I’m finding the story about Susan Boyle, a “Britain’s Got Talent” contestant whose audition video has been very popular on Youtube, interesting.
The video (which can be found here) is great fun to watch, because Susan Boyle herself is very appealing, her voice is great, and because it’s always satisfying watching a high point in someone’s life.
But primarily, the video’s fun because everyone likes watching the underdog kick ass.
But the weird thing is, why is she such an underdog? Partly it’s because she’s not TV-pretty (Boyle herself was apparently dismayed by how she looked on TV), and TV has taught us for years that only thin, pretty people have any talent. Partly it’s because she’s heavyset (at least by TV standards, which are harsher for women than men), and partly it’s because she’s nearly fifty. I agree with Crowfoot, who in Shakesville comments wrote:
This has made me bawl my eyes out. I’m also fat and in my forties and feel ugly and I know no one would take me seriously as a performer. I also gave up on acting because of the sexism and the lookism. So watching her up there blowing them all away in the face of their bigotry.. *sniff* The sexism/sizism/lookism displayed by the audience and the judges just breaks my heart. How dare they laugh at her because she isn’t skinny and young and beautiful. Douchebags. How many people’s lives are diminished by this crap? We are a stupid stupid stupid species.
Even more than that, however, I think people were shocked because of the class markers she carries — in her voice, her attitude, and her hair and clothes. Ms Boyle’s presentation fairly screams “working class,” and people don’t expect working class to do good work. Colette Douglas Home writes:
Susan [was] roundly patronised by such mega-talents as [Britain’s Got Talent judges] Amanda Holden and the aforementioned Morgan, who told her: “Everyone laughed at you but no-one is laughing now. I’m reeling with shock.” Holden added: “It’s the biggest wake-up call ever.”
Again, why?
The answer is that only the pretty are expected to achieve. Not only do you have to be physically appealing to deserve fame; it seems you now have to be good-looking to merit everyday common respect. If, like Susan (and like millions more), you are plump, middle-aged and too poor or too unworldly to follow fashion or have a good hairdresser, you are a non-person. […]
She lived with her parents in a four-bedroom council house and, when her father died a decade ago, she cared for her mother and sang in the church choir.
It was an unglamorous existence. She wasn’t the glamorous type – and being a carer isn’t a glamorous life, as the hundreds of thousands who do that most valuable of jobs will testify. […]
Then, when a special occasion comes along, they might reach, as Susan did, for the frock they bought for a nephew’s wedding. They might, as she did, compound the felony of choosing a colour at odds with her skin tone and an unflattering shape with home-chopped hair, bushy eyebrows and a face without a hint of make-up.
I’m not above judging people by their presentation. Presentation is one of the ways we assure each other that we know what we’re doing. If someone hasn’t learned how to present themselves professionally, we assume that they also haven’t learned how to do their work professionally. And sometimes that’s justified.
The trouble is, a “professional presentation” is bound up in a lot of things — voice, grooming, body shape, clothing — which are in turn connected to class, to race, to body shape, to gender presentation, to disability status, etc.. None of these are hurdles that it’s impossible for (say) a fat Black person auditioning, or applying for a job, to overcome, if they have sufficient talent and drive. But these are hurdles that well-off, abled, gender-normed, thin white men don’t face.
And for the judges and audience to be so utterly shocked that a woman whose presentation isn’t “professional” sings beautifully… it’s says something pretty sad.
But that Ms Boyle was such a hit — and that millions of people have viewed her on YouTube — maybe that says something optimistic. Maybe it says that there are a hell of a lot of us who are sick of the sick, slick standards TV promotes. That would be nice.
i just watched the video today, and was almost crying. the worst part was at the beginning before she began singing, and the camera pans to the audience, there were lots of snickers and “pretty” girls making faces at her. they were judging her before she even opened her mouth to sing–such a shame…as if those people in the audience are so damn special…
If you ever want to really awe an audience, “I Dreamed A Dream” is a great song to do it with. :) Her voice reminds me of Celine Dion (not in a bad way, though).
