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Why Susan Boyle is so popular
From Mark Blankenship, here is one stab at the question:
No matter how much we mock those we consider beneath us, it's much more satisfying to be reminded that everyone has dignity.
That's because when we laugh at someone for being a freak, we're laughing out of fear. We're laughing because we want to prove that we are not like that loser over there. If we can shame the people who don't belong, then we can prove that we do.
When we embrace an outsider, though, we're paving the way for our own acceptance in the future. Eventually, we'll all feel like outcasts, and none of us wants to be laughed at. The Susan Boyle Story suggests we won't be. Instead of fearing for our own eventual shame, we can count on society to hear what's beautiful in us. We can trust that if we just show our true selves, we will be embraced.
Whether or not that moral is true in the real world, it's alluringly true in the Susan Boyle Story. By participating in the narrative that television has constructed for her, by cheering her on and watching her video over and over, we can not only feel good about graciously welcoming an outsider, but also feel relief for helping create a world that will someday welcome us.
I thank Mary Anne Sieghart, at TheBrowser, for the pointer.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on April 21, 2009 at 03:17 PM in Music | Permalink
Comments
This whole thing is mildly disgusting. You never read anything giving her true respect for her talent. The whole flurry about her is still disdainful at its core - "we welcome her." Her ugliness isn't being overlooked; it's being spun. Until her looks and persona become interesting trivia, as opposed to crucial to her entertainment value, this is all still bigotry.
Posted by: bcg at Apr 21, 2009 3:29:36 PM
From Spengler, an expectedly trenchant analysis:
Singer Susan Boyle, our latest instant celebrity, reminds me of any number of singers I conducted in amateur renditions of the easier Schubert or Haydn masses, or the sort of matron who sings "Katti-Shaw" or "Buttercup" in the local Gilbert and Sullivan production. Musical talent springs up like grass, and engaging voices are a dollar a dozen. That Boyle has come to embody the triumph of ordinary people over obscurity, complete with invitations to appear on Oprah and Larry King, is disheartening. The popular audience in the West likes to validate its own mediocrity, and crowns stars-for-a-day.
There is an undercurrent of self-worship in the aptly-named American Idol and its British knockoff, which lifted Boyle to stardom. As I wrote some years ago (American Idolatry Asia Times Online, August 29, 2006), at some time during the 20th century, the people of the West elected to identify with what is like them, rather than emulate what is above them.
Churlish resentment of high culture comes from the slacker's desire for reward with neither merit nor effort: the sort of artistic skill that requires years of discipline and sacrifice is a reproach to the indolence of the popular audience of the West. Better voices than Boyle's can be found in a thousand choirs and amateur theatricals, but the crowd has embraced this late-hatching Scottish songbird as a symbol of its own aspirations.
Posted by: athelas at Apr 21, 2009 3:34:29 PM
This seems somewhat overdone. This woman has a truly extraordinary voice. We treasure her for the same reason we treasure any talent--because it's very, very valuable. I can't even follow Blankenship's attempt at pop-psychology.
Posted by: Brandon at Apr 21, 2009 3:36:07 PM
My own take: the elevation of Boyle has much in common with the self-adulation of Obama supporters after his election. We all know that we *should* be nice to ugly people, yet all fall prey to our genetic predispositions in daily life. Supporting Boyle is a cheap way to reassure ourselves what good people we are. It was never about Boyle herself, but rather about using our support for her as a tool for self-congratulation.
As Milan Kundera said: "Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass! The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass! It is the second tear that makes kitsch kitsch."
Posted by: athelas at Apr 21, 2009 3:37:15 PM
That analysis seems spot on.
Posted by: Michael F. Martin at Apr 21, 2009 3:52:51 PM
Wow he is clueless. She is embraced because she has an awesome voice, and she looks different than other pop stars, and thus is able to differentiate herself well.
It has nothing to do with her being an outsider. She is incredibly talented and also easily distinguished from other pop stars.
Posted by: Doc Merlin at Apr 21, 2009 4:02:46 PM
Oh, almost forgot... one more thing, a rather large element of the female population is almost violently opposed to other attractive females. This works in Boyle's benefit. This effect counts for part of Opra's enormous popularity among women. However, if Boyle was talentless it wouldn't be enough, but she is extremely talented, so it works out.
Posted by: Doc Merlin at Apr 21, 2009 4:05:15 PM
I'm surprised by 2 things:
1) the willingness of so many people to have strong opinions about her talent after watching one highly manipulated video performance, where much of her singing was drowned out by edited audience noise.
2) the willingness of so many people to build a narrative on the idea that they were dismissive of her upon first sight because of how she looked.
