Just a Dream
Singing sensation's fame hinges on fans' continued prejudice
Rebecca Bauman
Issue date: 4/23/09 Section: Opinion
I understand Susan Boyle's appeal. So many of us have been there, have wanted to impress for the sake of silencing our detractors, have wanted to put them in their place. To watch Boyle is to live that dream.
And I, too, have been moved by the "Britain's Got Talent" and Internet marvel, the sassy songstress all of 47 years and a whole mess of blotched, lumpy flesh whose performances induce cheers and tears alike.
Indeed, after Boyle's April 11 debut on "Britain's Got Talent," I couldn't help but think of the 1980 David Lynch classic "The Elephant Man" in which every good-hearted Victorian subject realized that the grossly malformed John Merrick could actually talk and think and feel, could produce gorgeous works of art, could display compassion and humor. Folks cried for the Elephant Man's once unseen abilities, those things that had been so markedly tucked beneath the growths that covered most of his body. "Good God," they must have thought. "I've been so blind!"
The reaction was appropriate for the Elephant Man because Merrick was truly disabled, truly hampered by extreme physical dysfunction, the likes of which very few in the world have ever seen. Of course people were shocked that he could be so, well, human.
Boyle, however, is not some medical oddity. She's got some extra weight, some gray hairs, some fuzz on her upper lip, some cracks on her skin. She's not God's sick joke, not a test of earthly compassion. She's a woman who's apparently uninterested in wooing men.
So why are we really so gob-smack impressed, so astounded to discover that she's worth our time?
We look at those athletes in the Paralympics and gasp at their accomplishments - men unable to walk win track races, women unable to see set record times in swimming categories.
And then there's Boyle who croons like a pro, even though she's ... frumpy. I don't see the connection between "do-able" and voice projection.
The adversities Boyle overcomes are supposed sexual unattractiveness and age. That's it. And when we see Boyle overcoming these so-called adversities to stake her claim as a talent, we're calling ugliness a social disability, a challenge not unlike living without legs or sight.
And I, too, have been moved by the "Britain's Got Talent" and Internet marvel, the sassy songstress all of 47 years and a whole mess of blotched, lumpy flesh whose performances induce cheers and tears alike.
Indeed, after Boyle's April 11 debut on "Britain's Got Talent," I couldn't help but think of the 1980 David Lynch classic "The Elephant Man" in which every good-hearted Victorian subject realized that the grossly malformed John Merrick could actually talk and think and feel, could produce gorgeous works of art, could display compassion and humor. Folks cried for the Elephant Man's once unseen abilities, those things that had been so markedly tucked beneath the growths that covered most of his body. "Good God," they must have thought. "I've been so blind!"
The reaction was appropriate for the Elephant Man because Merrick was truly disabled, truly hampered by extreme physical dysfunction, the likes of which very few in the world have ever seen. Of course people were shocked that he could be so, well, human.
Boyle, however, is not some medical oddity. She's got some extra weight, some gray hairs, some fuzz on her upper lip, some cracks on her skin. She's not God's sick joke, not a test of earthly compassion. She's a woman who's apparently uninterested in wooing men.
So why are we really so gob-smack impressed, so astounded to discover that she's worth our time?
We look at those athletes in the Paralympics and gasp at their accomplishments - men unable to walk win track races, women unable to see set record times in swimming categories.
And then there's Boyle who croons like a pro, even though she's ... frumpy. I don't see the connection between "do-able" and voice projection.
The adversities Boyle overcomes are supposed sexual unattractiveness and age. That's it. And when we see Boyle overcoming these so-called adversities to stake her claim as a talent, we're calling ugliness a social disability, a challenge not unlike living without legs or sight.
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Rebecca Bauman
posted 4/23/09 @ 9:51 PM CST
I really regret this line: "... we're calling ugliness a social disability, a challenge not unlike living without legs or sight."
I should have better demonstrated my belief that Boyle is not "ugly," is not so darned appalling. (Continued…)
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