I wonder how well she can perform songs in other styles? She’s proven that she’s great at “epic”, but it would be interesting to hear her cover something like “You Can’t Hurry Love” by The Supremes.
I posted a link to the video on a web forum not exactly known for its enlightened attitudes, and the result was pretty encouraging. (I admit that I probably should have used a more respectful subject line, though.)
I loved that video! I caught it yesterday on YouTube. I like to think that on some level people are learning that one doesnt have to be perfect to be acceptable. And as a fat lady in her forties, I say Sing it!
I keep thinking about the sounds from nearly a that are at the roots of much of today’s contemporary music — folk, blues (which morphed into R&B, then rock and roll, and rap, and a kajillion other things) and hillbilly (which morphed into country/western, then just plain country). Now granted, the people who performed and recorded that stuff had the shit exploited out of them and usually weren’t compensated fairly, but they weren’t expected to be young young young and pretty pretty pretty, either. In fact, if you wanted credibility in any of those music forms you couldn’t look like you had it all that easy (which people would instinctively assume if you were very young and very pretty), or no one would believe you.
Now everything’s turned on its head. You need youth, looks, thinness, and money, and lots of it, or people will laugh when you take a microphone in your hands. Even if your band has that scruffy boho look, your instruments and equipment have cost plenty and so has your rehearsal space and your computers and everything else you’re using to make your noise and get it out there. It’s almost impossible to be a homely middle-aged singer or musician with no “fashion sense” now. It doesn’t occur to people how much is being missed by insisting on young young young and pretty pretty pretty, always always always. We’re missing the stories from people who have really lived, not just from cute telegenic white guys whose idea of “suffering” is not being able to get the blonde AND the redhead to sleep with him simultaneously. We’re missing the richness of tone that comes with a larger and older singer’s body. We’ve decided those people are disposable, and it sucks. And not just because I’m one of them, although that doesn’t help.
I think that it’s even more than that. Remember, on American Idol, the tryouts from 3 or 4 years ago? Remember the autistic seeming programmer from Utah whose co-workers told him he was a great singer? Yeah. She had a lot of the same “social outcast” markers, too. These shows are as much, if not more, about humiliation as they are about talent. The judges have had tons of unskilled folks to listen to & unskilled folks who are socially inept are much more memorable and much more likely to get airtime than untalented normals. So an association is built by both the judging panel and the show’s audience between social awkwardness and humiliation. That’s clearly what the audience was expecting and that’s why it was such a big surprise to everybody.
Had this type of show Idol – XXX Got Talent and the rest not been built around humiliation this performance would not have been a surprise. The reactions we saw were caused, I believe, more by the format of the show than Ms. Boyle’s appearance.
The humiliation as fun theme is a big part of why I refuse to watch any of these shows. I do not get off on the cruelty. Fuck the producers who make these shows. They ruin something that could be good entertainment.
I just heard about this tonight and came to see if you posted on it. I agree entirely with what you said, which saves me the trouble of my own blog post. She sings great, but I found the shocked reaction and standing ovation patronizing and offensive. She didn’t bust out with some Olympic-level gymnastics–she sang. It is very sad that her singing ability was judged so harshly based on her appearance.
I keep hearing about this woman and everytime I go to watch the video I find that youtube has taken it down. I guess I am just not meant to see it.
Renee, this link seems to still be working: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY
“She didn’t bust out with some Olympic-level gymnastics–she sang.”
You’re obviously not a singer.
She sang like a world-class professional. And she hasn’t had any formal training at all. And she’s never performed in front of a large audience before in her life.
Her poise and talent were simply gobsmacking. It was definitely an achievement. Don’t diminish it just because you’re ignorant of what it takes.
Thanks for posting this. This story has been kind of bugging me – I want to be happy for her and the acclaim she’s getting, but I’m really bothered by this “Who knew that someone who was fat and not TV pretty might actually have talent?” thread that runs through the acclaim.
“It’s the biggest wake-up call ever,” he said.
If only I thought that were true in the big-picture sense.
