Race as a part of the ‘Idol’ race

From Fantasia Barrino’s ethereally elegant “Summertime” to Sanjaya’s floppy faux-hawk, America’s most popular television show would seem to have seen or sung about everything. Well, not quite everything.

“American Idol” is close to entering a brave new world that could transport its roughly 30 million viewers to an unseen spectacle after a half-dozen chart-topping seasons: two people of color in the finale. With six contestants still standing -- three white, two black and one biracial -- the chance to break the show’s ebony-and-ivory, or all ivory, finale cast has never been better. Indeed, in a season dominated by the XX chromosome, two of the three women -- Melinda Doolittle and Jordin Sparks -- have yet to be in the bottom three, even after country week.

“If you’d have asked me this two weeks ago, I would have probably said Melinda,” said Simon Cowell, the “Idol” judge America loves to hate, in response to his take on the eventual winner. “If you’d asked me six weeks ago, I would have said LaKisha [Jones]. If you asked me today, I would put my money on Jordin.”

It’s worth noting in Cowell’s observation: no one white as a front-runner. Of course, the acid-tongued Brit has been wrong before -- and his dewy-eyed colleague, Paula Abdul, has anointed Blake Lewis, beat-boxing to his own drummer, as a “dark horse.”

Still, if any combination of the women survives to the final show, it could go a long way toward correcting a lingering impression of race’s improper role in choosing the shape and color of pop culture’s ultimate singing contest. British rocker and onetime visiting judge Elton John put it most harshly in 2004 by calling the show’s audience “incredibly racist” after witnessing Season 3’s so-called three divas (Barrino, LaToya London and Jennifer Hudson, all African American) land in the bottom three of the weekly vote-by-phone results.

It’s a charge that still hits a nerve among the show’s creative forces. And rightly so, because if “Idol” were to be widely perceived as unfairly favoring one group over another, the show’s meritocratic conceit would be destroyed. Imagine the outcry this week if LaKisha gets the ax before Phil Stacey or Chris Richardson.

It does seem odd that a show that is as racially and ethnically diverse as “Idol” should be weighed down by accusations of inequity, particularly when many other programs with far less diversity escape similar notice. After all, “Idol’s” judges are a British white man, an American black man (Randy Jackson) and a Jewish woman of Middle Eastern ancestry (Abdul). And year after year, its contestants look like a new campaign for United Colors of Benetton.

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Execs downplay race

In a recent conference call with journalists, executive producer Nigel Lythgoe tackled the race question.

“We still hear people calling us a racist show, and I think it’s so idiotic and such a stupid statement,” said Lythgoe. “No. 1, you can see by the show itself that we’re not racist. No. 2, it isn’t down to the show at this point. It’s down to America.”

Well, is America ready for a non-white “Idol” final? This season will put that notion to the test, thanks to the pervasive belief in the talents of the three women of color.

The first three “Idol” finales starred a person of color, and two of them -- Fantasia and Ruben Studdard -- became the American Idol. And most recently, the show vaulted Sanjaya Malakar, a teenager from the Seattle area and of Bengali Indian heritage, into the pop stratosphere, converting his first name into jet fuel for Internet search engines.

Nevertheless, “American Idol” still reveals a pattern of racially preferential voting among its massive viewership, according to Jungmin Lee, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Arkansas who has written about race and reality programs. Lee, who used the Nielsen ratings demographics on race, found after studying the show’s first four seasons that race clearly was a factor in voting, especially as the competition narrowed.

“When there are 11 contestants, people aren’t that concerned about race,” said Lee, whose original aim was to show how race preferences affect labor markets. “But when the audience has to decide who is No. 1, 2 or 3 -- these are big stakes, and people are more likely to vote by their racial preference.”

The fact that viewers register their votes by phone encourages the phenomenon, he added.

“People normally don’t want to reveal their racial preferences in public,” said Lee, whose paper is being reviewed for publication by an economics journal. “But since ‘American Idol’s’ voting is anonymous, people feel freer to do so.”

Viewers’ tendency to vote for performers of the same race could help explain some of the stunning dismissals that seem to rock the show almost every year. The most glaring example is the “three divas” season -- when even Lythgoe said that the heavyweights canceled one another out in the voting.

Hudson, who won an Academy Award this year for her stirring performance as a fictional diva in “Dreamgirls” only made it to the final seven on “Idol.” London, currently starring in the Chicago production of the musical “The Color Purple,” didn’t make the final three, leaving Barrino to beat runner-up Diana DeGarmo in the unevenly matched finale.

A similar pattern easily could emerge this season among the three women if one of the perceived weaker singers, namely Chris or Phil, advances past any of them.

Even casual “Idol” watchers understand each contestant has his or her voting constituency, a fact that encourages a white-black finale.

If LaKisha goes, who is most likely to benefit? Conversely, if Chris is booted off, who picks up his supporters?

So, a real question this week is who gets the Sanjaya block -- a group of nimble-fingered phone voters with either a great sense of humor or a poor sense of singing talent.

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The South as a factor

Because race, as demonstrated most recently by the Don Imus firing, remains such an unresolved national issue, its importance can easily be overestimated. In fact, the explanation for an “Idol” finale without two people of color could be fairly simple.

“I think that’s one of those ESPN stats that don’t mean much,” said Justin Guarini, Season 1’s runner-up, who is biracial and today serves as an “Idol” commentator for the TV Guide Channel. “I think it has more to do with being from the South.”

If you include Carrie Underwood, who hails from Oklahoma, every “Idol” winner can claim Southern roots: Kelly Clarkson (Texas), Studdard (Alabama), Barrino (North Carolina) and Taylor Hicks (Alabama). The show is No. 1 nationwide but does spectacularly well in the South.

And who is to say who is the best? Nobody really knows, but it’s left to America to decide.

“The great thing about this show is that everybody has an opinion,” said Randy Jackson in a recent interview. “Everyone thinks they’re an expert, but really there aren’t any music experts, even those people sitting on their living room couches.”

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You’re only as good as ...

And sometimes on “Idol,” you’re only as good as your last song.

“It very much, very often depends on the performance that actually they’ve just done,” said Ken Warwick, one of the show’s executive producers. “And sometimes there’s no rhyme or reason for the way they jump about” in the standings.

“It’s all about communication with the public,” Warwick added. “There is something in human nature that makes people gravitate toward somebody who is good-looking. It’s nature, for goodness sakes.”

Lythgoe warns against drawing any major inferences about society based on the show. “American Idol” is, he said, a “talent show, a television talent show. Let’s not lose perspective on what it is. It’s phenomenal in its own area. Outside of that, it doesn’t really mean anything in real life.”

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martin.miller@latimes.com

Times staff writer Richard Rushfield contributed to this report.