‘Ageless’ JLo keeps ‘American Idol’ visually amazing

JENNIFER Lopez AFP/getty images

We believe that, after more than a decade on the tube, “American Idol” has overstayed its welcome. However, we continue to view its latest edition from time to time, to see how it’s faring as a discoverer of tomorrow’s singing stars.

Well, we can report that its current panel of judges, made up of Jennifer Lopez, Harry Connick Jr. and Keith Urban, is shaping up as more judicious and professional than some previous jurors, like “gut-feel” and quirkily quotable evaluators Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul.

For the most part, the current jurors dispense perceptive verdicts on and advice to the total unknowns who eagerly try to impress the heck out of them.

Another welcome development is the fact that the tilt’s coverage is going much less for the weirdos, awesomely lousy singers and other “funny” aggravations it used to focus on. Hey, we’re finally growing up, hooray! Sure wish local singing tilts would similarly play much less to the silly and sadistic peanut gallery.

We note further that Ryan Seacrest is playing a more important part in the show than before, when he was the obviously envious Cowell’s favorite whipping boy. With Cowell now doing his thing on “The X-Factor” UK,  Seacrest has come into his own as one of the show’s prime attractions, especially when the tilt selects its finalists and goes into stiff competition mode. Seacrest provides the shoulder to cry on for contestants reeling from the jurors’ occasionally “brutal” comments, and his inherently pleasant disposition (and good looks) help drive the trembling finalists’ heebie-jeebies away!

For her part, Lopez, the show’s only resident diva and icon of pulchritude, keeps the show visually amazing with her seemingly ageless charms.

Latina genes

We recall first seeing Jennifer on TV way back in the  early 1990s, as one of the frisky, faceless dancers on “In Living Color”—which, by the way, was the innovative comedy-musical TV production that also first showcased the goony antics of the then very young Jim Carrey!

Well, Carrey now looks much older than JLo, whose Latina genes have helped keep her looking lovely and luscious, even as her contemporaries prove that life deteriorates at 40-plus—and that, for the most careless and clueless of their ilk, 40 can be the new 60!

Luckily and pluckily for the ever-youthening Jennifer, she looks closer to 30 than her real age, so bully for her!

To be fair, however, let’s also hear it for the platoons of personal trainers, stylists, makeup artists, hairstyle dervishes, jewelers and other mavens and magicians of the beauty industry, who help JLo not just freeze the passage of time, but make the clock appear to spin—in reverse!

Tomorrow’s would-be stars would do well to closely study JLo’s eminently successful exercise in photogenic prestidigitation! She isn’t all that great a singer, but she’s managed to create a total “package” of pluperfect illusion that the viewing and listening public has been avidly “buying” for decades.

Cher showed the way, Madonna and then Lady Gaga followed—but, it looks like JLo will outlast them all!