
Our counter to that opinion is that, as Aiken well knows, the “best voice” is often the least important factor when it comes to Idol winners.

But he’s steadfast in his opinion: “Ada Vox was not eliminated because she didn’t conform to the societal norms of Idol viewers she was eliminated because she didn’t conform to the key of the song.”

He calls Ada a star and magnetic performer. His column does consider Ada’s identity and how it might be perceived, as well as the reaction he might get as a gay man for arguing against Ada’s talent.

“She was voted off because she was not the best voice on the show.”īe kind to Aiken. “Ada Vox wasn’t voted off because she is a drag queen and she wasn’t voted off because Adam Sanders (her alter ego) is a gay man,” he wrote. Clay Aiken himself wrote an entire piece for HuffPost centered around the idea that Ada simply just wasn’t talented enough to win. There are those, whoever, who scoff at the idea of blaming prejudice for Ada’s elimination. In fact, Ada acknowledged that himself before Sunday’s show, saying, “America might not be ready for people like those of us who are a little bit different.” His rendition of the iconic anthem “ And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going” from Dreamgirls, performed to save himself from elimination from the Top 10, was so remarkable that the judges didn’t even deliberate before deeming him safe.īut that Ada found himself in danger to begin with certainly suggests that something about the package he was serving audiences didn’t resonate, which might not be entirely surprising given the history of the show. His vocal range and noticeably confident performance flourish stunned the judges. He made it to the Top 50 before being sent home, returning to compete in the revival as his drag alter ego. Was Ada Vox going to be the first? Should he have been?Īda Vox is a drag queen from San Antonio who first competed on American Idol’s 12th season under his birth name Adam Sanders.

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It’s 2018, and we still haven’t had an openly gay or gender nonconforming winner of a major reality TV competition. It’s been more than a decade of dancers not discussing their sexualities on So You Think You Can Dance. It’s been 16 years since Jim Verraros was forced to delete web journals discussing his homosexuality during the first year of A merican Idol, 15 years since Clay Aiken competed on Idol while closeted, and nine years since Adam Lambert- Adam Lambert!-waited until after the show to come out. It also raises the question, though, of how far we’ve come-and still have to go-when it comes to gay and gender nonconforming performers and acceptance in these reality shows.
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It’s interesting that one night later, Olympic figure skater and out gay media star Adam Rippon danced his way to the top of the leader board of the new athletes-only season of Dancing With the Stars with a fantastic routine set to a song by RuPaul, “Sissy That Walk.” Later this week, the annual fan-favorite episode of a RuPaul’s Drag Raceseason will air-“Snatch Game”-an event of sorts for a series that celebrates the art of drag and is breaking ratings records, winning Emmy Awards, and achieving mainstream status 10 years after it first began airing.Įven as we vent about Ada Vox’s elimination, it’s also a moment to cheer on visibility, queerness, drag, and LGBTQ talent on reality TV.
