Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Unless a former contestant has returned, I have this bad habit of paying only half attention to the TV during American Idol results shows.

After all, they amount to 55 minutes of filler, leading up to five minutes of suspense.

Mariah Carey earlier this year on American Idol. (FOX Photo)

Yep, there was Mariah Carey’s latest inane contribution to Season 12.

The clip started innocently enough. Mariah was going to give Idol’s Top 3 tips on how to make a music video.

Early in her career, Mariah admitted, she’d let producers do pretty much what they wanted.

No more. She’s gotten more involved in the video-making process, she said. After all, it’s her image that’s being projected to millions around the world.

Which is a fine message.

Until we got to the video.

Mariah spends much of it writhing around on the back of a motorcycle, wearing a tummy-bearing and cleavage-flaunting black outfit, like some guy’s plaything.

She spends most of the rest of the video doing a pre-strip stripper’s dance in a car’s headlights, wearing a very short and slightly transparent yellow dress.

A guy named Miguel sings most of Mariah’s new single, named “Beautiful,” of course.

Mariah sings a little, too. And giggles.

And, once again, I’m left dumbfounded by the Idol producers.

So what, precisely, was the message Mariah was delivering to Kree Harrison, Candice Glover and pastor’s daughter Angie Miller? Especially during a season in which Idol voters just screamed loudly and clearly that a woman doesn’t have to be body-perfect to be worthy of the Idol finals?

Well, if Candice and Kree take the stage in barely-there dresses and start doing hip thrusts in the middle of their Idol performances next week, at least we’ll know who to blame.

Thanks, Mariah. Very educational.