Terence Blacker: Ms Boyle and a modern celebrity fable
Friday, 29 May 2009SHARE PRINTEMAILTEXT SIZE NORMALLARGEEXTRA LARGE
The week's least surprising news is that the woman variously known as the Hairy Angel and SuBo has begun to behave oddly. In the few short weeks since Susan Boyle appeared on a TV talent show, she has been propelled from obscurity to über-celebrity. Her voice has made film stars, politicians and commentators quiver with emotion. Her well choreographed triumph, straight from the they-laughed-when-I-sat-down-to-play page of Hollywood tearjerkers, has been a favourite on YouTube. In a single bound, she has become a new media archetype – the ordinary woman who has reminded the world of decency and niceness.
One moment, she was living with her mum and singing "The Impossible Dream" at karaoke nights, the next she was the hope of the world. Until now, she has said she has been enjoying the experience but there is evidence that an act of peculiar cruelty is taking place. The fairy story is likely to have an unhappy ending.
Already sections of the press are on the turn. They are becoming irritated by Susan Boyle. It's The Sun that has taken to referring to her as SuBo, a reference to her portly figure. Now there are reports of embarrassing tantrums. Apparently she lost her temper with members of the public who were annoying her. Watching another episode of the programme on a hotel television, she was said to be enraged when her favourite judge, Piers Morgan, praised one of her rivals. According to reports, she swore at the TV, flicked a V-sign at it and stormed out of the room. Who
could seriously be surprised by this alleged behaviour? The people who now surround her may want her to be successful but none is seriously concerned for her welfare or consider the effect of this form of instant celebrity.
Carrying the weight of public expectation can make even the young, the strong and the brilliant crack: Bob Dylan went slightly bonkers in the 1960s when the world decided that he was not just a great folk singer but the voice of a generation. Imagine the effect of the same process on an unworldly person of middle years.
Such is the need to create a heart-lifting story of hope that Susan Boyle's first live TV performance, which took place on Sunday, has been presented as a triumph. In fact, it was cringe-making. Singing an Andrew Lloyd Webber song, she hit several bum notes, a fact carefully ignored by the judges, who knew that they had a fairy-tale to deliver. Interviewed, she behaved with strange, forced jollity, with much leering, fist-pumping and a strange, faintly grotesque little shimmy across the stage. At one point, she seemed to believe that because Piers Morgan had kissed her, some kind of flirtation was taking place. She behaved like someone trying to play a part expected of her.
Maybe none of it should matter. A talent show has thrown up a story which has made people happy and reassured in some vague way. Yet there is something that makes one uneasy about what is going on. Like those who are professionally involved with the show, most commentators have gone along with the pretence that hers is the voice of an angel and that her behaviour was adorably true to herself.
When, this weekend or later, the dream goes wrong, as it surely will, the media will have another story, and the public will be entertained in a different way. The poor, sad Hairy Angel will have served her purpose.
Independent
