There is something wonderfully unique about any musical performance. It can never be repeated. Any professional singer knows that your career hangs on the last performance – screw it up and you won’t be booked again. I have often said I would listen to any ‘live’ music performance because there is something powerful about the moment – even if it isn’t great. And I write as the only cleric I know who has been arrested for busking (on the Paris Metro when I was 19).
I remember watching the video of Susan Boyle after her first performance on Britain’s Got Talent. I know there was a load of stuff about the reaction of the judges and how shameful were the prejudices of them and their audience, but what caught me was the almost embarrassing naivete of the singer. She didn’t realise that she was embarrassing, that people were laughing at her and not with her. Then she sang with a confidence that was breathtaking. A few duff notes wouldn’t have bothered me – the fact that she did it was enough.
Then she hit the semi-final, began with a couple of bum notes and made the headlines again – not with the power of her voice or her story, but with reports of her swearing in an hotel, losing the plot and being called a ‘freak’ by some camp narcissist who judges a dance competition. Piers Morgan then goes on the telly to tell the world that Susan Boyle had considered leaving the show before the final. So what?
Well, all this leaves me disturbed. Perhaps I should just lighten up and enjoy the spectacle – hoping she wins. But, then what? I can’t shake off the questions I worried about in relation to Jade Goody.
Does anyone take any responsibility for her and her health in all this? Here we have a woman with learning difficulties who has been lifted out of a world of routines into a world of cameras, total scrutiny and public judgement in which everybody has an opinion about her dress, her appearance, her speech and her character. And instead of an ordinary woman being celebrated for being able to sing and entertain, she enters a world in which she becomes public property and will be taken apart by every nasty-minded little bigot in the world.
Hard words? Yes. But, am I alone in worrying about what is being done to this woman – even if she walked into it voluntarily? Is there not some public cruelty at work here in the stories being told about her, the scrutiny of her swearing and the effects of the pressures upon her? Maybe I am alone in being concerned about her becoming yet more fodder for a hungry entertainment industry that will chew her over, spit her out (when she has lost her commercial taste) and move on to the next ‘thing’. Maybe I am being over-sensitive and should let her take responsibility for herself. Maybe.
But there is something cumulatively disturbing about how she has so quickly been turned into a commercial commodity to be traded and exploited for public titillation, regardless of the cost to her. Another life being potentially ruined before the circus moves on – and nobody takes responsibility for the costs. I guess when it is all over it will be her home church and community that will welcome her back to a place of uncalculating belonging and restore to her the dignity that comes from being a woman they love and care for rather than a product to be packaged.
I hope I am wrong.
May 29, 2009 at 8:38 am
Thank you for saying what needed to be said here…I’ve been too uncomfortable at the “freak show” element of so much of this kind of “entertainment” to watch, tho along with the rest of the world I was bowled over by her performance via the internet. But what does it say about us, that we continue to revel in this sort of exploitation…And how do we foster a climate of respect & reverence for all without sounding impossibly pi & joyless?
I wish I knew.
May 29, 2009 at 10:14 am
You’re not the only one with such misgivings. You have to weigh in the balance the opportunity it gives for a lucky few to demonstrate extraordinary talents and the scores of people who are sneered at and jeered at. Not much balance really.
I took my cue from my 10-year-old daughter who was so distressed at seeing vulnerable people laughed at that she refused to watch it.
May 29, 2009 at 3:50 pm
The same concerns were expressed to me yesterday by the lady on the Tesco checkout, seeing Susan Boyles picture on the front of the Radio Times. What you say about her (and indeed all the other contestants) being turned into a commodity is spot on.
Those responsible for making Susan Boyle a household name are the BGT judges, ITV, and Simon Cowell and his Syco production company. They will all make plenty of money out of Susan Boyle, but I wonder how much responsibility they will take for her wellbeing.
I’d bloody well swear if I was under the pressure she was under.
May 29, 2009 at 6:07 pm
The interesting question is that so many people see this happening, and tut along with the rest of us – yet thousands sign up for it every year, and millions tune in (including me). We know it leads nowhere, we know there is no pot of gold at the end of rainbow… and yet, that glimmer of hope is enough to keep people wanting it.
The circus freak-show, dressed up in whatever modern clothes we choose, still has the same appeal. And the same goes for the ‘low-brow’ reality of Britain’s Got Talent or Big Brother and the ‘high-brow’ of The Apprentice. People are desperate for the apparent victory of a contract and a feature in Heat magazine.
I finish re-calling that the first act of the church after Pentecost was to speak like loonies, and get laughed off-stage accused of drunkenness. I’m sure there’s a parallel somewhere.
May 30, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Susan Boyle may not be as naive as people assume. Years ago she appeared on the then prime time Saturday evening Michael Barrymore show where he embarrased and mocked all of his ‘guests’ …..the audience loved it and the people who went on the show knew exactly what sort of ‘roughing up’ they were in for in the name of ‘entertainment….you can see her on this show on You Tube.
I think what has happened in the intervening years is that, with the birth of all of these ‘let the public be the stars’ shows, the audiences have got de-sensitised and are now out for blood and not entertainmant.
May 30, 2009 at 6:37 pm
Thanks, Alison. I had heard about the Barrymore appearance. It isn’t her naivete that worries me, it is her vulnerability. You are right, I think, about the gradual de-sensitising of the public – which is always ‘process’ and never ‘event’.
May 31, 2009 at 3:23 pm
To some extent we are all vulnerable when we allow others to glimpse something of our inner selves.Perhaps many of us have felt the sharp slap of cruel laughter or criticism from our audience, who ever that may be.