A Star is Born

In the world of reality television, few left in the wake of each scandalous (and often pointless) show are left with their dignity. For some reason, millions of people enjoy watching others be humiliated and heartbroken, and the network cyborgs are cashing in on our vanity. But, every now and then, a bright spot appears when I least expect it, and this past week, that bright spot was Susan Boyle.

Susan is a 47-year-old woman from England who appeared as a contestant in the opening heat of Britian's Got Talent. The opening sequence where she is seen showed her obliviously masticating a sandwich; quirky, this-person-is-a-dud music playing over her introduction left little wonder about what kind of contestant the show's producers expected (and wanted the audience to expect).

She was a frumpy looking woman, I'll admit. Her clothes were something like a middle-aged woman would wear to a nephew's wedding, her hair was frazzled and old fashioned, and there wasn't a trace of make-up on her face - far from the glitzy image proudly displayed by most others in competitions of that nature, let alone internationally broadcast ones.

As soon as this lady walked out onto the stage and the judges and audience caught a glimpse of this small, shy woman, so out of place among her competition, they started to smirk. When she said she wanted to be a professional singer, the camera showed audience members rolling their eyes, dismissing the possibility. They scoffed when she told one of the judges how she's reached her 40s without having developed a singing career because she hadn't had the opportunity. Just before she launched into her performance, the audience was laughing and the three judges were suppressing chuckles.

Her song was I Dreamed a Dream from the musical Les Miserables, an admittedly ambitious song for even the most skilled vocalists.

And then she started singing.

I've received e-mails in the hundreds with clips of videos of all sorts. In my thirty years, not a single one has ever made me actually gasp, until Susan Boyle.

Her voice was so beautiful, so powerful, that she had barely sung the opening bars when the applause started. By the middle of the first verse, the entire audience was on it's feet in a standing ovation.

The camera showed the reactions of each judge, as their mouths hung open in disbelief. Susan gave a performance that would rival that of any professional singer I've ever heard, and when she finished - in her naivety - she began to walk off-stage, only to be recalled by the stunned judging panel. Such humility.
Every person she had encountered before her performance was left to eat their words and assumptions afterwards.

One judge said he was reeling with shock. Another, with tears in her eyes, told Susan her performance was the biggest wake-up call ever. Even the relentless Simon Cowell praised her and told her to hold her head high. What a moment that must have been for her; shy Susan had, in an instant, gone from a patronized nobody, to a bankable star. It was one of the few times I have ever truly felt joyous from something I saw on television.

I shudder to think of how Susan would have left the stage if her voice had been anything less than exceptional. She would have been humiliated in front of millions of people, and why? Because rejection in the entertainment industry has become the fate of those without sexual allure who dare to seek opportunity in that field, and through the magic of reality television, a world audience is able to bear witness to the whole spectacle.

This timid, yet brave, woman had the courage to reach for the one hope at having her singing talent recognized, and was met with a communal sneer. Though her nerves could have so easily failed her, she delivered the performance of a lifetime, and now the world has embraced her as a first-class talent. While I'm extremely happy that Susan Boyle has finally found success in her otherwise unglamorous life, the more important and impressive example she has set is that not only should we never, ever judge a book by it's cover, but sometimes the content of the book is so powerful, the cover art shouldn't matter.