I Dreamed a Dream….

…when hopes were high and Television was better.

Tonight, I caught ‘I Dreamed A Dream – The Susan Boyle Story‘ on ITV, everyone knows the story of Susan Boyle; the quiet, middle aged lady from West Lothian who became the Star of ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent in 2008 .  Since the programme (in which she came 2nd to a Dance Troupe) she has become a huge hit in both the UK and around the world, in some part thanks to the internet with over 100 million views of her videos online.  Boyle’s album broke records to be the fastest ever selling début record in British history, it’s since sold over 1 million copies.

There is no doubt that Susan Boyle has a great talent and huge appeal, which for Susan and her record company is a fantastic thing.  What worries me is the way Boyle’s rise to meteoric fame has been handled.  I worry that this huge appeal is in part a symptom of how us, the record buying, TV watching public have come to expect our entertainers to look and act.

In tonight’s programme it was hard to get away from gushy celebrities telling us how Susan had overcome many obstacles to get where she is, they might be right of course, but any more than any other artist trying to make their way? A woman who doesn’t fit the media’s (or our) idea of a pop star – she’s middle aged, she’s not slim, she doesn’t have ‘model’ looks yet sings well.  This disturbs me somewhat.

Why are we surprised by this?  Do we expect all our pop stars to be amazingly charismatic and drop dead gorgeous? If the answer is yes then I wonder who is to blame, is it the media for being so negative by thinking we’ll only buy records from good looking people or is it our fault for buying into it in the first place?

It’s nothing new of course, early Elvis sang music that had been performed for years in underground venues by unknown black artists, but he was good looking, charismatic and (unfortunately) most importantly he was white and deemed ‘accessible’ to most.

Fast forward 50 years and it seems sad to me that the idea of Susan Boyle’s rise to success hasn’t been celebrated simply as a ‘lady with great voice singing songs‘ but as a ‘unconventional lady with great voice singing songs‘, for Ant (or Dec) to talk about Trial through Adversity or Piers Morgan to claim Susan’s fame is one of the Entertainment world’s biggest success stories makes it even more negative.

Even after world wide number one records, millions of record sales and rumoured performance for the U.S 1st Lady, the people that brought Susan to the forefront are still trading in the negative idea that it’s almost impossible that an unconventional person cannot harbour superb talent.

I’m not a fan of Susan’s music but I wish her all the best and really hope that she can leave the patronising gang of TV idiots behind her.