The dance between the public's sophistication on these matters & the people that would manipulate us is unpredictable. It's like the arms race between spammers & spam filters. Innocent notes from friends get stuck in my spam folder while the occasional obvious piece of spam gets into my inbox.
I think this is like the spam that happens to get through. These things come along quite often, and it's tempting to think that people are becoming more & more dumb. But, like the spam filters, I think we're really getting more sophisticated. It's just that the spammers/manipulators occasionally stumble upon something that inexplicably gets through the filters.
Posted by: kebko at Apr 21, 2009 4:51:34 PM
she gives hope that it's really not too late to become the person that you always wanted to be.
Posted by: darynr at Apr 21, 2009 6:06:31 PM
I like her story because it's always refreshing to see someone create an opportunity for him/herself, and then take full advantage of it. Ms. Boyle knew she had a good voice (from what I've read, she is in her church choir). She wanted something more, and created the opportunity for it by auditioning for a reality show - something that has got to be a scary proposition for someone who lives in a small town and keeps to a low-key, daily routine. She could have stammered and stuttered when the audience was laughing. Instead, she stood her ground and showed the world her lovely voice. Good for her!
Posted by: RZ at Apr 21, 2009 6:33:19 PM
Susan Boyle is 100% black swan.. some say ugly duckling but that misses the point (more at the URL)...
It's bigger than just the talent and the looks .. the age plays a major role, glad to see she finally decided to put herself out there and grab an opportunity.. people love the underdog..
Posted by: moneyneversleepsblog at Apr 21, 2009 6:50:17 PM
Like kebko, I'm stunned by the extent to which people want to believe the narrative, despite the strong possibiliy that this whole thing has been at least to some degree been manufactured. Our local fishwrap ran a story suggesting behind the scenes manipulation to create this instant star. The comments to the online story were on par with an editorial advocating killing babies.
The kitsch-emotion is just overwhelmingly attractive. And the narrative itself is so counter-cynical (the naif overcoming the cynical audience, the hardboiled judges, the hooting audience) that an iota of skepticism is offensive to those moved by the sentiment. They want the emotional truth of the narrative so much that suggesting the possibility of a rather more pedestrian truth is enraging.
But, y'know, it IS TV, and the folks at Idol are no fools. They understand the power of kitsch-narrative all too well. It's been a deep vein of gold they have been mining for years now.
Posted by: wiloma at Apr 21, 2009 6:54:25 PM
athleas, your claim that, "better voices than Boyle's can be found in a thousand choirs and amateur theatricals" is fatuous. She has a better natural tone and clarity of voice than most of the singers at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, which I attend regularly. Many well qualified people, including some opera critics, have praised her talent.
If you can't see the fundamental difference between all the other American Idol trash and this, you not only have a tin ear, but a blindness to cultural nuance. Well nuance is hardly the word, this event is a slap across the face for the recent reality show genre.
PS. To stick up for my country, though it's not really anything to me proud of, the history of these shows is thus. The first of the current wave of talent shows was Pop Idol, on British television. American Idol is a knock off of the British version, not the other way round. The "Got Talent" franchise (American, British and many others) was created by Simon Cowell, who is British.
Posted by: Oliver Chettle at Apr 21, 2009 7:09:26 PM
I agree that the show might be a bit contrived, but not the point I wanted to make.
We like Boyle because we hate the fact that humans are so pre-programmed to be predjudice. Here is a person that we should not like for all the superficial reasons (she is old, poor, not attractive, and has bad social skills, based on the video), but we do like because she has an amazing talent. The fact that we can like her so much in spite of all our predjudices makes us like ourselves more, which in turn also makes us like her more, as well.
Posted by: brent at Apr 21, 2009 7:18:52 PM
Susan Boyle has a phenomenal voice but there's no doubt that it's the whole "cinderella story" aspect of it that draws people in. Here's a really good video i found today on Susan Boyle:
http://www.newsy.com/videos/susan_boyle_s_got_your_attention/
Posted by: dancingnancie at Apr 21, 2009 7:21:31 PM
It infuriates me that given an opportunity to respond generously to the emergence of a good voice in popular music, all too many of my classical music buffs respond with the snobbish nastiness that is killing classical music. No-one under 40 outside the highbrow cultural world has a cultural cringe any more. A few generations ago people could be intimidated into learning about classical music, but now they can only be inspired to do so. However precious few people in classical music attempt to inspire outsiders. Condescension alienates people and robs the arts of their ability to claim to inspire people to be better and appreciate the best.
