FAIRYTALE ENDING-WHY IS NO ONE SUSPICIOUS OF SIMON COWELL'S LATEST CREATION?
Like everyone in the world I was totally blown away by this woman and her voice and its a great feel good story that of course had to be tainted by the suspicion that evil douchbag Simon Cowell totally manufactured this moment instead of it being the surprise that it appears to be. If thats true and I am not saying that it is we should all take the frozen oranges out of our freezers and lay such a beating on him that his decendants will taste like tang.
"By now at least 30 million people worldwide (roughly the same number who view the Oscars, or the Super Bowl) have watched an extraordinary clip from a popular UK show called "Britain's Got Talent." A dowdy, 47-year-old virgin named Susan Boyle takes the stage, wearing her low heels and her Sunday best. The crowd laughs at her, and Boyle - how devastating - laughs along. She says she wants to be a professional singer; people laugh harder and louder. They point. It's grammar school and the Roman coliseum combined. Simon Cowell - panelist and show creator - rolls his eyes. And then Susan Boyle sings.
In the past five days, Susan Boyle has been invited to appear on Oprah, interviewed on all three network morning shows and covered by news outlets all over the world - many of which have descended on her hamlet, where she lives alone with her cat, Pebbles. She is the favorite to win the competition and it's likely she'll sing for the Queen. Cowell will probably sign her to his record label.
But there is something disturbing about the collective rejection-embrace-elevation of Susan Boyle. There is the element of self-congratulation in the viral spread of this link around the Web, the idea that we, the secondary viewers, the judges of those who are judging, are far more evolved. There is the clip itself, suspiciously ready-made for online consumption: A 7-minute movie, slick and pithy in its perfect execution of the underdog narrative. (That something like "Rocky" took two hours to tell now seems antediluvian.) There is the classic David vs. Goliath subplot, the primal satisfaction of seeing the bully (Cowell) slain by such a seemingly inferior force. And there is the profound desire for this entire thing to be authentic, which in and of itself suggests that it probably isn't. Not since P.T. Barnum has there been a show business master of the trompe l'oeil like Simon Cowell."
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4 comments:
I don't think it is all as "set up" as this writer wants to believe. I think maybe they just cannot except anything this basic and nice happening, not in the cynical world we all live in.
After the fact, once she had sung her song and received the reaction she deserved, then why not package it up into a clip to send to YouTube (and the world)? It is a feel-good story, and we could use more of them.
And if it turns out that it was all a ruse, then I would rather be wrong for choosing to believe the best at first, then be so cynical that I can no longer enjoy anything without suspicion and doubt clouding my mind.
(And as for Simon, I like him. He is honest, sometimes to a fault, yes. But he tells these people what they NEED to hear, instead of what they want to hear. And I LOVE his reaction to Susan Boyle. I truly think that is genuine, true surprise and happiness at her great gift.)
I choose to believe you are right and I like the way you expressed you opinion. You are right that the world needs more stories like this one. Here's hoping she gets everything her talent deserves. But can I still freeze a bag of oranges just in case?
hahaha Yeah, freeze your oranges. I am sure something will come down the road eventually that they will be needed for.
You bring the oranges, I'll bring the crowbar.
I think it's real-- but just because it's real doesn't mean Cowell & Co. don't have a team of editors standing by to get the sequence in a YouTube ready format for mass consumption.
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