This is the issue I’m wrestling with. She has a fantastic voice, and her performance had me in tears (partly because I was relishing the underdog thing). But would the reaction from the audience and judges have been the same if she’d been younger, thinner, higher class, and more conventionally attractive? Would she have still gotten a perfect score, or would they have nitpicked, expected more from her? (As a former singer, I noticed a few weak spots and thought, “Oh no, they’re going to skewer her for that…” But maybe it’s because I’ve only seen the American version of the show.) It strikes me as similar to the racism of lowered expectations.
But then, these shows are more about the story anyway – maybe the standing ovation and perfect score had more to do with the narrative than her (considerable) talent.
I bring this up because I’m afraid that, instead of teaching people about the shallowness of stereotypes, the way the show framed her performance will only solidify people’s ideas of class and looks by presenting her as the exception to the rule.
“But these are hurdles that well-off, abled, gender-normed, thin white men don’t face.”
Hey now. Thin + male usually doesn’t go down all too well. Try being a 110 pound 6ft male and watch the public’s extreme discomfort / disgust / horror with your appearance. Geek, weakling, etc. It directly violates people’s perception of gender and they react negatively. Must push off people at the margins, etc. And of course even otherwise progressive feminists will use ’em as a stress relief mechanism, repeatedly finding ways to bring up in everyday conversation again and again how they could break that guy in a second flat, etc.
Put a potbellied male and a skinny male in a room and which one will people react more positively towards?
The male judges, rolling their eyes when she answered about her age, made me sick. When they got all choked up watching her, I was so disgusted, yelling at the screen, telling them they had no right to it. When she’d finished, I didn’t want to hear them dramatically give her the respect she deserved: I wanted to hear them berate themselves for being such orifices, and to stress that their attitude toward her was unacceptable whether *or not* she had any talent. Nothing less than that would come near redeeming them in my eyes. She shouldn’t have had to knock them out like that to deserve basic dignity. What a revolting culture we live in!
I’ve watched her video sooo many times. I love the reaction she gets from the crowd and judges. I’ve even setup a blog for Susan Boyle!! I’ve seen her in a few interviews recently, I hope they dont change her too much. She is great the way she is.
Hmmn. I take your point, but I didn’t want to say “normal weight” for obvious reasons. (I’d also say that you’re conflating “thin” and “extremely skinny,” but they’re not the same thing — Johnny Depp is a thin guy, but I doubt he goes through the kinds of problems you’re describing.)
Nonetheless, I do take your point. Can anyone think of a word that would describe the not-too-thin-but-not-fat range that’s considered most socially acceptable?
‘slim’??
I loved her performance but think to some extent the only reason it was so ‘surprising’ is because the show is edited to normally only show people ‘like that’ (i.e. people whose image/ profile will negatively stereotype them) when they are really really rubbish, but think the world of themselves so the audience feels better about having a good laugh at them. Hence I imagine the judges / audience are used to seeing people with a profile like hers turning out to be slightly ‘damp squibs’ to say the least, hence their preconceptions and their shock when she turned out to actually be ok!
I think it’s a bit premature though to say she will win! I’m all for the disco-dancer-turned-burlesque-artiste – want to see how they carry on through the shows blocking out the main ‘points’ of her act! (Presumably in case they fall off? I’m presuming she was twirling tassles under there and not her own..you know..?!?)
I think it’s great Ms Boyle came on BGT not XFactor or similar – at least this way, as proved by Paul Potts, talent seems to stand an outside chance of being able to win through despite a less-than-perfect face or image. If she was on X Factor they would put her through because they couldn’t get away with not doing it, then she would quietly disappear somewhere around boot camp because her eyebrows weren’t ‘marketable’.
Wouldn’t it be funny if she is actually a 20 year old DDcup nubile blonde bird in disguise?
It sounds like the difference between “slim” or “slender” versus “skinny.”
It sounds quite romantic to be ‘slender,’ but ‘skinny’ has a very different tang.
