Susan Boyle
April 21, 2009
I cry when I watch Susan Boyle's audition for Briton's Got Talent. It was very well done. Her choice of song was excellent. The story of a woman who dreamed a dream only to find it torn apart seemed to have been written by the lady herself.
The producers too set her up for a surprise. They filmed her stuffing sandwiches into her mouth. They gave her no advice on self presentation. While the two goons backstage acted out our better conscience, the audience and judges laughed derisively, and all but groaned at her self-introduction. They asked her questions designed to make a fool out of her aspiration, including, "Why hasn't it worked out so far, Susan?" as if to say, "Just look at yourself, granny, how do you expect to be a famous singer looking like that?"
And here lies the rub. Susan Boyle does not look at her self. Her friendly eyes look only outwards, at us the viewers. She is about as ego-involved in her body as my dog. She has a body, of course and she knows she has one, but she also knows it does not matter. For one reason or another, she has taken little interest in how it, her body, looks at all. Life she knows, 'is not a beauty contest.'
This is why I think we admire her so much. There are other not so beautiful singers. Mama Cass, of the Mamas and Papas, was big. Ella Fitzgerald was not all that hot to look at. Even that Canadian has a pretty weird nose. With a "workover" would Susan Boyle look all that different from her heroine, Elaine Page(58)? Truth be told, Ms. Boyle does not care.
I think that it is less the shock of "the fat lady sings," but the shock and awe at the disparity between the complete lack of narcissism -- the complete absense of visual self love -- and the depth of love, the longing, the hope that is expressed in Susan Boyle's voice. She sang a dream of being loved, of deserving to be loved, of being lovable. She sang that she still believed, even in the face of knowing that it is impossible.
We forgive this kind of, phono-vocal self love. We even approve of a one sided identification with only the phonological aspect of self -- indeed it only the voice that is deemed capable of being a self. Susan Boyle is not a fat lady singing, she is a song. It is as if her soul has arrived on stage, demanding, claiming her right to be loved and accepted.
A lot of commentators say that the message is "Don't judge the book the its cover!" I think that her message is a little more extreme; there is a book which has no cover. Ms. Boyd is living proof; soul exists. It is there for all to witness, the light and the life, the ressurection, on Youtube.
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