SUSAN BOYLE'S PHENOMENAL RIDE JUST WON'T STOP:
AND YES IT MATTERED
THAT SHE COULD SING
It's been a week and I still can't get enough of the Susan Boyle phenomenon.
I've watched her video countless times and sent the link to others
who might not have known. It was amazing and almost historic, because
there've been many instances of unusual happenstance whereby something
remarkable occurs and the network news covers it. But after an initial
airing that's usually it. With Susan Boyle, the story won't quit. The
newscasts have had follow-ups all week, such as NBC's Brian Williams
and CNN's Anderson Cooper and Larry King, and, of course, the
entertainment news shows can't get enough of it.
Why is this story so remarkable? I thought about it for quite
awhile. Indeed, others have already written pieces and
thousands have added their comments, but some of them gave me pause,
which I felt deserved rebuttal. One such writer
asked the question what if Susan Boyle couldn't sing, implying that it's only
because she could that our collective derisive foreplay didn't result
in jeers and catcalls.
Of course he's right, but that's not the point. We would have done
so no matter the contestant, witness the many who've been served up to
us in the preambles to each season of American Idol. Yes,
Susan would have made it easier, because of her unusual bearing and
matronly look. But it's even more shocking and absurd when an
attractive person comes before the judging panel with a confident
stance and articulate patter, and then subjects us to disharmonious
drivel.
All candidates who've been paraded before the judges have gone
through a preliminary process during which the production team picks a
bunch of silly folks to entertain us as comic relief. If Susan Boyle
couldn't sing, dowdy appearance or not, she would have deserved the
ridicule that would have followed. It wouldn't have mattered if she
spent the past twenty years delivering meals on wheels during the
breaks from caring for her sickly mother. Inner goodness
notwithstanding, this was still a talent contest and we wouldn't have
patience for an otherwise saintly person who mocked the process.
Of course the drama escalated when this nondescript figure,
responding almost monosyllabically to Simon Cowell's grilling about why
a 47-year-old had never made any professional headway, said she aspired
to be a singer in the image of Evita originator Elaine Paige.
The audience poised itself for a performance that would produce
guffaws. To them Susan was an odd duck, though to my mind not at all
ugly as others have rudely called her. She's certainly not a beauty,
but her face has a pleasant cherubic glow when she smiles.
All this foreshadowed the commencement of her singing, which
instantaneously evaporated the misperceptions we'd invented, causing
most of us to respond with unmitigated shock -- including the judges,
assuming they, too, were in the dark -- morphing instantaneously into
collective joy. And all this played right into the hands of the
producers, as Susan didn't just walk in off the street. The production
staff had already auditioned her and knew full well how the Glasgow
audience would react.
Another columnist suggested that what bothered her was that we
were only happy about Susan Boyle, because she had transcended herself
into a celebrity. The writer was bothered that all this hoopla implied
that if one weren't a celebrity, what was the point? That the story was
sending a message that life was not worth living if Susan Boyle were
engaged in everyday uncelebrated humdrum.
This, too, is nonsense, as most of the world's population lives in
obscurity and thus has plenty of company without wallowing in suicidal
despair. Most people do not have special talents, and many of those who
do never harbor ambitions to pursue what is correctly perceived as a
difficult life path. What's true is, for the most part, we are not
interested in ordinary people. And when we are it is when such folks
win the lottery or bare their horrible circumstances on TV programs
such as early television's Queen For a Day and win prizes to
alleviate their misery. We emotionally connect with someone who's lost
their job and gets a new house thanks to ABC's Extreme Makeover.
However, we cheer for our celebrities, whether they are in
entertainment, literature, sports, politics or are Nobel winning
scientists. And when someone has pure and raw talent of the kind Susan
Boyle displayed admirably on Britain's Got Talent and her
life is transformed Cinderella style, it is only natural that the world
is moved. Add surprise to the mix and it is a fairy tale that really
happened.
We don't fully know Susan Boyle's story, except dribs and drabs
about her family life and small town Scottish upbringing. She has
admitted to a bit of vocal training, but clearly, with the exception of
small talent contests and perhaps singing in a church choir this woman
obviously never had a major hearing or she would have had some sort of
a career by now. Her voice is too good not to have been recognized by
someone. That the chance never materialized until now and that we were
all witness to it thanks to the Internet, especially You Tube, is the
stuff that made it a one in a kind phenomenal story that we'll be
talking about for years to come.
Contact Us