This article is part of a series in celebration of a new, dynamic voice in Black America: the NUBIANO Exchange. Brace yourself for the NUBIANO experience. 

  by Kemi James

Something disturbed me a few weeks back while watching the new American Bandstand - easily disguised as American Idol. The panel of judges (Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul, and Simon Cowell) had to endure the cacophony of a particular weak link among the female contestants. Among the future divas was one Antonella Barba, a current student at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., who croaked her little heart out, singing the 1998 Aerosmith hit, “I Don’t Want to Miss A Thing.”

As she made her final, forgettable note, Humpty Dumpty (Jackson), Loopy (Abdul), and the Grinch (Cowell) evaluated her suicide-committing rendition of the previously mentioned song. Jackson, the newer, darker Simon Cowell (always with a “yo” here and a “dawg” there), pretty much listened to Barba’s voice and didn’t like it one bit. Miss Abdul, famous for being the cop-out among the three arbiters, told Miss Barba 1) she’s pretty, 2) the song “choice” was not good and 3) she sounds just like her - a cute face with no tonal quality whatsoever.

Then, America’s star grump from across the Atlantic bashed Barba’s performance. Surprisingly, in a weird twist of fate, he followed that dismissal, possibly saving the 20-year-old from elimination, by adding that she is an attractive girl and voters would place that in her favor.

Beauty over talent? Noooo! Not again!

Cowell was right: On Thursday night, Barba wasn’t kicked off the island, er, stage, as host Dick Clark, ahem, Ryan Seacrest booted off two other hopefuls whose performances were slightly better than Barba’s own. Harmless, right? Barba did nothing wrong, right? This is the land of opportunity, a country which gave its popular vote to Al Gore in 2000, without glaring spots of fault, right?

Wrong.

Here’s the problem: on a show like American Idol, no one is really concerned about Barba’s singing - or those of any stick-thin Barbie, for that matter. It’s all about prejudice and the image bias that reeks through Western society, just as heavily as racial bias. It is not to say every female contestant, before this sixth installment, sailed through sounding and looking like Beyoncé or Britney Spears, but some have gone on the penultimate rounds, like Fantasia Barrino in Season 3, with a fine church lilt and a very curvaceous figure.

There were other “thick girls” who were gone too soon, who seemingly didn’t fit the societal image of beauty - like recent Oscar-winning, supporting actress Jennifer Hudson, who was told by Cowell that her time was up, a fourth runner-up as a result.

Pictures of Barba in her birthday suit, in various positions and poses of debauchery, had allegedly appeared on the Internet, file sharing of her going all over the States worse than when Napster was a free-for-all back in the late 1990s. Some members of the media suggested that Barba be kicked off the remaining group of 20 post-haste. After all, wasn’t this the same production company that had sent previous contestants home for bad behavior, those with criminal records? Did the producers of shows like this and So You Think That You Can Dance? not have Frenchie Davis, a former Howard University student and contestant during the early parts of the show in 2003, packing after it was discovered there were similarly questionable pictures of her on an adult web site?