I keep thinking about the sounds from nearly a that are at the roots of much of today’s contemporary music — folk, blues (which morphed into R&B, then rock and roll, and rap, and a kajillion other things) and hillbilly (which morphed into country/western, then just plain country). Now granted, the people who performed and recorded that stuff had the shit exploited out of them and usually weren’t compensated fairly, but they weren’t expected to be young young young and pretty pretty pretty, either.
I suggest that this is because when those root sounds were being developed and promoted they were being distributed on records and radio, non-visual media.
She didn’t bust out with some Olympic-level gymnastics–she sang.
I have a certain amount of contact with people who coach and perform vocals on a professional level (I’m talking classical music, opera, etc.), and have even taken a few voice lessons myself. What she did on that stage was comparable to an athlete with no training or coaching performing at an Olympic level. It’s entirely appropriate for the judges – and the audience, for that matter, given the kind of show it is – knowing that she was a completely inexperienced and uncoached amateur, to be completely shocked at her performance.
The presumption here that people reacted the way that they did solely or primarily because of her appearance. Was that in fact explictly established? On what basis are you all presuming that people were surprised at what came out of her mouth based on her appearance and not based on what they knew about her lack of experience?
“You’re obviously not a singer.
She sang like a world-class professional.”
I wasn’t being dismissive of her talent. Rather, I’m mentioning that there was no reason to think she couldn’t sing well based on her appearance or age. That’s what most people did. Had she shown up to the Olympic trials claiming she is a sprinter, I think some sideways glances would have been understandable. All she did was show up to sing and was immediately laughed at.
Jake:
The humiliation as fun theme is a big part of why I refuse to watch any of these shows. I do not get off on the cruelty. Fuck the producers who make these shows. They ruin something that could be good entertainment.
Hear, hear. I’ve watched the end shows of American Idol because you actually get to hear some good performances and the commentary on how to develop talent and persona are interesting. But I refuse to watch the early shows when they ridicule people.
Doesn’t she sing in a choir in her town? They either mentioned that in the video or I read it on one of the fansites.
I’d be curious to hear the reactions of folks like Julie who have singing experience themselves — how do you think Ms. Boyle compares to some of the more conventionally attractive singers who have come out of the American Idol competitions in terms of singing ability: range, pitch control, timbre, etc.
This is my critique of Ms. Boyle’s performance, based on a single listening. I may have missed something or misremember, so take it for what it is. This is not meant to denigrate Ms. Boyle’s performance in any way. It is merely my critique of where she has room for improvement. I’m also willing to be convinced that I’m wrong, in part or totally, about my impressions & I’d be keen on hearing what others have to say.
I, like Julie, noticed the several weak spots in her performance. Fortunately, they were mostly hidden under audience applause/noise. But, yeah, her performance was hardly perfect. What she does have is an amazing voice. I thought her range had potential to be very good, but suffered from either nervousness or lack of training. I’d have to listen again, which I can’t do here at work, to critique her pitch control well. What I do recall, from one listen through, is that her pitch control suffered a little at the end of phrases when she ran out of air due to nerves or lack of training. Timbre is, for the most part, a matter of personal taste, but she has a full voice. I didn’t detect any thinness or empty spaces in the sound. I also suspect that she was working hard to imitate a voice she had heard do the song as Ms. Boyle seemed to be forcing the vibrato at certain points. A confident singer knows she doesn’t need to do that (although she may if it matches her artistic interpretation).
As to how she compares to the singers who come out of American Idol…
Ms. Boyle has as much talent as you’re likely to find in that show. It’s hard to make a solid comparison since, on AI, the singers often do horrible interpretations of the songs they’re covering. That both distracts from the performance and does little to emphasize the strength of their voices. In some ways her voice is better than a lot of what you hear on AI because she is physically more mature and has had more time to work with her voice in the body she currently inhabits (as opposed to a 20 year old body which hasn’t had it’s current configuration for as long as a 47 year old has).
She has, IMO, a solidly professional quality voice. Give her 3 months of good training & she’s probably going to be as good as any pro out there now. Better than most you’re likely to hear.
Thanks, Jake, for the interesting comments.
