America's Got Talent

is like a wedding registry.

I have a tendency to cry when I watch America’s Got Talent. This might be partly because I mostly watch the compilations of golden-buzzer moments on YouTube, which are always the ones that tug the most at the heartstrings, but there’s something inherent to the very concept of America’s Got Talent that I love and can in itself bring me to tears. Despite the manufactured drama and the plasticene veneer of broadcast television, despite the inevitable presence of a joke act and despite the presence of Simon Cowell, I can’t help but be moved by it. It’s one of the last holdouts of eye-watering earnestness in entertainment today; America’s Got Talent still gathers hopeful singer-songwriters and Ukrainian cat trainers and families of Irish dancers who are just there because they love singing and songwriting and training cats and Irish dancing.

A heartfelt performance at America’s Got Talent (Flickr: Kevin Skinner! and bcbusinesshub via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED)

As is fitting for a show with “America” in the title, it’s about dreams. The show, without fail, walks us through the dreams and hopes and needs of the contestants—they frequently come from a challenging situation and are looking to a national talent competition to give them a new lease on life, or launch their career, or impress their dying grandmother. It would be easy to be jaded about these stories, but I am not jaded about them on America’s Got Talent. There’s something about someone putting themselves out there on a stage that is so vulnerable that it cancels out what I assume is frequent exaggeration. When someone goes on America’s Got Talent they are putting themselves on stage to be either affirmed or rejected. They are taking a risk, even if it is just the risk of card tricks or playing the saxophone or dancing with a dog.