Leave Susan Boyle the heck alone
Posted: Monday, May 04, 2009 4:00 PM by Gael Fashingbauer Cooper
Filed Under:
Music, TV
First, out of nowhere, there was Susan Boyle. And yea, the world dropped its jaws at the sound of that crystal-clear voice coming out of an ordinary looking woman, and saw that it was good.
AP file |
People, she got a haircut and a scarf. This is not major cosmetic surgery, here.
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And then, she showed up with a new hairdo and a Burberry scarf, and lo, the people started to freak the heck out. "What's next, a fake tan?" sniffed the Associated Press.
Come on. The woman got a $51 haircut and a scarf! It's not like she instantly threw herself on the plastic-surgery operating table and loaded up on Jimmy Choo stilettos. For all that she did clean up a bit, she still reminds me of a grade-school piano teacher. She'd never be noticed in a crowd by anyone who hadn't watched her YouTube audition clip.
But after the Boyle bonanza, in which everyone and their sister was e-mailing the YouTube clip, and then the Media Discovery, in which sites like ours were re-telling the story YouTubers already knew, there came the inevitable Warning Of The Backlash.
This story in the Times Online blames the supposed backlash on the new look, the fact that apparently Boyle's "never been kissed" line wasn't true, and that she's had some past musical success. Big deal. She's 47, if she hadn't ever tried to break into music before, with that voice, she's not just dowdy, as the paper calls her, but dumb. So she's not dumb! That's good!
And after the Warning of the Backlash came the declaration that said backlash was actually bogus. Any moment now we await the word that the bogus backlash itself was really bogus, and then the reversal of that bogus backlash, and now I can't even be bothered to keep up any more.
The woman has an amazing voice. She looks like one of us -- or at least, more like one of us than, say, Mariah Carey does. Now, leave her alone. It's fine to report on the competition as it continues. But just last week, I saw a series of photos of Boyle in her bathrobe, obviously surprised by the appearance of a photographer at her door. Is that really necessary?
It's one thing to, as "South Park" pointed out (warning: profanity), be simply sick of hearing about her. It's another to actively wish the woman ill and keep on invading her privacy.
I'd still rather give her my album money and let her buy more cat food for her 10-year-old cat Pebbles than give it to Mariah so she can have 47 flower girls at her first wedding that didn't last.
