Simon Fuller, the creator of American Idol, is reportedly close to offering Simon Cowell’s soon-to-be vacant judgeship to Madonna, a move that has a lot of people asking if Madonna is man enough to fill the position. Simon Fuller seems to think she is.
Madonna would agree. She outed herself as bisexual to The Advocate nearly twenty years ago. She doesn’t need a riding crop to look butch—or to wear the pants in a relationship.
“We’ve got Randy and Kara, who are decidedly heterosexual,” said Fuller, “and with the addition of Ellen, who is decidedly not, we have to ask ourselves if we want another male or another female judge. If we pulled Madonna onboard, we’d have a strong male-type female in Simon’s seat, and the onus would be on Ellen to ‘assume’ the second female role for the show, albeit one that refuses to wear an evening gown.”
Fashion presents another dilemma for the folks at Fox. No one on the judges’ panel dresses “up” for the show like Paula Abdul did. Fuller is thinking, therefore, of requiring Idol judges to wear uniforms. He came close to doing so when he didn’t think he could take one more season of Cowell wearing “that ridiculous white V-neck T-shirt and suit coat,” but Cowell continually balked at wearing a uniform.
Now, with Cowell out of the picture, and the ever-so-agreeable Ellen taking Abdul’s place, Fuller hopes the judges will wear mis-matched uniforms, i.e., the same design in various colors.
”Kind of like a rainbow up there” is how one of Fuller’s assistants put it.
“He’s looking at something that marries the colors of the Teletubbies to a Four Tops jumpsuit design with big lapels, sequins and all, but nothing is concrete as of yet.”
Word on the set has it that Ellen is, indeed, elated at the prospect.
“Can we each have a carnation in our lapels that squirts water? Please, please pretty please?” she is reported to have asked.
Another candidate who has been mentioned for Cowell’s seat is Jamie Foxx. Fuller isn’t completely against this idea either. He believes that Foxx in colorful Four Tops drag not only would fit well into the re-worked Idol theme but also would make a subtle reference to Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, especially in light of the fact that race is all the rage in America right now.
This latest round of changes for American Idol is just the beginning. With new personalities, new agendas to push, new looks to try out, and new faces to get used to, audiences will be hard-pressed to remember a time when just three judges, two of whom were virtual nobodies until season one, began one of the most talked-about shows on American television.
The only constant in this equation seems to be Ryan Seacrest, who is beginning to push his own agenda, but in a way that is starting to annoy Fuller, especially Seacrest’s whining about the possibility of having to wear a purple jumpsuit. It is, therefore, uncertain if Seacrest will make it to another season, as Fuller is looking to possibly replace him with someone a bit more flamboyant and willing to go along with the uniform plan. As of now, all eyes are on Borat.