Well done
I can't say I have been a devoted viewer of Britain's Got Talent, but I have seen a few key moments on YouTube, and I did watch one whole episode, the one where a Welsh man who claimed he had never sung before came on stage and sang really well, despite looking like he might be sick with nerves. I also saw a young boy go on and sing a song, and Simon Cowell stopped him in the middle of it and demanded that he sing a different song, and there were gasps from the audience and his fellow judges, and from the young boy's mum, and Ant and Dec, and the second song turned out to be a better fit for the boy's voice and everybody agreed that Simon Cowell was a genius.
There's no point in being snobby and patronising about mass entertainment - I'm actually glad ITV has found a massive audience for something and a new revenue stream; I do truly believe we need ITV to survive its financial woes - but I think we would all do well to just admit that it's not a talent contest, it's a drama. And a cost-effective one, as you don't have to pay the actors, and Simon Cowell gets to make money out of anyone who gets through with actual talent. (A costume drama costs a lot more to make than one in which the actors wear their own clothes, and pay for their own transport to the set in the early stages.) They make it open to all talents from juggling to passing wind and enticing animals do unnatural things as if perhaps we were still living in medieval times, but it's only ever going to be singing talent - or dancing talent - that's worthy of the top prize, because that's the marketable kind of talent.
It was impossible not to be drawn into the Susan Boyle story, the true parts of which seem to be that she really has lived her life without having sexual intercourse, which is fairly unusual for a 48 year old outside of holy orders, and was deprived of oxygen when she was born. She looked after her mum until she died in 2007. She has always sung and auditioned for Michael Barrymore's My Kind Of People, but was rejected, it is thought, because of her appearance. She's taken singing lessons, and has, it is said, appeared at the Edinburgh Fringe. (I assume videos of all her early public appearances our out there in the public domain - I don't have enough interest to seek them out.) Anyway, the producers of Britain's Got Talent are not looking for talent, they are looking for stories, and Boyle's was a humdinger.
It's true: if she'd been even moderately good looking or conventionally attractive, there would be no story and her perfectly serviceable voice would have never been heard by millions. It's all in the apparent disconnect between what society deems to be a good looking face and body and how nice a singing voice is that comes out of that face and body. Ha ha, Susan Boyle is a funny looking middle-aged woman from Scotland who pretended she had never been kissed but later played that down, and who lives with her cat (double ha ha for living with a cat, apparently).
Now look what's happened. The global digital media now moves at such a pace, Susan Boyle, a woman off a talent show on ITV1 in this country, became a world icon in a matter of days. Remember, nobody - apart from the producers of Michael Barrymore's My Kind Of People (who must now feel like the man who didn't sign the Beatles) - had heard of her on April 10, 2009. Now she is so famous, Matt Lucas can dress up as her in Heat - ha ha! Unfortunately for Susan Boyle, and fortunately for Britain's Got Talent and ITV and Simon Cowell, she lost on Saturday to a group of 80s dancers, who all fell over when they found out. The Sunday papers said her dream was over and dishonestly ran pictures of Susan Boyle looking grumpy and weird and severe, which she did until the result was announced, when she relaxed and smiled and wished the 80s boys well and then did a crazy dance and lifted her skirt high enough for millions of people to see the top of her thigh.
And yesterday, while the papers said her dream was over but that also she stood to make eight million pounds in the first year of her professional career (and probably the last year of her professional career, but who cares?), she checked into the Priory. Whoever's writing this script should be delighted with the way it's going. How much of it is Susan Boyle's understandably fraught behaviour (swearing at the telly in a Wembley hotel, for instance; threatening to quit the day before the grand final), and how much of it is a fiction fed to the media and gleefully reproduced is always going to be hard to divine, even when her autobiography is rushed out for Christmas, as I understand it will be. (Those of us who have written books and waited years for them to actually get in the shops will be especially cheered by this.)
Of course I feel sorry for Susan Boyle. Richard and I had some cruel fun at her expense on the podcast last week - much of it deriving from her tabloid nickname "the Hairy Angel", which is offensive on just about every level, a bit like when they called Jade Goody a pig. But making fun of Susan Boyle is not making fun of an actual person, it's making fun of a partly fictional creation. I feel sorry for the actual woman underneath all the "hair" of her myth, but it's too late for my sympathy now. Her ludicrously fast rise from obscurity (or wished-for fame) to disproportionate fame must be a bit like "the bends", which divers get when they come to the surface too quickly. I'm glad it's just "exhaustion" - that's a relatively small price. She is, after all, a blameless individual; all she wanted to do was sing for people. At least she already believes in God, so will not have to find Christianity while in rehab.
