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Judging the judges of AGT: Sharon Osbourne
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NBC has always had difficulty from its AGT judges, and understandably so. In a competition that has anything, few people can boast an understanding of all levels of talent combined with the restraint and perseverance to judge it fairly. In its first season, NBC gave the honors to Brandy Norwood, who seemed like a safe bet at the time. She was a former child singer, which the competition was expected to attract many of, and she met NBC’s requirements for gender and minority representation, allowing them more leeway in selecting their other two judges. Unfortunately, Brandy’s professionalism was severely lacking. She showed blatant bias towards the young female singers, but at the same time criticized them heavily as if unwilling to permit them to be compared to herself in the future. She was arrogant, even hypocritical, let her personal tastes cloud her judgment and gleefully hammed it up to the acts that tried to compensate for their shortcomings by antagonizing Piers Morgan. The arrogance and incompetence of Brandy combined with that of David Hasselhoff ultimately made for a very poor first season.
NBC should have issued Brandy her pink slip, but instead, mercifully, she decided for herself not to return. Once again, NBC was put to the task of finding someone that could judge anything, and ultimately put their faith in Sharon Osbourne, a former judge on The X Factor, confessed dog-lover, mother of three and wife to one of the most strange and iconic men on the planet.
Unfortunately for Osbourne, her faults became more readily apparent than her strengths. No sooner than the first episode, Sharon received a rude awakening to the harsh nature of a true million dollar competition and betrayed her sensitivity when a nine-year-old cheerleader named Breeze took the stage. Piers Morgan was right to think Breeze’s mother had forced her into performing, but he did himself a disservice by commenting on it. Breeze’s mother was escorted onto the stage and immediately began shooting off her mouth, and only stopped when Osbourne threw up her notes, yelled that she was quitting and stormed off the stage. Osbourne later composed herself and returned to the table to finish reviewing the Dallas auditions. She has not created such a scene since, but she has maintained a pattern of soft judging and sugar-coated critique, the likes of which should not be present in the toughest competition in the country.
Shortly thereafter in the exact same episode, Osbourne revealed a more troubling flaw: she was a sucker for the spoiler acts, and the next week in Los Angeles, she revealed that she had a preference for the camp, silly and bizarre over the talented. Galadin the male belly dancer, John England the British Liberace lookalike, S.K. Thoth the “pray-formance” artist, Luigi “Boy Shakira” Padilla, and the worst ever performance by Leonid the Magnificent, all received Sharon’s yes in season two. The pattern continued in the third season, with Osbourne often declaring that she “just loved” the female impersonators, bad dancers and other blatant joke acts.
Since Morgan openly expresses disapproval of such acts from the start and Hasselhoff is easily offended by them, it can be safely assumed that the vast majority of all cannon fodder acts in AGT are pushed through at Osbourne’s insistence.
Needless to say, Osbourne is far from perfect, although she does bring more to the table than her predecessor. Though she often hesitates to criticize spoilers and other acts that may be sensitive or short of temper, she has yielded better results from her criticism. Since it is rare for her to point out fallacies in an act, she cannot simply be brushed aside as a pompous Brit the same way Morgan is often disregarded, so when she offers advice, people listen. Her personality is sweet to the point of irritation sometimes, but again, this lends weight to her criticism. Many acts go into the open calls with their insults for Morgan rehearsed in advance, but when they receive ridicule from Osbourne, they typically can only stand in stunned silence.
In other words, while Sharon Osbourne does not have a ready understanding of what constitutes talent, she has effectively positioned herself as the final authority on what is not. When a performer fails to impress Osbourne, they know they are in trouble. Very few acts have made it to Vegas without her approval, and those few that have tend not to make it much further.
Finally, Osbourne has demonstrated that she is at least conscious of what is being said about her, and while her taste is still lacking, she did toughen up when she returned for the third season. Like Morgan and Hasselhoff, Osbourne owes much of her current celebrity status to America’s Got Talent, and as such, she has every reason to want it to remain healthy and continue.
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