On Being Susan Boyle
Elizabeth Tillinghast is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in New York City.
Susan Boyle is a frumpy, grey-haired woman who sang last week on Britain Has Talent, the British analogue of American Idol. An unlikely heroine, Susan Boyle tells us she's single and lives with her cat Pebbles. Yet she grabs us by the heart and fills us with hope. By now, millions have watched her on You Tube.
What is there about her? Initially Susan Boyle horrifies us; we're embarrassed by her, not for her. She reminds us of the possibilities in each of us that we're desperate to get away from.
Obviously middle-aged, and unabashed about it, she says she's 47, and then, as the audience titters, has the effrontery to wiggle her hips with improbable sauciness and remind us, "that's only one side of me." We're not sure whether to laugh at her or with her. One of the judges rolls his eyes.
Plain, plump, middle-aged with frizzy grey hair and a double chin which the camera zooms in on, Susan Boyle is "chronically unemployed but still looking," by her own account.
She's equally forthright about never having been married. Earlier she said she'd never been kissed, although this turns out to be a joke. Susan Boyle doesn't even have the protective status that having a man - any man - seems to confer on a woman. She's frank about being unwanted.
It's terrifying this woman can present herself so openly, with no make-up, and no man. How vulnerable is she? What on earth is she doing up there?
Remarkably, Susan Boyle seems unafraid. It's plain she ought to be embarrassed, yet she seems not to realize that. She has an unwavering dignity. The crowd is mocking, incredulous, but she's undeterred.
When asked what her dream is, she says flat out she's always wanted to be a professional singer. Simon Cowell asks in a pseudo-respectful but subtly smarmy way why this hasn't worked for her - we all know why it hasn't worked, she's hopelessly unattractive, far too old - and she responds, "I've never been given the chance before, but here's hoping that will change!"
Wow. This woman's plucky. She's optimistic despite the odds. Susan Boyle wants to show us what she loves about herself; she's hoping we'll come to care about it too.
Susan Boyle has picked a song from Les Miserables, but she's plainly singing about herself. She stands emotionally naked before us and sings, "I Dreamed a Dream." The song begins in a great arc, with the words, "I dreamed a dream in time gone by/When hope was high and life worth living...," and ends with the words, painful but true, "But there are dreams that cannot be/And there are storms that can't be weathered... My life has killed the dream I dreamed."
Even before reading about her, we can all see this is true; it's clear this woman has been teased all her life, ridiculed for having dreams; we're doing it to her ourselves! Everyone starts out with hidden dreams and hopes of being a star. How cruelly Susan Boyle must have been treated for allowing herself that. Later we learn she was teased as a child for being learning-disabled, and having frizzy hair; she sang to comfort herself.
Susan Boyle sings of having her dreams killed by life - yet her singing is in direct defiance of that. She wants to be a professional singer, and she's out there doing it, putting her heart on the line, daring to try this out right in front of us. She tells us life has killed her dreams, but it hasn't.
In fact, the musical and emotional climax of the song is right in the middle, when Susan Boyle sings of losing hope. "But the tigers come at night/ With their voices soft as thunder/ As they tear your hopes apart/ And they turn your dreams to shame."
Not her dreams. Susan Boyle is not letting shame stop her. Instead, she stretches out the word "shame" on a rising cascade of notes which brings the audience to its feet.
What a voice! What a tremendous sound! Susan Boyle's singing is strong, bold; she reaches out for us with it.
As Susan Boyle sings to us of her dreams and loss of hope, she re-awakens that in us too. She draws us in. We're stirred to remember all we've secretly longed for and let drift away; she invites us to remember what we've given up. The audience goes wild.
Susan Boyle realizes she's won over this unlikely crowd, and blesses us with a lovely, tender smile, as if she knows this is our song too. Suddenly we can see the beauty in her, not just in her voice, but in her smile. One of the judges smiles back wistfully, with sweetness. The crowd turns softer.
By daring to sing in front of us, Susan Boyle set herself a challenge, but she set us one too. We could have flattened her (although maybe not, with this woman!), but we certainly could have humiliated her, killed her dream by refusing to give in to this unlikely temptress. Like Odysseus, we could have bound ourselves to the mast, tempted by the call of her song, but unwilling to throw ourselves in.
Instead, we fell for her. We let her take us by storm, and made her dream come true; right there, right on that stage, we changed her into a wildly famous singer.
With her stunning voice, her straightforward vulnerability - I am what I am, she seems to say - she won us over. She transformed her past, turned the mocking bullies - all of us - into a wildly admiring crowd.
But she changed us too. She gave us a chance.
Susan Boyle changed our image of her, but also our image of ourselves. She turned us from a crowd of snickering sophisticates into people with a shared sense of loss and longing. She gave us hope that maybe it's not too late.
Most remarkable, she made us kind.
She showed us we can help each other.
When asked later how she did it, how she hung in there despite the snickering audience in front of her, Susan Boyle said, "I thought of the song."
She also said she did it for her mother. Single, the youngest of 9 children, Susan Boyle took care of her mother before she died. This is the job of spinsters; noble, yes - but also a jolting reminder that she's alone, and almost painfully pathetic. Yet Susan's mother loved this show and told her daughter she should sign up for it, adding that if Susan ever sang on the show, she would win.
So that was the inner voice Susan Boyle listened to; she chose to hear the one who loved and believed in her, not all the doubting, mocking voices she's been hearing around her for her whole life.
Many of us do not want to hold onto the voice of hope. We beat it out of ourselves. As people get older, they may take pride in developing a determined pessimism, as if that means they'll never be caught off guard. The middle-aged may feel it's almost unseemly to show they have dreams. Like the singer in Les Miserable, we've been reduced by living.
