The ugly duckling turned… ugly duckling
I’ve never really liked the story of the ugly duckling. Not because the ugly duckling eventually becomes accepted, but because the only reason why the ugly duckling is accepted is because it no longer is an ugly duckling, but a beautiful white swan. For me, the moral of that story was about maintaining the status quo, that you can’t be who you are, that you must change to conform to the norms of society.
Maybe a lil too much analysis read into a bedtime story, but I write this because of the phenomenon that is Susan Boyle.
The “never been kissed” Scottish sensation wowed Britains Got Talent show judges and critics Cowell, Morgan, and blonde beauty Amanda Holden, after sustaining jeers and leers due to low expectations from the judges and audience based on her age, persona, and dowdy appearance. But low and behold, she shocked and touched everyone who heard her voice while she gave an emotional performance of “I Dream a Dream” from Les Miserables. There were very few dry eyes in the house following that audition.
Since then Susan Boyle has been on CNN’s “Larry King Live” with Britains Got Talent judge Piers Morgan, has been swept up into Ashton Kutcher’s Twitter race, is invited to sit with Oprah, and has now hit upwards of 50-million views on YouTube since she debuted April 11.
There are a multiple of reasons why Susan Boyle has made such an impact in the last few days around the world, why she has become so popular in cheesy Amelika / America, why people can’t get enough of her.
Firstly I think it’s the economy. It is a time of doom and gloom. Much like the hope that Obama promised in the lead up to his victory at the polls, people the world over love the story of hope, in these dark times. With a back drop of economic turbulence, the looming greatest depression the world has seen, job security leading on to other social issues; the Obama / Boyle storyline is what makes us think the world is going to be all right. It’s a bit more than the feel-good news story about rescuing cats from trees, but about a normal Jane Doe tasting success, the success we all cling to hope for.
Another reason Boyle is such a phenomenon is because we think there has been a reassessment of our measure of beauty. Of course the show manufactured, or at least maximised the Cinderalla story, but watching her audition we find comfort in knowing that she was no Beyonce or Mariah Carey, but she was just as talented.
It is an uncomfortable reason, because many of us possessed the same sneering judgemental opinions the judges and the audience had when we first saw Boyle enter our views. We have come accustomed to having the rather entertaining candidates for the various reality TV shows, who have all the charisma and personality, but deep down we know they won’t make it, but we applaud their efforts. And so it was easy for many of us to fall into that trap and dismiss Boyle straight off the bat… until she sang. At that point we either deny that we every thought badly of her, or we over-zealously grasp the Cinderella story to make us feel better about making such a bad initial judgement call on her.
A more cynical view is that by up holding Boyle as a ‘rags to riches’ story, it maintains the status quo by reassuring the masses that the goal is still attainable. It’s like the continuing perpetuation of the “American dream” - that it is available to everyone. We all know of personal and Hollywood stories of people making it in this new world: through hard work and perseverence. Now I’m a believer in encouraging and manifesting such attributes such as hard work and perseverence into the next generation. But let’s not gloss over the realities. Not everyone will make it.
The current structure of the socio-economic society we live in depends on inequalities between people. We can’t all be millionaires in this free market capitalist society, even if we all did work hard and persevered. Unfortunately, some people “make it” for a multitude of reasons other than hard work, while those that work hard never make it. Some are blessed with being born into a situation that afford them privileges, not based on their hard work, but the hard work of their parents (or grandparents). I’m not saying children should not benefit from the efforts of their parents, but let’s not begin to deny that some people are born into a better life than others. There are other societal, personal and structural reasons too.
Therefore it’s important to those who control society to maintain the status quo by pointing to the Boyle’s of this world to further keep us in that delusion that we can ALL make it.
I’m not willing in this post at the least, to launch into a whole article about “raging against the machine” at a macro level. But I do want to point out that the Boyle story does not need to be hijacked by Hollywood to maintain the delusion that one day we can all be white swans. Rather we the masses can use Boyle as the ugly duckling who was accepted because she wasn’t a white swan, but just a normal ugly duckling.
Already I’ve read articles saying that once the Boyle sensation has died out, we will revert to our normal ‘natural’ beings, and sit down and cast those judgemental calls as we have always done. However, I think that is flawed thinking. To believe that it is “natural” and of human nature to pick beauty, is to deny a critique of the definition of beauty. We are being conned into believing the “ugly” in the ugly duckling. We are being persuaded to believe that beauty has already been defined for us and we should accept it.
But it wasn’t long ago when Palagi, blue eyed, blondes were the normal definition of beauty (and to some extent it still is), but there has been a steady re-evaluation of that definition, and we have super models of every hue, race and ethnicity gracing our magazines and TV’s. That came through social and academic pressure. What’s to say such a re-evaluation can’t be done again with Susan Boyle? Why must we revert to our pre-Boyle prejudices?
Here in Niu Sila / New Zealand, Polynesians have dominated many of the reality talent shows on TV. But Rosita Vai, winner of New Zealand Idol, caused the most controversy. Some commentators believed she would not win because she was too fat, she would perpetuate obesity in Pacific communities, she did not have the look. But win she did. While her career since winning New Zealand Idol hasn’t blossomed, neither has any other New Zealand Idol winner or contestant. Yet media commentators have been all too quick to point to her looks as her demise, as I’m sure people will do with Boyle if she were to meet the same fate.
But I think Rosita and Boyle are merely stepping stones to breaking down our prejudices. The more people get beyond the superficial and look at the talent, the further we get to dismantling the delusion of the “American dream” and assess people not on their looks, but their merits.
I hope Boyle doesn’t change under such popularity. She won us over because she could sing. She doesn’t need to change herself into a white swan. She’s also very popular because we actually realise she’s one of us, an ugly duckling.
Because in all reality, the world is full of ugly ducklings, in fact the majority of us are all ugly ducklings. But we have been conditioned to think that we all want to be white swans in order to be accepted. Once we realise that’s false, we can begin to be a lot more self secure about ourselves, and not have to go after every facial cream or botox product on the market to be “beautiful”.
Because that’s the secret they don’t want us to know: ugly ducklings are already beautiful.