House of Eratosthenes

I, and apparently millions of other people, have found ourselves watching the video over and over. And I’m struck by our fascination with it.

From the moment she strides resolutely, solidly, on stage, this frumpy Scottish spinster captivates our attention. Not because of her beauty; to call Miss Boyle’s appearance plain would be like saying the U.S. Marines have a lot of firepower. Or her style; she’s wearing a beige dress, dark stockings and white shoes. Not because of her poise; at one point, flustered, she has trouble answering a question from the show’s judges.
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Then Susan Boyle opens her mouth and sings.

And her voice sends a shiver through you. Just as it must have the audience, even the jaded judges–come on, you’ve heard Simon Cowell called worse than that–on hand to hear it in person.
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It is a remarkable performance that, even now, gives me goosebumps. As Britain’s Got Talent judge Amanda Cooper says in the clip, we’ve just been given a stunning wakeup call not to judge a person by her, or his, looks.

But I suspect that there’s something more powerful even than that at work, to cause the almost-universal appeal of Miss Boyle’s performance. What we sense is that this plain woman–hair unstyled, eyebrows unplucked, an image consultant’s worst dream sprung to life–is the rarest of things in this age of soundbites and spin doctors and focus groups: a real person, completely lacking in artifice.

At a time when the President of the United States feels compelled to use a teleprompter for even the most minor appearances, when Grecian columns are necessary props for campaign speeches, when public figures are as carefully packaged as your morning cereal boxes, after watching plain Susan Boyle sing with a voice for the ages, you feel like you have witnessed a real person do something that’s real. And right. And good. No, extraordinarily good.

You see what’s happened here? It’s crystal-clear, if only you think on it for a little bit.

Around the 1970’s, it started to become extremely fashionable to indoctrinate school-age kids with the laudable notion that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Indoctrinate…then brainwash. Looking back on it, it seems quite ridiculous, to me. Rather like one of those protestant customs in which the pastor speaks on behalf of The Almighty, scolding the congregation for all the sins they’ve been committing all week long, without knowing a single thing about the personal lives of any of ’em. Just assuming the worst. This was the same thing: The recess bell would ring, we’d go out and play together in a diversity-utopianist’s dream: Kids of all different colors, pushing each other on the swings, playing tag, nobody giving a single thought to anything so boring as skin color. Then the bell would ring again, we’d be herded back in and we’d listen to a few more lectures. Maybe watch a film. Surreal, as if a yard teacher had just overheard a whole string of racial epithets out there and they decided they had to do something about it.

But the kids weren’t the problem. The kids were socializing together with no stratification taking place anywhere…except perhaps for the gender line, which diminished as the years rolled by. Cooties and all that, ya know.

The grown-ups were, and are, the problem. Did you hire enough Hispanic people in this department. How many women are serving in the Senate. Obama’s gonna be the first black President, I want to be part of this thing.

And Susan Boyle has made us realize something not quite so much refreshing, as spellbinding. Two generations have now been indoctrinated not to judge books by their covers…two generations have become intent on showing off that they don’t judge books by their covers.

And they’ve just been caught doing that very thing. With all the decades of snotty lecturing, it would seem someone has forgotten to teach someone else how to open the “books,” and read what’s in there. In this happy utopia we have been chasing, after all, Boyle’s capable command of the melody, her gifted talent with controlling the pitch and tenor of her voice as she delivers measure after measure that sends chills up the spine — it would’ve possessed absolutely no surprise, no shock-value, for anyone, anywhere.

And yet here we are, so easily distracted. We just got done deciding the most important Presidential election ever, with the least serious discussion about “hard” issues, like policies and proposals — ever. We decided it based on looks. Everyone voted for the black guy so they could show off that they weren’t racists.

Why does Susan Boyle pack such a punch? Because she’s a wake-up call. The decisions we’ve been making, the ramifications of the way we have made them, these are things that require exploration, deliberation, debate. That all has to be done across time, and time mutes the message. Susan Boyle makes us realize — well, those among us who still need to realize it — that the way these things have been decided is badly in need of review. That still leaves quite a bit undefined, but it’s a sharp, staccato one-note. Like a slap across the face.

And so many people voted for The Messiah, and as they did so, they were all so sure of themselves. Never looking back. Not until Susan Boyle opened her mouth, and showed everyone exactly how mistaken a first-impression can be sometimes. In this way, this latest experience is unsettling for some. And that’s a good thing; a very good thing.

What bothers me is that while you supposedly aren’t supposed to judge based on appearances…now and then your first impression of someone is actually the correct one.

Sometimes the guy with the shaved head, scars, and multiple tattoos really IS a sleazebag. And vice-versa.
- cylarz | 04/21/2009 @ 05:27

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