Lesbian Idols Journal - Week Nine (Disco)

Two outfits on everybody this week. So, I'm giving our Final Four Females a separate review for each performance/costume. You know, because it's fairer since you can look like heaven for one song and like absolute crap for the other.

In reverse order...

8. Fantasia Barrino – Holding Out For A Hero

Fantasia looked and sounded morbid in her second performance of the night. The black top half of her getup looked like it was stolen from a nightgown, while the black pants, with its bizarre pinstripe details and silver studs, looked like it was ripped off from Michael Jackson (and not in a good way). The gold earrings clashed, the matching black bracelet-things she wore around both hands looked like matching black hair barrettes, and the black patent leather boots just completed the feeling that she was dressing, inappropriately and on purpose, for the funeral of someone she didn’t particularly like. It did not help that she looked like she was having no fun at all, her normally cheerful face all pouty and serious as she tore the song apart like a starving hyena feasting on the first carcass it has chanced upon for weeks. Smile a bit, Fantasia! It’s American Idol, not the funeral of someone you don’t particularly like.

7. Jasmine Trias – It’s Raining Men

What’s worse, wearing black and sounding gloomy, or wearing pink and denim and sounding absolutely off-key? It’s a tough call, but ultimately I ranked Jasmine just that little bit higher because (a) she had a nicer hairdo; and (b) at least she didn’t have me feeling absolutely morose the way Fantasia did. Otherwise… Jasmine looked too tacky for words with her wristband the exact same shade of pink as her blouse, and her jeans too outdated to be trendy and too ugly to be retro-chic. Doesn’t help that she mangled her song, and it helps even less that she cried afterward. Oh Jasmine… at least you can take some comfort in the fact that even though half of America is blasting you because you outlasted La Toya, I’m only doing it 'cause your outfit was lousy.

6. La Toya London – Love you inside and out

Pink spandex, anyone? Uh… I’ll pass. She pulled it off surprisingly well, but all that pink tightness reminded me of tonsillitis. Woman didn’t sound too good on this song either.

5. Diana DeGarmo – This is it
4. Diana DeGarmo – No More Tears

I have to admit that, for me at least, part of the fun of watching American Idol is seeing Diana come out, week after week, in some strange costume and belt her heart out to millions of Americans, while being absolutely oblivious throughout the whole ninety seconds as to just how bizarre she looks. So girl really let me down this week when she appeared in not one, but two decent outfits. I wasn’t going nuts over the many-shades-of-pink dress she wore for her first number, but it was infinitely better than last week’s puppy-fat-highlighting misfire; and her second all-black getup was downright tasteful, and coming right after Fantasia’s discomfiting oddity of a costume, reminded us that black is supposed to be timeless and classy. And Disco really suits her balls-out style of singing to a ‘T’ – she sounded fantastic during both her numbers. Boy what a shocker… Di can look and sound good at the same time.

3. Fantasia Barrino – Knock on wood

Now this is much more like it! Energetic and ballsy, with an outfit that she looked comfortable and moved well in, Fantasia delivered an excellent rendition of Knock On Wood. Maybe that’s why I felt so let down when she turned out all funeral-hall strange during her second number. But never mind that… her black, hot pink and denim combination for song #1 was a casual-chic, absolute winner.

2. Jasmine Trias – Everlasting Love

Sure, her tight, glossy, black, thermoplastic dress was trashiness personified. But there’s trash that you leave in the gutter, and trash that’s so well put together you can almost pass it off as art. Jasmine’s pseudo-sleazy costume falls into the second category. I loved the post-modern cleverness of combining a cheap-looking dress with a sweet smile and posh makeup, and even though Jasmine didn’t exactly sound great, you have to give her points for daring to wear something so potentially vulgar.

1. La Toya London – Don’t Leave Me This Way

Female looked and sounded absolutely stunning as she belted out Thelma Houston! Not everyone can pull off an ostentatious shiny-beige jacket that had long sleeves made out of stretchy wool, a white tube-top, a teensy eensy denim skirt held up by a ridiculously oversized belt that threatened to be larger than the skirt, and strappy metallic heels. In fact, no one else could ever wear this without looking like the top half of Puff Daddy in drag and the bottom half of a hooker, cut out from two different pages of the same tabloid magazine and pasted together by some 5-year-old. And just for that, La Toya utterly deserves to be the Fashionable-Dyke of Disco Week.

The Sum Of All Fashions

Fantasia Barrino (1+2+2+11=16)
Diana DeGarmo (6+6+5+9=26)
Jasmine Trias (3+1+4+9=17)

The dearly departed

Jennifer Hudson (2)
George Huff (7+5+3=15)
La Toya London (4+3+1+7=15)
John Stevens (5+4=9)