He’s not stupid, he’s not that young, and he’s not that green. He chose to give himself jurisdiction over content that no other performer gets, and then shrugged it off and told reporters that ‘it’s fun’  to do things that shock people, so it’s not like he had no clue it might raise some eyebrows. I also expect he knows full well that, at the very least, you can’t flip people the bird, which he also attempted to incorporate into the broadcast. (If he doesn’t know you can’t flip off the cameras at this point in his life, he’s simply not properly equipped for the career he’s been given and deserves a metaphorical smack upside the head.)
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He’s not being persecuted for doing nothing. He’s having to deal with the consequences of pissing off someone who essentially hired him to do a job.

I agree with this %100. ABC hired him to do a job. There are certain standards that are acceptable. ABC cleared what was acceptable. If Adam wanted more he should have said something pre-show. I simply don’t believe after months on Idol and months on tour that he “forgot” he was in front of a camera or got “carried away”. And I was saddened by his talk of the being a theater guy when he did his best to break away from that theater mold during Idol. But when it’s convenient let’s trot it out. I still maintain that that performance was full of anger and discontent. And given that bird and after AMA interview it seems clear that he WAS angry and that it was that anger that influenced his performance.

You know Adam shouldn’t have to apologize for being himself. But I think he’s having a hard time figuring out who he is. Many of his interviews have PR rhetoric written all over them. I hope that he finds the right balance.

As for ABC, well Barbara Walters got her way (surprise!) so this might be the end of his dry spell with them….

Though not nearly as long, this one is also lengthy, so get to scrolling if you’re strapped for time I guess, LOL.

To address some responses to my original post on the previous page:

As I said, I’m not debating with those who think what Adam did is no worse than somewhat different acts that are allowed on television (crotch grabs, dry humping, whatever), or nothing in comparison to the wholly different yet much more offensive, hateful acts that routinely get by the censors. I do find a lot of the distinctions between what’s okay and what isn’t to be downright bizarre, personally speaking, and if people are using Adam’s situation to open up a debate about that kind of uneven, hair-splitting censorship, good.

But I’m specifically addressing those who are saying that the supposed hypocrisy of it all lies in ABC allowing heterosexual acts and female-on-female acts that are “the same” to be broadcast versus what two men are allowed (or not allowed) to do when the fact of the matter is there isn’t any known example of “the same” other than the censored Pink performance, so I don’t see how anyone can say it’s clearly a bias against gay men, exclusively.

For television censors, the unobstructed showing of simulated oral sex isn’t remotely “the same” because it is more graphic, and a lot of the time the degree to which an image is graphic is the deciding factor for them when it comes to a variety of topics including but not limited to sex acts. Unfortunately, as stupid as you and I think that is, everyone involved with network television productions within certain time slots are held to those standards. There is a line across the board, for both genders and the entire spectrum of sexual orientation. Adam crossed it. It’s not just gay men who are expected to roll with the arguably nonsensical demarcations. The first person to ignore or just be unaware of the fact that full-view simulated oral sex is a no-no and manage to make it on air with the move, unfortunately, just so happens to be a gay man.

Some sex acts may be perceived by a certain faction as “more gay” than others, but as illustrated by the several examples people have tried to put forth to prove there’s a bias here (Pink, Cougar Town, Dancing With The Stars), oral sex isn’t a strictly homosexual act so I don’t buy for a second that oral sex being “more gay” than other sex acts is why no one, even a heterosexual pairing, has been allowed to simulate it as graphically.

If Adam had managed to turn his back to every camera or somehow obscure the act and the reaction he received was exactly the same as what he’s going through now, I’d agree there’s a double standard that smacks of a bias against gay men. But that’s the only way it would have been directly comparable to the man/woman and woman/woman examples given in terms of being able to fairly decide if ABC’s actions are predominantly fueled by homophobia, be it their own or that of whoever they’re caving to.

I think most people (at least most people I know) have recognized that since the Super Bowl nipplegate fiasco, you just have to err on the side of caution when it comes to sexual content on live television. I admit the limits aren’t very clearly defined, but that’s why no one should be taking a risk with material that hasn’t been cleared by legal before broadcast. And I suppose that one can put all of the blame on ABC for not telling Adam outright that he can’t deviate so wildly from rehearsals, but I wouldn’t have thought someone like Adam needed to be told, either. He’s not stupid, he’s not that young, and he’s not that green. He chose to give himself jurisdiction over content that no other performer gets, and then shrugged it off and told reporters that “it’s fun” to do things that shock people, so it’s not like he had no clue it might raise some eyebrows. I also expect he knows full well that, at the very least, you can’t flip people the bird, which he also attempted to incorporate into the broadcast. (If he doesn’t know you can’t flip off the cameras at this point in his life, he’s simply not properly equipped for the career he’s been given and deserves a metaphorical smack upside the head.) He made his own bed. Having no idea what ABC is trying to accomplish by banning him from performing on their network, it remains to be seen if what they’re doing is simply petty and vindictive or maybe some misguided attempt to set an example with Adam to make sure they’re not put in such a position again by any artist, but either way, seeing as how no one forced Adam to improvise the “shocking” sex acts, he did this to himself. He’s not being persecuted for doing nothing. He’s having to deal with the consequences of pissing off someone who essentially hired him to do a job.

