{"id":445,"date":"2009-04-19T08:23:34","date_gmt":"2009-04-19T12:23:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/?p=445"},"modified":"2009-04-19T01:58:42","modified_gmt":"2009-04-19T05:58:42","slug":"why-love-susan-boyle-or-anyone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/?p=445","title":{"rendered":"Why love Susan Boyle? Or anyone?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A couple posts ago, I stated:<\/p>\n

Another things that bugs me is that if [Susan Boyle<\/a>] was a beautiful woman and sang exactly the same way, the reaction might be different. The \u201ctriumph\u201d here depends<\/em> on our prejudice. And then we say our prejudice is a bad thing? Then why do we love getting over it so much?<\/p>\n

(And what if she had sung terribly? No one would say \u201chow dare we judge a person based on their singing!\u201d and yet that\u2019s what we do here; we\u2019re still basing her worth on something\u2026)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Today I came across this article<\/a>, which says:<\/p>\n

If Susan Boyle couldn’t sing, Simon Cowell wouldn’t have stopped smirking; the spectators would have kept on snickering; and America’s newest heroine would have gone back to her Scottish village to resume the life of an unmarried, unemployed, ungainly, middle-age woman who lives alone with a cat.<\/p>\n

In other words, without what we define as talent, Susan Boyle would be an object of mockery and pity.<\/p>\n

“What has Susan Boyle taught us about the way we judge people based on appearance?” I heard some radio host intone on Friday.<\/p>\n

My answer: Not much.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

… after the rooting’s done, what’s the lesson? That we shouldn’t make fun of odd people because they might have talent?<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

… the lesson I’d hope we take from Susan Boyle is that people deserve respect, however strange they are, even if they don’t have talent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oh, look, someone agreed with me!\u00a0 Though she makes a larger point of it.\u00a0 But, YES, I agree!<\/p>\n

Which leads me to some questions about this thing called love<\/em>… what makes one person love someone else, and when is it really love?\u00a0 Can anyone really love<\/em> Susan Boyle from just watching such a short video?\u00a0 And if so, why?\u00a0 Just because she can sing?\u00a0 Is there some subconscious pity going on?<\/p>\n

Attractiveness<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Of course beauty seems to be one of the first requirements for love.\u00a0 This can probably be illustrated best in the movies; ugly people are rarely cast as lovable main characters.\u00a0 It’s much easier for audiences to instantly sympathize with someone on the more attractive side.\u00a0 Even on TV channels for children like the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon, characters are often seen being instantly interested in other characters only because of their looks.\u00a0 Isn’t that… extremely shallow?\u00a0 But it’s natural!\u00a0 It’s what the human mind is designed <\/em>to do.\u00a0 But… certainly that’s not love<\/em>, is it?\u00a0 That’s just physical attraction.<\/p>\n

It’s obvious most people can get past this, as there are plenty of ugly couples all over the place.\u00a0 But beauty is still important; I’ve never overheard any husband say “honey, you’re ugly, but I love ya!” nor have I heard any wife say “you’re out of proportion and I wish you looked different but I had to pick someone or I’d never get married!”\u00a0 What impolite things to say!\u00a0 So I guess in a sense, we never really<\/em> get past it.\u00a0 We only learn to ignore it more.<\/p>\n

Intellect and talent<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"The next thing we are instantly attracted to is talent.\u00a0 Who has that wonderful voice?\u00a0 Who painted that beautiful portrait?\u00a0 Who can play that instrument so beautifully?\u00a0 Who can blah blah blah do whatever so well?<\/p>\n

Isn’t this<\/em> part of what has Susan Boyle’s audiences in tears?\u00a0 Is this<\/em> love?\u00a0 What is<\/em> this?\u00a0 I suppose this is partly some sort of admiration, and partly some sort of wanting to have the talent yourself, but not in a terribly envious way, perhaps more of a subconscious desire.<\/p>\n

When you ask people why they love their spouses, they’ll probably list some cliche traits.\u00a0 Wait a sec?!\u00a0 Are they saying that love is based merely on a list of traits?\u00a0 I doubt it… there’s something more that can’t be expressed in words I suppose… or is there?\u00a0 Is the act of love actually<\/em> a pretty shallow act that only feels<\/em> deep, like putting a mirror in front of a mirror?<\/p>\n

If this isn’t love, what else is there to base love on?\u00a0 I guess common interests?\u00a0 Common beliefs?\u00a0 A balance between interests, beliefs, talents, and attractiveness?\u00a0 It’s gotta be something, doesn’t it?\u00a0 If it wasn’t anything, we’d fall in love with rocks in the streets!<\/p>\n

Pity<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"I don’t think this is often a conscious thing, so not many people will admit to it, or even know they’re feeling it.\u00a0 It’s something like a deep desire to see someone else succeed because there’s something about them you feel superior to.\u00a0 An ugly person is the simplest example.\u00a0 Quasimodo may be a good example, though I’ve only seen film versions of the story.\u00a0 In those versions, the audience is meant to love the hunchback merely because he is deformed and<\/em> not a villian.\u00a0 “I’m ugly!\u00a0 Poor me!\u00a0 Love me because you feel sorry for me!”\u00a0 I think in fiction writing there can often be a fine line between wanting readers to understand and care about your main character’s plight, and wanting readers to just downright pity<\/em> the characters.<\/p>\n

This is why I usually hate movies with mentally challenged characters; they’re so often portrayed as objects of pity, but the screenwriters and directors might not even realize they’re doing it, because it’s coming from their<\/em> subconscious pity for the characters.\u00a0 (One film that thankfully doesn’t<\/em> portray mentally challenged characters as objects of pity is the classic film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

Actually, I suppose there are several different definitions of “pity.”\u00a0 There’s the more “sympathize with, understand” pity, and there’s the more “oh, poor you, I’m obviously better than you and want you to succeed at something because you’ll never be as good as me in this other thing” pity.\u00a0 It’s obviously the latter I’m blathering about.<\/p>\n

This sort of pity is a vile thing and should be avoided.\u00a0 Trouble is, I think, it’s often subconscious.\u00a0 We can feel the emotional effects of it without actually feeling it itself.\u00a0 And what are these emotional effects?\u00a0 Well… it probably feels like love.<\/p>\n

But is it love?<\/p>\n

I don’t know<\/strong><\/p>\n

I obviously have more questions than answers.<\/p>\n

But I do think it is<\/em> a bit of an insult to Susan Boyle to love her only because of her singing.\u00a0 Then again, how could we expect ourselves to be any different?\u00a0 Our biases are nothing new.\u00a0 Nihil novi sub sole!\u00a0 (Is that the phrase?\u00a0 I can’t remember.)<\/p>\n

That said, I still enjoy Boyle’s performance, just as I enjoy movies with attractive people in them.\u00a0 But Boyle’s performance and “triumph” is not a “wake up call” to our cynicalness nor does it really say anything profound about prejudices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple posts ago, I stated: Another things that bugs me is that if [Susan Boyle] was a beautiful woman and sang exactly the same way, the reaction might be different. The \u201ctriumph\u201d here depends on our prejudice. And then we say our prejudice is a bad thing? Then why […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[53],"tags":[72,71],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7gI4B-7b","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=445"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":446,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions\/446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wizardwalk.com\/newblather\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}