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culture
Susan Boyle Becomes Internet Sensation
It is improbable that a homely, 47-year-old woman from a small village in Scotland could captivate the world, but somehow that is exactly what has happened this week.
Last Wednesday, a friend sent me a link to a YouTube video showing Susan Boyle, a woman of admittedly plain looks, with short, curly gray hair, a plump figure and bushy eyebrows. Boyle appeared on Britain's Got Talent, a television show similar to American Idol, where the perpetually tan Simon Cowell and another man and woman judge as regular Brits showcase their performance skills.
The video starts with an interview with Susan Boyle, who says she lives alone with her cat Pebbles, and has never been married, or even kissed. When she walks out on stage, you can hear the laughter from the audience, and see the doubt in the faces of the judges. This woman, everyone thought, would just be another dud, someone who thought she sounded good in the shower, but really struggled to carry a tune.
But everyone gets their chance on the show, even though many in the audience were rolling their eyes. The music for "I Dreamed a Dream" from the musical Les Miserables began, and the audience went from mockery to amazement as they heard Susan Boyle start singing the very difficult song beautifully. The shock registered on the judges' faces, and the audience stood up to cheer, while Susan Boyle calmly continued singing the song she had come to sing.
The YouTube video has, by Monday afternoon, received more than 33 million views. Boyle is one of the top trending topics on Twitter and has been for days. She has over a million fans on Facebook.
And I, for one, cannot stop thinking about her.
In a culture obsessed with youth and beauty, Susan Boyle is an outsider. Someone I sent the video to could not believe it was really Boyle singing. He asked me if Britain's Got Talent had done the reverse of China in the Olympics, playing a beautiful voice with a less than beautiful image.
Other people I know, as they were watching the video, joked that they wished they were just listening to the audio. The video is so stunning, and I believe has been viewed so many times, purely because of the great dichotomy between what we are hearing and what we are seeing.
Susan Boyle, according to an article in The Times of London, is a volunteer caring for elderly members of her local church and has spent much of her adult life caring for her mother. It wasn't until after her mother died that she finally decided to make a big try for a music career, and she did it as a tribute to her mother, who always told her she was a great singer.
Is the Susan Boyle video mesmerizing because we do not expect such a heavenly voice from someone who looks nothing like an angel? Or is it because Boyle reminds us that we too can rise up, even as others snicker at us and doubt our capabilities?
Or has the impossible truly happened?
Now that the 2008 election is over and the problems we knew existed before Nov. 4 loom even larger, in an economy whose bottom we may not yet have reached, with North Korea firing rockets and Iran imprisoning U.S. journalists, now that problems must actually be addressed, not just discussed in soaring rhetoric, have Americans found someone who embodies hope like Barack Obama did when he was a candidate?
Susan Boyle, if you really want to make it big, leave your little Scottish village and come to America, because here, hope sells.
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Alia
3:47PM 3:47PM Apr 20th 2009
Don't come to America! Unfortunately, the only singers revered here are talentless skanks. You can only sell CDs here if you look and act like a whore.
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Alia
3:49PM 3:49PM Apr 20th 2009
Don't come to America! Unfortunately, the only singers revered here are talentless skanks. You can only sell CDs here if you look and act like a whore.
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sammy
6:48PM 6:48PM Apr 20th 2009
WTF has Obama got to do with this beautiful singer??/ Good God- it sounds like all the blogs you get to read when you get to the comment section-where someone ultimately blame a leader regardless of the topic! Susan Boyle is a stand alone act that has inspired many. Nothing more to be said.
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Anne Lautner
8:44PM 8:44PM Apr 20th 2009
Susan Boyle, every time you sing, you send shivvers down my spine. If you are allowed to record songs, I hope there will be more like "I Dreamed a Dream." Every night I go to You tube and get my Susan Boyle fix for the day. I am so happy for you.