She sings in her village church choir.
Certainly, that’s true of the TV audience — and watching the clip again, the editing and “wacky” background music of the minute or so about her before she walked on stage were certainly intended to set the audience up for a humiliatingly awful performance.
But I don’t think you can say the same thing for the judges, whose experience is live, not post-editing.
Being surprised that someone 40 years old should have a strong voice reveals a lack of sophistication. I know people training to become opera singers and they tell me that they don’t expect to really start their careers until they are 30. People younger than that can sing pop and rock but their voices usually aren’t strong enough and their technique isn’t well deveoped enough to sing classical music.
I once noticed that my rock albums (I’m talking actual 33 rpm vinyl LPs) had much more music per side than my classical ones. The reason was that the louder the music, the wider the tracks made by the grooves were. Classical music has a much broader dynamic range, so you had both thin and wide tracks. While rock is all loud, the actual record tracks are much more uniform and thus can be squeezed together because the range from narrowest to widest is smaller and thus you can just make them all thinner and made up for it by turning up your volume control. If you only play rock you don’t notice. But play a rock LP (or even CD) and then play a classical one. You’ll find that you’ll either have a hard time hearing the soft passages at all or will get blasted out of your chair (or car seat) by the loud passages unless you adjust the volume. A mature voice and vocal technique is needed by a singer to do this.
Other than in cathedrals or large urban churches, church choirs such as the one I sing tenor in tend to be volunteer parishioners. You have to have a truly lousy voice to be denied participation. It’s not unusual that not all the members will know how to read music – you’ll see some record practices and then sing along with the recording repeatedly to learn their parts. You will also be lucky to have a choirmaster that will teach you much about technique and will have you sing a variety of music. Being a member of a church choir is no guarantee that you can actually sing at all, never mind at the level demostrated by this lady.
There is a similar video of a gentleman on either AI or the British version — he was (if I recall properly) overweight, had poor teeth, spoke somewhat haltingly and had many of the same social markers as Ms. Boyle here, and he sang an opera and brought the house down. Does anyone know the one I’m talking about or have a link?
First off, I should clarify that when I said “former singer,” I was referring to participation in high school and college choirs. They were audition-based and I was a soloist, but all the coaching I received was pretty informal.
With that said, I basically agree with Jake. For me, her timbre and vibrato started out very strong, but tended to waver a lot by the middle of the song. Strong vibrato comes, partly, from controlled breathing, and she seemed to be having some trouble keeping it up. (Something I can relate to, incidentally – my vibrato has always been really weak, and while learning to breath correctly helped me improve it somewhat, I was never able to make it very strong or reliable.) I don’t think she was *forcing* the vibrato, but it did get progressively weaker.
I agree, though, that it sounded like an issue that more intense training would probably clear right up.
I’ll toss in my two cents as a trained singer as well. I agree with the previous technique comments, and add that she seemed to be straining (unnecessarily) for some of the high notes, which is typical for a less experienced singer – she had the range easily, but she was tightening up for the high notes when she didn’t need to.
Having sung in, accompanied and directed church choirs, most won’t do very much for your singing technique. If you are very fortunate, you may get some general instruction thrown in as you struggle to learn the songs (someone for a church choir who can read music is rare and treasured unless the church is large or has a good musical reputation). Altos singing soprano because they can’t hold a harmonic line is common.
It was an extraordinary performance. I doubt I could come close, and I have the range, nine years of voice lessons (including 2 at Eastman), and almost twenty years of time in choirs of all stripes, ranging from tiny, untrained church choirs to award winning touring choirs, including solo work.
Suzanne,
I think you are thinking of Paul Potts on Britain’s got talent.
I just wanted to second the comment that the editing was absolutely rigged to the nth degree, to the point where I have no confidence that the “pretty girls making snarky comments to each other” were actually responding to Ms. Boyle at all. They may have been rolling their eyes at Ant & Dec earlier in the show. Actually, I would imagine almost everyone in Britain has been caught on television rolling their eyes at Ant & Dec by now.
