Susan Boyle is now a worldwide sensation. I’m sure I don’t have to explain: millions of people have watched her video, some over and over and over again while alternately laughing and weeping. A half-dozen fansites have sprung up, including this one with 13,000 members.
But I’m going to confess a secret: the whole thing leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.
My eyes didn’t well with tears when I first watched the video, and I haven’t had the urge to watch it again. I’ve frankly become annoyed as more people ask me if I haven’t found the story moving or inspiring.
Rather I find it a bit puzzling, all this excitement about the discovery that a “frumpy” or “dowdy” (i.e. average?) woman could have a beautiful singing voice. Did everyone really previously believe that singing ability was related to attractiveness?
Nonetheless, I don’t begrudge Ms Boyle her newfound fame. She’s a great singer. I hope she wrings all the joy she can out of her future, which will likely include winning Britain’s Got Talent, singing for the Queen, recording an album, visiting Oprah, etc.
My problem is I’m just not buying the pitch that this is a triumph for “women of a certain age,” a victory for the non-Botoxed fortysomething woman, a sign of the end of our culture’s love affair with youth culture — all of which I’ve read in other articles and blogs celebrating Boyle’s tv popularity.
This appears to be a case of the duckling embraced by the swans — when Boyle began to sing, apparently, everyone glanced into the water and noticed the reflection of her true lovely self.
But what’s the moral of that story? “Being born in a duck yard does not matter, if only you are hatched from a swan’s egg.”
I think I was dreaming a different dream — one in which the ugly ducks were also valued.
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Sabine,
I get what your saying. It’s gross that we don’t recognise people solely for their accomplishments and abilities and not their looks. Unfortunately, that’s just a fact of life and I don’t know what we’re going to see any radical changes in this anytime soon. However, on the upside, the “Susan Boyle event” and indeed it is an event, has prompted people to look at their superficialities and that is a good thing.
Is she going to prompt changes in the way we view others on the face of it? Probably not but the event in and of itself may prompt someone to take a second glance and it also may prompt someone who doesn’t fit into western culture’s beauty stereotypes to “go for it” anyway and that’s a good thing.
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