Susan Boyle - an overnight world wide sensation. She has also proved that we are all more superficial than we thought. When she stepped onto the stage for Britain's Got Talent, before she even spoke a word, we all expected her to make a fool of herself, judging only by the way she looked and by the sense of social awkwardness that she projected. But as soon as we heard her sing, her appearance did not matter as much anymore. Her beautiful voice and the passion took over millions of peoples hearts. In just few days her performance has been viewed on YouTube over 20 million times and she has even received an invitation to appear on Oprah. But since we are all so superficial, the nagging issue of her appearance remains. Should she or should she not conform to the society's "beauty standards"?
Straight after Susan's practically overnight rise to fame CBS did one of the most cringing and ackward interviews with her in which the male host evidently thought he had to talk very slowly and stick to questions like “Do you understand you’re a worldwide star?”. Diane Sawyer, anchor of ABC’s Good Morning America, was arguably even more patronising.
Did Susan know that America’s Got Talent winners get a makeover, she asked her. Would she perhaps be coming to the US with blonde hair and wearing red leather, she followed up.
Rumor also has it that Britain's Got Talent judge Amanda Holden is trying to protect Boyle against a makeover. A she stated the Mirror:
“I won’t let Simon Cowell take her to his dentist and I certainly won’t let her near his hairdresser. She needs to stay exactly as she is because that’s the reason we love her. She just looks like anybody who could live on your street. The minute we turn her into a glamour-puss is when it’s spoilt. That can perhaps come later when she’s signed the album deal and conquered America. For now we’ll keep her exactly as she is because that’s why we’ve all fallen in love with her. I think it’s the underdog thing. It’s somebody who’s looked after her mother all her life. She’s had real dreams, real aspirations and obviously she thought she’d had to say goodbye to those things.”
In our beauty obsessed society it seems inevitable that Boyle will receive a makeover, sooner or later. But what if she didn't? What if we accepted that not all famous people have to be stuffed into Spanx and plucked and whitened and highlighted and buffed and blinged and laden with makeup? What if we didn't try to turn her into Madonna? Can we let her remain famous just as she is? Boyle didn't accept the inevitable, so why should we?
