SALON

Thursday, Jan 17, 2013 2:41 PM UTC

“American Idol” catfight: Nicki and Mariah duke it out over “Mean Girls”!

"American Idol" returns for its 12th season, reigniting one of television's most ridiculous feuds

By

Topics: American Idol, TV, Nicki Minaj, mariah carey, keith urban, randy jackson, Reality TV, Television, mean girls,

(Credit: FOXMichael Becker)

It was just a little over 10 minutes into the new season of “American Idol,”its 12th, when new judges Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj started bickering about “Mean Girls.” “I want to lose three pounds,” Mariah said, sitting at the judges table getting her hair and make up retouched.  “I know how you can,” Nicki sassed back. “It’s a quote from ‘Mean Girls.’ If you knew ‘Mean Girls’ you would know,” Mariah countered. “I do know ‘Mean Girls,’” Nicki replied “Okay, who says ‘I want to lose three pounds?’ Which character?” Mariah asked. Incapable of leaving the bait untouched, Nicki tried, “Not Lindsay. The other one, with the blonde hair.” “What’s her name?” Mariah insisted. “You know something, Mariah …” Nicki began. Australian country star Keith Urban, the other new judge, pinched the bridge of his nose.

Much has been made of the Mariah-Nicki feud going into the new season, which has Mariah, Nicki, and Keith replacing Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler — the judges who helped the show transition out of the Simon Cowell years — but nobody promised anything as wonderfully adolescent and surreal as a fight about “Mean Girls.” (It came up again later, with Nicki insisting Mariah “is Regina George.”) The Mariah-Nicki feud, based on last night’s display, is to catfights what “Idol’s” string of cute-ish white boy winners is to rock and roll: the appealing, non-threatening, professionally packaged kind that you find yourself smiling along to without conscious thought. When Mariah and Nicki trade insults, it’s with smiles on their faces, dueling British accents, and minimal eye contact. Stretching out her arms and talking to no one, Nicki sing-songed “She’s a bitch! She’s a bitch.” “If she called me something that begins with a ‘b’ and ends in an ‘itch’ I rebuke it,” Mariah smiled back, playing with her soda straw. The new season of “Idol” should be great fun.

Mariah and Nicki don’t like each other, but they are not crazy or drug-addled or quiet. After the exceedingly dull celebrity spectacle that was Britney Spears on “the X Factor,” it is genuinely pleasant to have three fully sentient, energetic, well-spoken people who know something about music (and Randy Jackson) talking to all these wannabe “Idol” winners. It’s also a relief to be watching a show so confident in itself that it doesn’t have to make a huge deal about what a big deal it is. Ryan Seacrest’s opening monologue about the cultural importance of “Idol” contained the phrase “Together, we’ll take the journey that defines a nation,” and while I sincerely hope “American Idol” is not the journey that defines our nation, I do appreciate that after this requisite posturing the show got out of its own way, showing auditions and singers, not endless shots of big crowds and its own hype.

Whatever their interpersonal issues, the four judges are chatty, discursive, knowledgeable, not so opinionated as Simon Cowell, but not pushovers either. The cute, guitar playing 23-year-old with the amputated leg who had recently recovered from cancer wasn’t terrible, but he wasn’t great: The judges politely sent him home despite his backstory. The teen girl who lived on a farm and could sing Carrie Underwood and rap Nicki Minaj’s “Superbass” sparked minutes of conversation about whether a young performer has to be one type of singer or another. The oddball Asian kid with oversize glasses and no talent whatsoever was sent home gently: Mariah wondered if he had ever considered being a D.J. Nicki told him, “I would never do this when I was young, I was so scared.” One performer in a wig and a red plastic Michael Jackson suit that made unfortunate farting noises every time it moved sent Keith under the judges table in embarrassment —  I was right there with him.

Willa Paskin

Willa Paskin is Salon's staff TV writer. More Willa Paskin.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 4 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
209 points210 points | 7 comments
vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the persecuted late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
157 points158 points | comment
vote
Loaded terminology like "entitlements" and "welfare" skews the debate and alters America. How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government.
84 points85 points | 26 comments
vote
Obstruction will ruin the GOP: Playing politics and abusing the system can excite the extremes, but it's a recipe for long-term political disaster
49 points50 points | 8 comments
vote
With the help of Photoshop, artist Yao Lu has made shanshui — traditional ink paintings — of China's landfills
23 points24 points | comment

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations