Susan Boyle and the Pressure of Beauty

My blogging has been shamefully lax recently, for which I apologise. In my defence, I had an essay to hand in yesterday and it was a bit ‘all-hands-on-deck’ for the last week there. Still, it’s done, and I’m happy with it, and it’s handed in. Other than the small point of now having a 15,000 word dissertation to get going on, of course.

Still, it’s meant that I’ve not had a huge amount of time to read for pleasure. I have just started Angela Carter’s novel Wise Children, though, and it’s already shaping up to be brilliant. Thoughts on it to come in due course.

So today, you’ll get my rant du jour. I’m sure you’ll all know who Susan Boyle is by now. She is, apparently, getting more YouTube hits than President Obama’s inauguration speech. For the three people who have been living under a rock, she is a 47-year-old Scottish woman who appeared on Britain’s Got Talent. She’s did a cracking rendition of I Dreamed a Dream from Les Mis. She also had the audacity not to be conventionally attractive, which, combined with the fact that she came across as a bit batty, meant that everyone was expecting the worst when she stepped on-stage – including me, I am horribly ashamed to say. Worry not, I feel suitably guilty, and have had a bloody good talk to myself.

However, one particular British daily newspaper has taken to referring to Ms Boyle as ‘the Hairy Angel’. It’s the Daily Express (of course). I’m sorry, but how offensive is that? It’s cruel, and it just reiterates our obsession with physical perfection. It’s really made me very angry. It’s just… unnecessary. Really, really unnecessary. So the woman doesn’t pluck her eyebrows – is this a crime now? Aggggghhhhh!

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the programme gave her a ‘make-over’. I’m not sure how to feel about that if they do. If it’s what she wants, then fair enough. But if she’s made to feel like it’s the only way she’ll be successful – like the fuss made over previous BGT winner Paul Pott’s wonky teeth – then that’s another matter entirely. I have a horrible feeling that she’s going to be taken advantage of in some way, and I hope that if she feels pressured into anything, then she’ll be brave enough to speak up.