I’m not saying no one in the audience pre-judged her – I’m sure plenty did – but it was also a masterpiece of bullshit TV editing.
Inspiring! http://www.susanboyleblog.com FAN CLUB!!
I have never seen Susan Boyle before the video. But I knew I liked her the moment I saw her walking with a sassy strut on stage. I saw the inside of her. She had warmth and humor and class. And I knew in my heart she would win the audience VERY BIG! And I was RIGHT!!!
God Bless her!
For those who may think it was a one off and all down to the production on the night and she is not really THAT great – listen to this.
A Scottish newspaper got hold of a charity recording (only 1000 cds ever produced) that she made in 1999.
I won’t say anymore – hear it for yourself.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/2009/04/16/exclusive-susan-boyle-s-first-ever-song-release-revealed-listen-to-it-here-86908-21283564/
Just out of curiosity, are you just putting this exact comment onto every blog that has discussed Ms. Boyle? I ask because I don’t recall anybody here suggesting that this was a one off, chalking her sound up to the production or saying that she isn’t good.
I agree that the whole thing feels patronizing to me, even though she’s a great singer. I’ve got a post to that effect on my blog as well.
I second Tapetum. Choir singing is not all bad, but it’s definitely on the lowest rung when it comes to “singing experience”. When you sing in a choir, you usually can’t hear your own voice, which means you’re probably ingraining some bad habits and not even knowing it. You may be among the many who develop the habit of singing loudly before singing well, which is probably the number one cause of problems down the road. Because it’s too much trouble for the choir director to work with each individual member of a section, there’s a tendency toward (sorry if it sounds snooty, because I’m no virtuoso myself) lowest common denominator singing, because the most important consideration is that no one audibly breaks ranks by screwing up a passage. For professional, traveling, famous choirs, this isn’t a problem, but it does mean dedicated, passionate singers will rarely be truly challenged or stimulated to grow by community choirs.
What I’m saying is, of course, someone who has no other singing experience other than local choirs, is for all intents and purposes an amateur. Which just reinforces how unlikely and amazing the performance was.
RonF, isn’t that kind of dependent on what part you sing? I’m not a big classical singing buff, but in what performances I’ve seen, twenty-something sopranos are very common, as are lyric tenors. Altos, heldentenors, and the like mature laster, with mature male basses bringing up the rear, rarely becoming sensational until middle age. Lower voices take longer to mature, it seems. Which is why traditionally the higher voices (i.e. younger faces) got all the leading roles, maybe.
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For what I am about to say, I admit I am out of line:
To all you “studied, trained singers who know something”
Phuc off. Go take your years of training to someone who gives a whopper. Stop ruining my/our fun with your over specific analysis of an amateur talent show participant. I don’t give two almond joys about pitch, timbre, etc. I like her and her passion.
*Forgiveness please*
~ back to more pointed opinion~
It pains me when I talk to ppl about Susan boyle. Everyone I meet says how shocked they are,but I have to agree with simon. I knew from the start she would not go on stage unless she had some major chops. It is just unseemly and unlikely for a woman like her to do so. Then I catch my own bias. And I’m confused. Am I more accepting of her talent, or worse than the audience?
Who knows, I’m the kind of person who trusts a woman or minority is top notch at what they do , because I understand the kind of bias they have to disprove and the inner demons they must fight. I understand no one gets there without being damn good.
Again, it was just itching to say that……really itching…..
Asada – I think you may be misunderstanding. We “trained singers” (or at least me) are at least as wowed by Susan Boyle as you are – quite possibly more so.
She pulled off a professional caliber performance with nothing like the background and training most people have who sing at that level. I don’t sing to that level with any reliability and I have the training. So she wasn’t perfect – so what? Nobody ever is, it’s what makes us human.
I can’t listen to her video without tears streaming down my face. My training makes me appreciate what she’s doing more, in much the same way someone who runs a six minute mile is going to appreciate what it takes to run a four minute one more than a couch potato will.
