After giving sleepless nights to an entire nation, grabbing air space on news channels, being the butt of jokes on talk shows and getting talked about across the globe, Sanjaya Malakar -the very young, very smiling, talented-with-difficulty contestant who nearly brought the demise of popular American talent-hunt show, American Idol- is out of the running from the American idolization list.
And yet his long lasting prowess showed that the ideal might not always be the idol. Was it his Mohawk? His beguiling smile, his lanky frame, his oh-so-kissable lips despite his 17 years or simply that people were so bored voting for the obviously-talented that the not-so-talented provided a welcome (comic) relief? Or is it that isn’t necessarily talent that makes a star?
Is it the 'axe' effect?
“There is enough of a talent pool now, enough opportunities, enough god fathers and enough confidence among the youth. The one thing that can make you stand out amongst so many others is the X-factor: it gets you extra recognition, extra votes and a pre-made fan club,” e-mails Rishita Vastani from Nagpur.
Perhaps, if we take some cases where the so-called ‘talent’ had been around for ages till that One Big Break. Himesh Reshammiya sang everyone’s tunes for a decade or so before his nasal twang took the nation by storm. Our svelte, ‘UP-Bihar le lo’ Shilpa Shetty had been on the scene for a while- and waning-till Jade Goody chose to shoot her mouth off and made her an international item. Or take for that matter Paris Hilton: all show, no talent and daddy’s money to get the best professionals to ‘make’ you a singing star.
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Does that mean that talent alone is not enough? Singer Shubha Mudgal strongly disagrees. “What makes you a star also depends on the medium we are looking at: culturally and even country-wise, each kind of music demands a different kind of talent. While the earlier participants were musically far better than the artistes coming up now-both in the country and outside-I don’t think there is any formula for being a ‘star’. Sanjaya had an endearing quality about him, and while I won’t put him down like Simon Cowell did, it is amply clear that the boy cannot sing,” says Shubha.
The A to T of talent
But then, is being a star only about talent? In umpteen talent hunt shows we have seen the judges talk about stage sense, clothes sense and audience sense and presence and a whole lot of other things that have nothing to do with the so-called talent being hunted.
So, even without talent - with say confidence and chutzpah - one can hope to reach somewhere? Shubha disagrees, “It is one of the biggest media myths propagated today that the ‘entertainment quotient’ is more important than talent. There are many talented people in the music world that cannot be called entertainers. Take the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan for instance: he was one of the world’s greatest and most successful artistes, yet I don’t think he could have done a jig as is expected of musicians today. When you put a talented person up there, the power of music speaks.”
Shubha scoffs at scouting for talent through reality television. “These shows cannot be called ‘talent’ hunt shows; today it has all become about what you’re wearing and how you do ‘it’. See the so-called makeover shows. Is it not very strange that in a world of so many diversities, we are all hell bent on making everybody resemble everybody else: dress, jig and even ‘yo’ the same? It looks like a concentrated effort to kill originality.”
Brand creator and ad man Prahlad Kakkar has the last word though, “Sanjaya did not have the pedigree to make a star. Talent is the pre-requisite to becoming any kind of star. If your talent is not in place then no amount of charisma, style or a rolled sock in your underwear is going to make you a star.”
What makes a star?
Results of an online poll run by ibnlive.com
- Number of people surveyed: 258
- Talent: 26%
- Luck: 23%
- Confidence: 19%
- X factor: 18%
- Opportunity: 1 %
- Godfather: 0.3 %
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