Originally posted on sciy.org by Koantum on Thu 23 Apr 2009 05:30 PM PDT
Will Susan Boyle's epic moment last week on Britain's Got Talent (not a BBC show) turn out to be a choreographed piece of TV manipulation? Probably. But that'll just mean that something false gave rise to something true.
Captain Richard Phillips of the good ship Maersk Alabama—and Sully Sullenberger splashing down his crippled airliner in the Hudson River—broke through the poisonous smog of economic depression and Wall Street skullduggery with a reminder that pure individual heroism is a daily occurrence if we know where to look for it. Susan Boyle is another avatar of global yearning.
The YouTube clip of Susan's angel voice soaring from the unkissed mouth of that scrunchy-faced, eyebrow-enforested, unprepossessingly dumpy representative of anonymous humanity was the third irresistible message to us all to get over ourselves. Until things get better, we will all go on being unusually receptive to such epiphanies from the news. They remind us what uncomplicated strength of character looks like.
The surge for Boyle reinforces the point again: We're all getting sick of being bullied by bad values. Sick of disappearing everyone who's plain or strange or not one of the cool crowd. This hero was no Captain Courageous. She just had to fight against being plain and a bit odd from mild early brain damage.
There is a passionate desire from Ms. Boyle's new fans all over the blogosphere not to see her subjected to the seemingly inevitable show business makeover. Keep that frumpy little dress! Don't let some mincing beautician-to-the-stars rip out those exploding eyebrows!...
It will of course be only a matter of months before Susan Boyle's eyebrows get a pluck job—and a new wave of reality television co-opts "authenticity" as the fake new thing. Yesterday's New York Times told how last fall MTV convened an urgent executive meeting to discuss how to scare up some positive social messaging from their glitz-peddling reality shows.
What a drag. We wanted to keep the Susan Boyle moment for ourselves. If it was an illusion, at least it was our illusion. It made us feel so much better than theirs will.
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