April 16, 2009 9:44 AM
Susan Boyle - "a parable for the age"
The definitive word on Susan Boyle, who unexpectedly knocked the socks off a 3000 strong audience at Britain's Got Talent - from the UK Herald:
The beauty that matters is always on the inside
COLETTE DOUGLAS HOME
April 14 2009Susan Boyle's story is a parable of our age. She is a singer of enormous talent, who cared for her widowed mother until she died two years ago. Susan's is a combination of ability and virtue that deserves congratulation.
So how come she was treated as a laughing stock when she walked on stage for the opening heat of Britain's Got Talent 2009 on Saturday night?
The moment the reality show's audience and judging panel saw the small, shy, middle-aged woman, they started to smirk. When she said she wanted a professional singing career to equal that of Elaine Paige, the camera showed audience members rolling their eyes in disbelief. They scoffed when she told Simon Cowell, one of the judges, how she'd reached her forties without managing to develop a singing career because she hadn't had the opportunity. Another judge, Piers Morgan, later wrote on his blog that, just before she launched into I Dreamed a Dream, the 3000-strong audience in Glasgow was laughing and the three judges were suppressing chuckles.
advertisementIt was rude and cruel and arrogant. Susan Boyle from Blackburn, West Lothian, was presumed to be a buffoon. But why?
Britain's Got Talent isn't a beauty pageant. It isn't a youth opportunity scheme. It is surely about discovering untapped and unrecognised raw talent from all sections of society.
And Susan Boyle has talent to burn. Such is the beauty of her voice that she had barely sung the opening bars when the applause started. She rounded off to a standing ovation and - in her naivety - began walking off the stage and had to be recalled.
Susan, now a bankable discovery, was then roundly patronised by such mega-talents as Amanda Holden and the aforementioned Morgan, who told her: "Everyone laughed at you but no-one is laughing now. I'm reeling with shock." Holden added: "It's the biggest wake-up call ever."
Again, why?
The answer is that only the pretty are expected to achieve. Not only do you have to be physically appealing to deserve fame; it seems you now have to be good-looking to merit everyday common respect. If, like Susan (and like millions more), you are plump, middle-aged and too poor or too unworldly to follow fashion or have a good hairdresser, you are a non-person.
I dread to think of how Susan would have left the stage if her voice had been less than exceptional. She would have been humiliated in front of 11 million viewers. It's the equivalent of being put in the stocks in front of the nation instead of the village. It used to be a punishment handed out to criminals. Now it is the fate of anyone without obvious sexual allure who dares seek opportunity.
This small, brave soul took her courage in her hands to pitch at her one hope of having her singing talent recognised, and was greeted with a communal sneer. Courage could so easily have failed her.
Yet why shouldn't she sound wonderful? Not every great singer looks like Katherine Jenkins. Edith Piaf would never have been chosen to strut a catwalk. Nor would Nina Simone, nor Ella Fitzgerald. As for Pavarotti But then ridicule is nothing new in Susan Boyle's life. She is a veteran of abuse. She was starved of oxygen at birth and has learning difficulties as a result. At school she was slow and had frizzy hair. She was bullied, mostly verbally. She told one newspaper that her classmates' jibes left behind the kind of scars that don't heal.
She didn't have boyfriends, is a stranger to romance and has never been kissed. "Shame," she said. Singing was her life-raft.
She lived with her parents in a four-bedroom council house and, when her father died a decade ago, she cared for her mother and sang in the church choir.
It was an unglamorous existence. She wasn't the glamorous type - and being a carer isn't a glamorous life, as the hundreds of thousands who do that most valuable of jobs will testify. Even those who start out with a beauty routine and an interest in clothes find themselves reverting to the practicality of a tracksuit and trainers. Fitness plans get interrupted and then abandoned. Weight creeps on. Carers don't often get invited to sparkling dinner parties or glitzy receptions, so smart clothes rarely make it off the hanger.
Then, when a special occasion comes along, they might reach, as Susan did, for the frock they bought for a nephew's wedding. They might, as she did, compound the felony of choosing a colour at odds with her skin tone and an unflattering shape with home-chopped hair, bushy eyebrows and a face without a hint of make-up. But it is often evidence of a life lived selflessly; of a person so focused on the needs of another that they have lost sight of themselves. Is that a cause for derision or a reason for congratulation? Would her time have been better spent slimming and exercising, plucking and waxing, bleaching and botoxing? Would that have made her voice any sweeter?