As for how the AMA performance was promoted, you can do “shocking” water cooler stuff without crossing any boundaries. The portions of the performance that weren’t improvised were enough to merit the hype, but I don’t think the way they worded the Adam-pimping bumpers over the course of the evening in any way is enough to give people with common sense the idea that they can randomly stick another person’s face in their fly without getting the OK from producers first. Or am I to believe that Adam heard the advertisements leading up to the performance and got confused because he thought, “Those phrases can’t possibly apply to the S&M theme with people on leashes, so they must be encouraging me to amp it up a thousand notches!”? Because if that’s similar to Adam’s real thought process, I have to say, that would make him a bit … off, IMO.

I think one network slapping down another, giving Adam a platform to talk about what he felt was a bias against gay men, and generally acting as though they were above ABC only to ironically blur the kiss is even worse than if ABC had honestly reacted entirely to gay panic and nothing else, and if I were Adam I would have been mighty pissed off about the way CBS exploited the situation while simultaneously contributing (in a much more obvious manner, IMO) to the very injustice I was trying to fight. What CBS seemed to be saying by blurring the kiss but patting themselves on the back for trusting Adam to give an appropriate performance was, “Oh, silly ABC, we know Adam will be a good boy and not infect our show with Teh Gay. You’re ridiculous to think otherwise. Yay ratings spike!” and that really should have gotten a bigger response from him than it did, considering his comments about the AMA hoopla.

Just in general, he seems concerned with defending his performance and avoiding as much responsibility as possible more than anything else, including the double standards he first used to defend himself before backing off that particular train of thought.

And you know, I get that he feels he didn’t do anything wrong in his performance and doesn’t want to apologize for it, but that’s a separate issue from the assumption that anyone who thought what he did was wrong is ignorant and doesn’t know how to handle gay men expressing their sexuality, and he could very well apologize for making that implication without apologizing for the performance itself, especially if he’s not going to make a stink about what The Early Show did, which I, for one, would find entirely justified.

Why 2 of the time zones opt to air the shows an hour earlier is a mystery to me.

Central time is always televised at the same time EST is. Hence the 8 pm Est 7 pm Central. Has always been this way. I live in the the midwest and our “prime time” starts at 7 pm cst and ends at 10 pm. Our 11 o’clock news is on at 10 o’clock. The central time zone didn’t “opt to air the shows an hour earlier”. It always starts at 7 pm. Listen to ads for shows on TV. They always say 8 pm/7 central.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2009/12/glaad-and-abc-are-at-peace-over-adam-lambert.html

I also find it uproariously hilarious and also quite telling that Adam could only call the blurred kiss flap with The Early Show ‘weak’  and never mention it again while droning on and on and on and on and on about how ABC leaving the kiss in but editing out the fake BJ only happened because he’s a gay man. He seems much less bothered by real double standards on CBS’s part, which concerns a far more innocent action (a kiss) than simulated oral sex, and the only explanation I can come up with is that he’s willing to let it go so long as he’s still promoted on their network. Pathetic

But he’s also droned on and on about how he understood ABC’s decisions, even last week, in cancelling him on GMA after first, and these latest ones, he’s said he understands ABC’s decision as not THEIR fault. Even if he didn’t apologize for the performance and was realizing it was a taste level issue. And he didn’t just say that CBS’s decision was ‘weak,’ he said it proved his original point. Which I thought his original point with ABC was wrong, but with CBS was right, so that the overall point of discrimation was in fact valid. And he hasn’t used his argument against ABC outside of his immediate and pissy interview after the performance. Which after that in all his other interviews, it’s more been the response of people watching who were offended, for whatever reason (again, I think Adam wrongly assigns it to sexualized homosexual male images) but understanding that ABC was responding to complaints.

As for droning on and on about ABC’s response, well he keeps on getting asked about it and about their cancelling the GMA thing because of it. Most people don’t bring up the CBS thing specifically. The Ellen interview was only generally about the issue, not ABC specifically, though again, Adam excused ABC’s decision to cancel him AND keep Chris Brown on.

Again, I think Adam was wrong (and a pissy jerk) in his immediate interview after the AMAs, I think he’s wrong in his continued thinking that it’s a gender and/or gay male thing, but he’s been consistent after the first craptastic interview, that he was the one that got ABC in trouble, and that their responses were valid.

Though I do think that overall Adam is right in some ways about gender roles and sexuality and how women are allowed greater freedom, than men in expressing it, specifically homosexual images. Women kissing is hott, men kissing is ewwww. Women can choose not to wear make-up, a lot more easily than men can decide to wear make-up. Women can decide to wear pants a lot more easily than men can decide to wear skirts. Of course it’s not that cut and dry and I could get into the feminst parts of how women are sexual objects, but this is already my own epically tl; dr.

I do not wear Adam goggles, thank you. Maybe an Adam monocle, but that’s it. I can agree and disagree with Adam at various times. I don’t think ABC’s decision has homophobic, I do think it was excessive and not smart PR overall, though totally their right to do so. And yeah, I suspect that their decison has more to do with placating sponsors who ARE responding to pressure about more homophobia (like those Liberty people who are cited in the LA Times article) than they really are about the FCC. Though again (and yaawwwwn) I can even totally understand their decision to even just decide Adam could cost them with the FCC and screw him.

I think it is great that you have enough time in the day to devote to that, my life is far too busy – I can pop in and out on a break from this or that but my time is far too precious – good for you though

i also think alot of his sales were attributed to his fanbase (and some multiple buying) that will show up in a big drop next week.

Nope-Kirsten has stated SEVERAL times that multiple buying does not affect sales in a significant way.

I am expecting a 60 to 70% drop, because Kirsten said that is typical for idols.