Women who make us ask WTF: Paula Abdul
Posted at 8:30 AM Aug 11, 2009
By Kathleen Willcox |
I remember spending many an embarrassing (in retrospect) middle school Friday night with my girlfriends. We wore patterned tights, neon scrunchies and billowy button downs whilst popping buttery popcorn, dishing about the cute boys in our class and dancing and singing right along with Paula and MC Skat Cat in Opposites Attract. 'Twas a Grammy Award-winning gem from '91 when she was at the pinnacle of her poptastic, choreographic, sassy-lady, sexy dancin' powers.
Ah, the halcyon days when it was possible to watch music videos on MTV. Before all of our favorite pop stars (holla Whitney, Madonna, Janet!) lost their schizzle and turned to bad marriages, drugs and bizarre religions. Before they starting churning out craptastic music and slurring their words and generally failing to string together coherent sentences during interviews.
When did it all fall apart? And why is Paula "The Gift" Abdul consistently the most embarrassing member of the befuddled band of deteriorating divas?
Paula's status as Prime Time's Hot Mess Du Jour temporarily looked like it was drawing to a close. Reports that she'd "chosen" to leave American Idol rather than get paid less than the salary she'd asked for set the blogosphere abuzz with chatter about when a train wreck becomes a train wreck. No longer a gory draw to gawk at, but a sad, smoking, hurly-gurly mess that needs to be hauled away and stashed in a dump far from pryin' eyes.
(N.B.: Former AI contestants have rallied for Paula, saying she was the sole judge/boss lady who actually humanized the often stressful and humiliating process. Which just goes to show you how colossally and mind-bogglingly FAIL AI is if The Gift is the sole beacon of rational, humane behavior among the Adults In Charge Behind the Scenes.)
Desperate for better ratings, ABC is willing to take a gamble on America's continued WTF? fascination with Paula. That's right folks - strap on your safety helmets - the P bomb is being dropped on Dancing With the Stars. In the meantime, if you ever need a quick WTF Paula fix, there's always her uber-entertaining Twitter feed.