The Susan Boyle story can be used to encourage people to take an interest in unfashionable forms of music, including not only classical, but the best old time musical theatre, traditional pop and jazz singing. Susan Boyle has taken singing lessons, and her example should be promoted to encourage others to explore their talents. That is the great issue in modern music, what I think has really gone wrong, is that it has come to be about attitude rather than musical talent. Given the best opportunity since I don't know when to counter this cultural disaster, some of you have turned up your noses. How can you be so foolish?
Posted by: Oliver Chettle at Apr 21, 2009 7:28:20 PM
Wait a sec, why do we like the videos of "Flawless," Paul Potts, Andrew Johnston as compared to all the response videos people make in their dens? Why do Andrew Johnston and Bianca Ryan give me the same feeling, despite being quite attractive. It's not about Susan Boyle's appearance, although that is just another brick in the wall.
An unpackaged talent gets in front of a thousand people and knocks their socks off. Against the odds, their dreams might come true. The gatekeeper system of talent evaluation made sense in the past, but also could be abused. Now we don't need it anymore. Take your case directly to the people. It struck me this is just the "white" version of The Apollo. Simon Cowell is an innovator and yes, a copycat. We like talent and appreciate justice. Boyle's performance is overrated (that's not a criticism, it's a fact, 37 million hits, how could it not be overrated?), but quite good. The thing is it was unexpected, but she's an amateur and all she asked for was the opportunity. That's the whole point of the show. These people don't normally win. We got to see this one win. Without the visibility, she wouldn't have won. That's 95% of it and maybe 5% or less is this other psycho-babble.
Posted by: Andrew at Apr 21, 2009 7:41:15 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYCCavxFqSU
Is this as good as Jennifer Hudson? Maybe not, but it's probably the most incredible performance I've ever seen. The previous holder of that position might have been Jennifer Hudson's version.
Posted by: Andrew at Apr 21, 2009 7:48:48 PM
Who the hell is Susan Boyle?
Posted by: GU at Apr 21, 2009 8:08:23 PM
Okay, the program constructed a kitschy narrative, but the point is, they had to have something and somebody to construct it around. The "climax" of the story wouldn't have gone over had Susan Boyle not been a really good singer and excellent performer. Susan Boyle is a real talent, with lots of courage to go with it. She is a real person, and her story is real. It's the presentation that's kitschy, and she was adaptive enough to fit herself into it. By the way, the narrative needs us to consider her ugly, but she has pleasant enough looks, she's just not glitsy in the way one expects contestants on these shows to be. Andrew makes a good point. The whole thing IS overrated, but that doesn't mean she isn't good. I myself have a criticism, but I won't go into it, it has more to do with the way she was taught than her actual talent and physical instrument, which are both superb.
Posted by: priscianus jr at Apr 21, 2009 8:20:16 PM
I love that this was so quickly spun into a way of looking down on Obama voters. bravo, sir!
Posted by: Mike at Apr 21, 2009 8:30:08 PM
or maybe its about achievement. A lot of people were probably cringing for her, but were pleasantly surprised.
It reminds me of the tailor/narrator character in Shakespeare in Love, who stuttered.
One expects him to fail at the start of the play, where he is to introduce the play to the audience. But instead, he rises to the occasion! And it is enormously satisfying!
Also, there are many of us that wish to accomplish something great and have a particular thing we dream of bringing into reality. To see someone, at last, break through to the entire world, is very inspiring.
Posted by: Alan Brown at Apr 21, 2009 9:19:40 PM
To those suggesting that this might be more manufactured than anything else, someone uncovered an amateur recording Boyle made about ten years ago of Cry Me a River.
Posted by: johnleemk at Apr 21, 2009 10:37:17 PM
I don't understand all the hate over this... I love it because she embodies the lyrics, which are absolutely amazing to begin with. To hear someone as unsuccessful in her old age as Susan Boyle sing "I dreamed a dream" really captures the ethos of the song. Makes me look back on my own life; at the dreams I had when I was a kid and the innocence of youth and friendship. It's sometimes sad to think back on all the plans we made with best friends we no longer know. How different life is now than I ever thought it would be. Nothing cultural about my enjoyment; simply nostalgic.
Posted by: Let them eat Thomas Paine at Apr 21, 2009 10:46:28 PM
One thing about her story and how much it appeals and how great her voice is and blah blah blah is the fact that she is not completely without vocal training. I can't remember off-hand where I heard about it, but while she's no pop tart with Autotune to bring her voice up to a vacuously attractive body, she's also not some rube who always just sang in her church choir without any exposure to formal training. While natural talent is great, you can tell from watching the way she sang that she has had some voice training, however informal it may have been it was more than just her singing all on her own from childhood or something of that sort.
Posted by: Neal at Apr 21, 2009 11:39:27 PM