By the end of her song, Susan Boyle still reminds us of ourselves, but she's invested it with hope. She shows us something we all feel - the unwanted, hidden away, embarrassingly vulnerable part - yet changes its meaning. Maybe this part of us is fine, maybe it's more than fine, maybe it even has a beauty which others could see, if we just had the courage to put ourselves out there.
When I was young, some 40 years ago, I had to memorize a poem for school which began, "Hold fast to dreams, for when dreams die/Life is a broken-winged bird which cannot fly."
Here's to Susan Boyle.
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"She turned us from a crowd of snickering sophisticates into people with a shared sense of loss and longing."
OK, you won me.
Britain Has Talent is not the British analogue of American Idol. You lost me in that first sentence. You need to do a minimum of fact checking. "The X-Factor" is the British equivalent of American Idol. Britain's Got Talent involves any kind of talent, not pop singer stardom, and there is no age limit.
So very nicely said.
Lovely. Thankyou.
Very touching writing, Dr. Tillinghast. I think you nailed it. As for Susan Boyle-when the students are ready, the teacher appears.
How lovely. If Susan is being barraged by all sorts of media accounts of how she should look and blah, blah, blah... then I really hope she also gets to read articles like this one that actually fill the soul with joy instead of feeding on it like starved vampires.
We are so sick of seeing things that are false and empty and being told that they are "real", that encountering a person like Susan Boyle is positively refreshing and a delight to watch.
MTV for Susan
Beyonce,Ma
from Glasgow, wonderful SCOTLAND
The reign of sterile marketing Barbies is over. Susan Boyle showed the way back to soulful and genuine singing.
Voiceless bimbos wanabe Britneys remove your silicone, pack up your bikinis and go home. Cancel your next consultation with your cosmetic surgeon and for God sake have a Real lunch!
I couldn't have expressed the impact from watching Susan Boyle performance any better. So many do seem to wrap themselves up in cynism, paranoia, and self-centeredness. The reaction to Susan Boyle does indeed show that perhaps we as humans want more than that kind of living for ourselves.
I have a saying that I came up with years ago. Live in love, not in fear.
Thank you for this insightful, empathic analysis. So many of the first interviews were embarrassingly superficial and the early opinion pieces about the Susan Boyle phenomenon skated on the surface. I have been struck by the emotional response that millions around the world (and I) have had to her, and I completely agree with your analysis about what is so moving about this woman's life story and character. I think some credit is also due to the producers and editors involved with "Britain's Got Talent." As Simon Cowell has noted, this is the most brilliant piece of television he has ever seen. With the footage they shot before, during and after her performance, backstage, onstage, in the audience, they constructed a seven-minute-long, three-act drama with all of the pathos, drama, suspense and triumph (and used music to heighten the drama) of a great film.
Let's just hope the stinking paparnatzi doesn't heckle her to distraction.
Sondheim. Write a musical for this woman!
Hmmm... The analysis is so touching and deep. I'm really curious what you think about a less fabricated scenario. This Indonesian band flies into a Korean audience that has been waiting to greet them with some exuberance. In the interview the band simply talks about disbelief.
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Beautiful blog! Thank you.
Susan? She brings out the best in all we have to offer. Isn't that a good thing in a world that's gone horribly awry?
Beautiful post. Thank you for sharing these lovely thoughts on a remarkable story of triumph over adversity. Those first three notes make me choke up with tears every time I hear her sing. Let's hope that this rising star does not have to hard a landing.
"She shows us something we all feel - the unwanted, hidden away, embarrassingly vulnerable part ... Maybe this part of us is fine...may
We hide behind masks. As an elementary music teacher, I watched kids as young as second grade lear to hide behind masks because their vulnerability had been stomped on and it hurt too much to let it happen again. I did a double survey once. In the first, questions were: what's your favorite color, food, song, etc. Answers were all over the board. In the second, questions were: have you ever felt afraid, lonely, happy, etc. Most of the kids shared all the feelings.
We live our lives from behind the masks, not at the feelings level. What Susan Boyle did was to, as you said, "put herself out there." No mask. Real, true from the depth of feeling and being. Those of us behind the masks reacted as if we are truly apart from feelings. But Susan did not fall prey to us. She stayed genuine and we fell in love with her because she had the courage to give us the real Susan Boyle, and we cried because it's been so long since we have.
Go, Susan. Show the world the way to live and to be. God gave you more than the voice of an angel. He gave you the spirit, too.
Shelley, wonderful addition to the best discussion of this phenomenon I have seen. I have been fascinated by the masks we wear for many years. Euripides wrote a play I saw in the 80's called "Bacchae". The production used a technique that I think was from the time he wrote it (2500 years ago). The group that acted as the crowd around the main actors all used masks, which occasionally would fall depending on the dialogue.
Since then I have seen other movies and plays that address this and would really love it if someone would collect them all so we could view them and see how much it affects us.
The song hit me where I am living. 56 and unable to keep a job in my profession (nursing) because it has deteriorated so much I am sort of the opposite of a dinosaur. I'm trying to come up with a new dream that I can achieve. Her song selection and situation has put possibility back into my efforts.
I think you've summed up Susan Boyle and her meaning to us very well. I think that we, as a society, would like to return to a less cynical time--a kinder, gentler time--but too many don't know just where to begin.
Susan is a kind of signpost or compass along with having tons of talent, lots of poise in spite of being pushed down again and again, and is just plain sweet. She's an everyday person who, mostly, tends to blend into the wallpaper while simply going about her life
Suddenly, we realize that she's quite outstanding, and we might begin to look at others more carefully and less critically in order to discover THEIR shine as well!
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