Susan Boyle's mother encouraged her to sing. She wanted her to enter Britain's Got Talent. But the shy Susan hasn't been able to sing at all since her mother's death two years ago. She wasn't sure how her voice would emerge after so long a silence. Happily, it survived its rest.
She is a gift to Simon Cowell and reality television. Her story is the stuff of Hans Christian Andersen: the woman plucked from obscurity, the buried talent uncovered, the transformation waiting to be wrought.
It is wonderful for her, too, that her stunning voice is now recognised. A bright future beckons. Her dream is becoming reality.
Susan is a reminder that it's time we all looked a little deeper. She has lived an obscure but important life. She has been a companionable and caring daughter. It's people like her who are the unseen glue in society; the ones who day in and day out put themselves last. They make this country civilised and they deserve acknowledgement and respect.
Susan has been forgiven her looks and been given respect because of her talent. She should always have received it because of the calibre of her character.
Posted in Inspiration | Permalink
Comments
I just wanted to let you know that my husband's 22 year old brother sent me an email containing the video of Susan Boyle singing. He was as blown away as we were. Now, he does have an appreciation for Les Mis and music in general, but I thought it was really great that someone from the group society seems to think cares only about glitz and fake beauty easily recognized how magnificent Miss Boyle really is.
My husband and I are huge fans of Les Mis. We listen to the full recording any time we're on a long road trip. We both agree that Susan Boyle rivals any of the Fantine's we've heard. We really hope she continues to succeed and is able to release an album.
To me, she exemplifies exactly what the contest is supposed to be about. How sad that people laughed when someone outside of the media's manufactured bubble dared to step on stage!
Posted by: Lauren | April 16, 2009 10:19 AM
I thought Susan was wonderful ! She showed courage and dignity that I wouldn't have been able to muster under those same circumstances. I was shocked and appalled at the way she was treated by the audience and the judges. And to realize that it was just a reflection of the way ordinary people, who age (as we all do and will, youth doesn't last forever)and who have more to worry about than the latest fashion and (in these "progressive" times) have Christian values are ridiculed everyday !! That is shameful. I have come to adore Susan and it was refreshing to read this article. Thanks for posting it. And thanks so much for posting the video of Susan Boyle. I downloaded it and I've watched it several times. I've been humming, whistling and singing "I Dreamed a Dream" for days now. It was a beautiful performance and she made my heart sing.
Posted by: dee | April 16, 2009 12:10 PM
Thank you for expressing the words that I could not find yesterday. This story hit me in a place of deep emotion and I found myself, at first, unable to understand the immediate profound effect it had on me. I couldn't figure out if I was crying because the story was so sad or because it was so happy. All I knew was that I needed my child to see it. I knew that it was an important learning experience.
Since then, I have been able to put my thoughts straight and your post is exactly how I feel. Thank you for expressing what I needed to hear.
I know in my heart that this story will bring good to Susan and the many people it touched.
Posted by: Lisa | April 16, 2009 1:06 PM
Thanks for posting the beautifully written article about Susan Boyle. The author expressed my thoughts exactly.
The you-tube video brings me to tears every time I see it and I've been humming that song for days.
Hopefully, (in my lifetime) we'll see the pendulum swing away from our narcissistic society as a result of more events like this.
Posted by: Maggie Dee | April 16, 2009 2:20 PM
That was a great article. I love this line, "They make this country civilised and they deserve acknowledgement and respect." I sincerely hope this has awakened our culture to examine itself and to reject programs that encourage mocking, sneering, arrogant attitudes. Susan Boyle is clearly the exception, not the rule. Think of all the others who remain "nobodies" and stood up there getting the disrespect and abuse heaped on. I wonder how they are getting on today.
Posted by: evergreen | April 16, 2009 3:23 PM
Wonderful article! Don't you get the sense that, every once in a while, God gives us the grace to see a person as He sees them? God bless Susan Boyle.
Posted by: Anne | April 16, 2009 7:08 PM
All this from someone who suffered oxygen deprivation as an infant!
http://www.johnmaszka.com/whatchagotgirl.html
Posted by: John Maszka | April 20, 2009 3:46 PM