I'm surprised Simon Cowell has any skin left on the palms of his hands - he must be constantly rubbing them together. In all of this, he is the one man who can't lose. Mind you, he looks and sounds like a dick, and no amount of money can repair that. At least Susan Boyle can sing a bit.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 10:03 AM
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I do agree with you, Andrew, and I will admit that i laughed when i heard that Susan Boyle was in rehab.
I cant help but think there's really no reason for her to be in rehab, if she's tired, she needs to rest, not make even more publicity for herself, whoever is behind the scenes of all her actions (and i doubt it's simon cowell, although he probably gets all the money for it) may be taking things a bit too far, she's really not used to all this publicity and doesnt deserve all the things that are said about her.
even though she is a shit singer...
I must admit, I laughed at the C&H Susan Boyle jokes this week, but the cruelty of what I saw on the tabloid front pages on the train to work this morning made my skin crawl and my heart sink. A different league altogether, with a very clear intention to take an active part in destroying an innocent person, rather than be bothered to report actual news. It horrifies me.
The other thing I did this morning was listen to David Mitchell's 'soapbox' podcast about rudeness on TV, and wonder to myself if TV shows and newspapers to an extent egg each other on to redefine acceptable behaviour, like the bankers egged each other on when they cocked up the entire banking system, and politicians chuckled to themselves when they screwed the expenses system.
The worst thing about 'society' is definitely this collective population of people refusing to take responsibility for their own behaviour.
Before we know it, Jesus will be on his way back down again to sort us all out.
Poor Susan Boyle (not SuBo - why must everyone have one of these amalgamated nicknames this days, AnCo?). Built up and knocked down all in the space of seven weeks, or whatever. And now she's in The Priory. She was never equipped to deal with the exposure.
I went to the last semi-final on Friday, the one where little Hollie Steel broke down and forgot the words. Simon Cowell was determined she should go on and so fixed it for her to sing again. No one was holding a gun at her head of course, but the pressure on those unprepared for the spotlight is far more intense than they could ever have imagined. It's up to the producers to do health checks and if they're not up to, they're not up to it. Fuck the ratings, the money, etc.
Anyhoo, Simon Cowell is very short with a big head and wears Cuban heels.
This is not to say I've not enjoyed the whole series immensely, because I have.
Television chews up and spits out, and I'm very pleased that I didn't really engage with the whole BGT thing apart from watching the inevitable first Susan Boyle performance on YouTube.
But what did revolt me beyond belief was that skin crawling ergh... horror of a human being, Piers Morgan, begging for the media to leave her alone, on his blog during the week.
The layers of gobsmacking hypocrisy made me speechless!
*Unless* I mean if he *knowingly* did it, then Yeuch god help us.
Andrew with your cat-obsession you could be the new Susan Boyle.
Anyone who keeps having to look at a picture of his cat whilst in the presence of other people is obviously mentally ill.
Sadly you are not ugly enough and I'm not sure a Mitford sisters diatribe would be enough of a crow-pleaser to get you to the final of BGT.
I joke of course.
Dara, you were fooled by my excellent stagecraft. The picture of my cat is on my phone, and the phone also tells me the time, so I can tell how long I have left to talk about the Mitford Sisters to the people.
it's like a film, aint it? or a fairy tale where King Midas wants to have lots of gold and then gets a bit miffed cos everything turns to gold whenever he touches it - including his daughter and his poo.
SuBo has a little too much fame and needs to get used to wearing sunglasses and living in a big house, but then if she did people would stop being so interested in her. Unless it's going to be the Ugly Duckling fairy tale.
Any road, it's nice and sad and stupid all in one. And if we stopped children and people with mental issues from performing it'd prevent us from seeing any number of geniuses such as Mozart, Jimmy Krankie, Spike Milligan, that boy who knew about antiques on the Wogan show & grew up to be a lady that looked a little bit like Harpo Marx, or even the sane & rational Britney Spears.
She may end up doing a Stephen Fry and running away to Belgium, but it's an adventure. Although I am a bit bored with it - Peter Andre is available - can we not somehow involve him in the ongoing journey/narrative?
