I would be surprised if you have not yet heard or listened to Susan Boyle considering the saturation coverage this singing sensation has recieved. On the off chance that you haven’t, here it is…
You would agree that she has exceptional voice and unusual vocal range and she is evidently well trained. It is conventional wisdom now, that she is a great talent, that susan boyle is the kind of discovery that makes the efforts of shows like “Britian’s got talent” and “American Idol” worth while.
To realize the real reason she is a singing sensation, watch the video again and pay attention to the visuals of the audience as Susan speaks. Here are a some of things you notice.
When Susan says, “its a collection of villages” you can hear the audience sniggering, and when she says she is 47 (Remember the first time she was asked the same question when she wasn’t on stage, she says she is almost 48. Was there a friendly tip then to say she is 47?), the audience laugh quite loudly and the panel of judges roll their eyes.
If this isn’t humiliation, i don’t know what humiliation is!
Wait there’s more…
Simon Cowell asks her what is the dream and Susan says, “trying to be a professional singer”. The camera focuses on a good looking young women in the audience who does an exaggerated eye roll. And when susan says i would like to be as famous as Elaine Page, the camera again focuses on a woman in the audience who is commenting, we do not know about the comment itself but by this time you feel the vibe of the audience, which probably started off with the eye roll of the panel of those judges.
Everyone in the auditorium, including the panel of judges thinks she is a middle aged country women with high hopes of making it big, and they laugh at her and are already against her. But then she starts singing, and the expressions of the panel of judges show they don’t believe what they are hearing. As the song progresses, audience support moves to support her strongly and the camera man catches a couple of obviously elderly ladies and their reaction when comments were made by the panel. Towards the end, camera doesn’t show many young people but audience members who are either middle aged or elderly or do not fall into that “ideal” body type. The delightful laughter of relief on the face of a women towards the end of the comments, is the evidence of strong swing among the audience. Panel of judges acknowledge her obvious talent and a star is born.
To me, the story here is not about Susan Boyle, though obviously, she is the conduit which depicts what human society as a whole has transformed into. The story was depicted by that online producer, and cameramen of the program, who managed to build a narrative of the feelings and emotions of the audience and panel of judges regarding this women who thought she had a certain skill, but they were discriminating against.
Human beings as a society have become superficial. We no longer respect intellectual achievement, we don’t think being able to think in the abstract is an achievement, we do not think, as people age and gain experience they get more wise, we think people who do not live in an urbanized landscape can achieve anything. Did you notice the level of disapproval for people who are aged, people who do not come from an urban area, people who do not fall into the same pegion hole of body image face in our society?
Bryan Williams was being mild when he said, “She beat expectations and perceptions”. He was being polite, not to Susan Boyle, but to his own audience. Susan Boyle did not just beat expectations and perceptions, she managed to break through the unseen boundaries of a globalized world that descriminate aganist age, body image and rural people.