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EASTBAY93
12:52AM 12:52AM Apr 21st 2009
She reminds me of Aunt Clara on Bewitched! I too, have to listen to her everyday.
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Delphinias
10:22PM 10:22PM Apr 20th 2009
Much has been made of Brit Susan Boyle’s singing bit on “Britain’s Got Talent.”
Susan Boyle, an over-weight, middle-aged woman with birdsnests for eyebrows who stood before Simon Cowell to be ridiculed, then belted out a beautiful tune to an amazed audience.
It’s a hoary tale that has taken the You Tube world by storm.
And this is what we abhor - Millions of those who make themselves seem to be taken with the British wench. They profess that the World is an unfair place where only the beautiful are deemed successful. But, now, they shower their learned, all-knowing praise on an ungainly woman, there-by making themselves self-satisfied that they can rise above the cruel world and see the Real Beauty that exists in even the most unattractive of our species.
By praising Susan Boyle, they are praising themselves, and their ability to judge Humanity better than Simon Cowell.
By praising Susan Boyle they proclaim themselves holier than Hollywood.
Well, that’s not saying much, not in our book.
[ Editor's Note: And they are the same people who, after Susan Boyle leaves their parlor, proceed to attack Ms. Boyle as cats at catnip. The social animal is an ugly thing. ]
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If you have nothing good to say
1:31AM 1:31AM Apr 21st 2009
It may sound strange for some to hear this... but... there are many people that are not familiar with "Les Miserables" and had never heard the song, previously.
I am one of those people. I'm 54, American, and had never heard the song so didn't know how to compare her version. I've listened to it, now, by other singers, and got the lyrics (as I can't really tell what she's saying).
It's a beautiful, sad song... and it's simply uncanny that it perfectly fits my life at this moment, sad to say.
To hear more about her personal life... it's interesting... after having just watched the well acted, yet incredibly depressing film "Grey Gardens" on HBO.. I can't help but compare the two stories... Little Edie and Ms. Boyle had something in common.
I hope someone DOES do a album with Ms. Boyle... I truly think it could be a continued sensation of what we witnessed on the tube.
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Mario
2:59AM 2:59AM Apr 21st 2009
Wonderful singer! I am disappointed that Simon Cowell did not have the courtesy to stand and clap when his
cohorts did. Rudeness at its best! Then he rises and claps to a 12 year old that he first chastises his song selection.
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stephanie moss
9:09AM 9:09AM Apr 21st 2009
Susan Boyle was fantastic but I feel bad that everyone comments on her looks. Who cares? Her beautiful voice makes up for all that.
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dwv123
9:46AM 9:46AM Apr 21st 2009
I think if a beautiful woman for instance like Amanda Holden sang that song like Susan did, Britian would have another Elaine Paige quality singer to adore. She would have been coached and refined even more so, and been taken into the Theater business as a very successful singer. However, a coal miners daughter from Blackburn, Scotland, that is not eye appealing, nor very cultured took to the Stage on BGT and wowed the audience. Susan new she could sing and knew she would win over the audience, but all of the British Isle, then all the world? No one would have guessed that. Serendipity had its moment on April 11th, and the rest is history. This will be studied by professionals in the sociology, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, religous, and musical field for some time to come.
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Greatgrandpa; retired teacher
3:16AM 3:16AM Apr 26th 2009
There was a time in American entertainment when youth and beauty were not the primary qualifications required for appreciation and fame. I'll never forget the thrills one could feel in the 1940s when Kate Smith -- certainly no beauty -- sang God Bless America with her perfect pitch and the pure tonal quality of her voice.
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jbracale
3:30PM 3:30PM Apr 21st 2009
WHAT A BREATH OF FRESH AIR! I TOO LOVE TO HERE HER AS OFTEN AS I CAN!!!