I agree with you, AC - but this is problematic, isn't it?
But making fun of Susan Boyle is not making fun of an actual person, it's making fun of a partly fictional creation. I'm sure there's a real person in there somewhere. And she's a real person with learning difficulties - who is clearly usually something of a shrinking violet.
I can't help but find the media-synthesised mania in extremely bad taste.
I watched the results show and laughed until my colon snapped at '2 Grand' - what the HELL was that about??
One thing's for certain in all of this - DJ Talent will have a ringtone available on Jamster in record time. And the British public is ambivalent about a skinny man in a Darth Vader mask dancing with a Master Replicas lightsaber. Ho hum.
Unpleasant though Piers Morgan is, he did note that Susanne Boyle's first outburst was due to Sun/NOTW stooges winding her up. Wonder why the photos of her arguing with the police were so readily available? After learning she had a short fuse from neighbours they staked her out and set her up, bored with the 'inspiration' angle. The 'meltdown' angle sells just as many papers, if not more.
I find it vile that a woman with learning difficulties is built up and knocked down like this. She wanted to join a talent contest. This is more like bear-baiting, with singing as a mere distraction.
One other thing... AC, do you receive my tweets?
I am suicidal as I've not yet received one reply from you.
Literally suicidal.
*stands on window ledge*
...and there was me thinking you were just a novice stage performer with your unconventional "secret dancing" stand up... whilst in reality you had us all in the palm of your hand...
A successor to Subo's will certainly need those sleight-of-hand skills to hoodwink the paps.
Don't be standing on a ledge for too long Swineshead - you might get pushed off
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8064867.stm
(in case anyone hadn't seen this)
(PS does it make me a bad person to be a volunteer samaritan but yet laugh my head of at this?! i hope not!)
Well said. It was obviousy another gimmick to push the ratings upwards. As usual the media builds someone up and then has no guilt in pulling the rug from underneath them.
It is the perfect con – setting up a talent show, then owning any talent that actually appears. All said, a little bit of editing goes a long way, and anyone who has their finger on the pulse of Great Britain ought to exploit it while it lasts … you know we love it.
Tina - I also hope it doesn't make you a bad person.
A)- he shook his hand before pushing him off,
B) - It was 8 metres, with an air cushion below, and
C)- "Selfish activity!".
There's no point insulting Simon Cowell: he's taken (I'm guessing) something he couldn't stop happening and turned it into something he wants to happen. He makes money from people calling him a dick. He (ahem) can't help but smile every time someone calls him that.
People just have to have it both ways with this, don't they? It's all fake and manipulative rubbish for the credulous masses. But as soon as it looks like a contestant who has learning difficulties (tick) and has just buried someone (tick) is struggling to deal with the fame (tick), that's real. And the horrible circus masters behind it all are cynical moneymakers who don't give a shit about the performers. And of course it's the welfare of the performers that's paramount in all our minds. Because the only enjoyment we get from the really shit ones is from cheering them on and encouraging them and knowing that we're making them feel better about themselves. Otherwise we wouldn't watch, would we?
Of course it doesn't have to all be fake. And it doesn't have to all be real. But do any of us really have to give a shit about it?
Unless Andrew has changed his mind, those of us who do - even just enough to criticise it, which only serves to make the whole artifice appear somehow more important and hence more real - are at least as responsible as the dick with the sore palms for everything that subsequently happens to Boyle and co.
And those of us who really don't... ...should probably be posting shorter comments than this. Or nothing at all. But for the record, I didn't watch it. I didn't kill her.
Cowell might well be rubbing his hands together, but it must have been a financial disaster for him that the winners were a dance act, with no records to sell.
Stavros Flatley were a laugh though, weren't they?
David, Liverpool
I did laugh the first time at Stavros Fattly but it did wear off a bit quick. After 10 secs of their second showing I was making a cup of tea. Boring and one dimensional. It seems all you needs to advance in this "competition" is to say how much you love your *son/daughter/parents/dog/
*(delete as appropriate)
I think Susan Boyle could end up being the Scottish madeleine peyroux.
Lucas
That's probably the best summary of the whole Popularity Contest as Talent Contest phenom that I've read.
I enjoyed the Mitford Podcast too - good to have a bit of culture on the iPod. (well apart from all the iTunes Uni lectures i'm never going to listen to...)
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