I’ve watched the video several times and loved it. As someone over 50 and gaining weight, it was an emotional high, but I was curious about how a pro would judge the performance. I really appreciate those of you with training sharing your knowledge. And I sure understand (from another discipline) the interest and passion and appreciation that goes into a real critique.
So from my side, thanks for the information!
All this from someone who suffered oxygen deprivation as an infant!
http://www.johnmaszka.com/whatchagotgirl.html
She made me cry
She totally made me cry. In fact I’ve watched the video half a dozen times and she still makes me cry. I think a lot of it is rooting for the underdog, and that in turn is related to prejudging by appearance, but I think there’s something else going on too.
A few years ago I finally worked up the nerve to put a knitting pattern online. I didn’t hawk it around to knitting magazines, I didn’t try to sell it, I just posted it and put a link to it on my blog. I was very surprised at how scary it felt to do this. What if people hated it? What if it got trashed or mocked on other knitting blogs? How would I live with the shame? Of course none of that happened, but putting just that little bit of myself out there, visible, judgeable, made me feel very vulnerable. So when I tried to imagine coming from a village church choir and walking out onto that stage in front of that huge audience… she knew she was way older than most contestants, she knew she was no beauty (“live with my cat named Pebbles, never been married, never been kissed, even”) and no one’s idea of a star, and she reached down inside and grabbed all the heart and guts and talent she had and threw it out there. I’m getting choked up just writing about it. I salute her, and I salute anyone who does that, whether they can sing a note or not.
Read only if you want to feel stabby.
Robin Givhan says Boyle needs a makeover.
Seriously. Was that really necessary?
Who the bleep is Robin Givhan, and can s/he sing one-tenth as well? My money’s on a big fat no.
(I’m not reading the article. I’m at work, and a murderous rampage might reflect badly on me come review time.)
Robin Givhan is a fashion and style reporter for the Washington Post. She also brought us cleavage-gate.
@PG, #17: Aha! A fellow AOGG fan.
She hasn’t gotten a makeover, so much as she’s just done what ordinary people already do–fix herself up.
Lots of fans wanted her to stay as she was, and that appearance–matched with her surpising voice–was a big part of what made her a youtube sensation.
Would George Jones make it if he arrived on the scene today? Or Mama Cass?
Of course there’s more to this that most have missed.
-jef
http://www.deceptionsecrets.com
Lu,
Yay Montgomery fans! I can’t wait until there’s an Apple app for the complete works of L.M.M (all of which are in the public domain… sort of). At the moment my comfort reads when away from home are only Pride & Prejudice and Alice in Wonderland on the Classics app.
Re: Robin Givhan, a much better point was made by Kerry Howley that the whole “oh don’t let her change and be ‘spoiled'” thing is itself objectifying. Ms. Boyle has agency and should do what she wants. Which it seems she has.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/24/AR2009042402895.html
Actually, you came here – after someone else on the thread requested analysis. This is going to be hard to swallow, but this thread doesn’t exist for you.
In short, yes, you were out of line.
And this type of “her voice is SACRED” sentiment is the exact type of patronizing attitude that Matt Bors (#6) was talking about. A thinner, younger, etc. singer would deserve an honest and friendly critique, and so does this one.
Hi! I actually agree on “why is Susan the underdog”. As a coincidence my name is Susan Boyle too, and I got so excited of her performance, that I did have to start a fanblog about her too. It is so unfair that no one thought that she had a chance because of her appearance!
@a – “Put a potbellied male and a skinny male in a room and which one will people react more positively towards?”
Um, the skinny one probably if it’s me. Not all women dislike skinny men…but I take your point. Our culture has wierd ideas about weight and gender.
Also @ Amp – slender maybe? Part of the problem is that body size is so gendered you probably need different words for men and women.
Another thing that hardly anyone seems to be talking about is that there are regional issues within the UK going on here. I’m Scottish, and it’s not uncommon for English people to make negative assumptions about the Scots in all kinds of way, so the snotty attitude from the judges may well have been in part that. And yeah, it IS a class thing.
Check out her brazilian version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv8LysueQsQ :O)
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