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jbracale
3:36PM 3:36PM Apr 21st 2009
stephanie moss WHEN I WAS YOUNG I WAS ATTACKED BY THE WEALTHY BRATS AT OUR SCHOOL, I AND 2 OF MY FRIENDS WERE ALWAYS PICKED ON, NOT SO MUCH FOR OUR LOOKS BUT BECAAUSE WE WERE POOR, THE 3 OF US FOUGHT BACK IN OUR LATER YEARS OF SCHOOL, BEING POOR MADE US BETTER PEOPLE, MOST OF THEM LEARNED MEANESS AND SOME WENT ON TO BE DRUG USERS, BUT WE BECAME BETTER PEOPLE BY WHAT WE DIDN'T HAVE, THEN THE ONES THAT HAD!!!!!
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Ed Baggett
3:44PM 3:44PM Apr 21st 2009
She looks like Sean Connery's sister.......
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MATTHEW GREENE
4:42PM 4:42PM Apr 21st 2009
Hurrah! Middle-aged Susan Boyle is nearly 48, lives alone with her cat, Pebbles and is presently unemployed. While still looking for a job, she suddenly triumphs against all odds, singing the right kind of song at the right time about unfulfilled hopes and dreams. More than that, she has also inspired millions of others across the globe with a message of "Perhaps, I can also do it." Susan Boyle is the only piece of good news we have heard in the current economic recession or Depression. She has inspired millions of people to hope -- to survive and try harder. And she has made many Americans feel good again -- like the little racehorse SEABISCUIT once did for us in the thirties. President Obama should invite her to the White House. She deserves such an honor!
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MATTHEW GREENE
4:53PM 4:53PM Apr 21st 2009
Hurrah! Middle-aged Susan Boyle is nearly 48, lives alone with her cat, Pebbles and is presently unemployed. While still looking for a job, she suddenly triumphs against all odds, singing the right kind of song at the right time about unfulfilled dreams -- and HOPE.
More than that, she has also inspired millions of others across the globe with a message of "Perhaps, I can also do it."
Scottish Susan Boyle is the only piece of good news we have heard in the current economic recession or Depression. She has inspired millions of people to hope
-- to survive and try harder. And she has made many Americans feel good again -- like the little racehorse SEABISCUIT once did for us in the thirties.
President Obama should invite her to the White House.
Susan Boyle is deserving of such an honor!
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MATTHEW GREENE
5:02PM 5:02PM Apr 21st 2009
Hurrah! Middle-aged Susan Boyle is nearly 48, lives alone with her cat, Pebbles and is presently unemployed. While still looking for a
job, she suddenly triumphs against all odds, singing the right kind of song at the right time about unfulfilled hopes and dreams. She bowled over the judges!
More than that, she has also inspired millions of others across the globe with a message of "Perhaps, I can also do it."
Susan Boyle is the only piece of good news we have heard in the current economicrecession or Depression. She has inspired millions of people to hope
-- to survive and try harder. And she has made many Americans feel good again -- like the little racehorse SEABISCUIT once did for us in the thirties.
President Obama should invite her to the White House.
She is deserving of such an honor!
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Great Grandma
9:34PM 9:34PM Apr 21st 2009
Susan Boyle has the voice & personality of an angel. I will purchase her videos, recordings, etc. I hope no one attempts to change her looks as she has the natural beauty of everyone's Mom - not a made-up movie star!
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chris pace
9:33PM 9:33PM Apr 22nd 2009
HOW SAD THAT EVERYONE IS ATTACKING THE WAY SHE LOOKS I THINK SHE LOOKS JUST FINE GOD BLESS HER
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mark
9:53PM 9:53PM Apr 21st 2009
Want to know the exact mechanics of our SubPrime based economic failure? I spent over $2500 of my own money to produce this political satire/tragic comedy cartoon film as my way of protesting the incompetence, and outright thievery by our economically elite. Please take some time to watch my film....Thank you for your time. http://www.break.com/usercontent/2009/4/SubPrime-Slime-705089.html
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