss can be reached at weiss@globe.com. 