Never mind that I want to throw things at my monitor every time I see the rolling eyes and hear the rude judges react to Susan Boyle. Did anyone see Susan Boyle on Larry King the other night? Larry brought up the subject of Susan changing, by which he meant she should get a makeover. And they told us junior high wouldn't last forever! All I want is for Larry King to ask a man when he's going to get a make-over and conform to the infantile standards of a shallow, eternally adolescent culture.
Hey Larry King, when are you going to get some Botox?
What women are saying:
Susan at That's Me on the Left: Susan Boyle and Hillary Clinton: After watching the behavior of many in the audience and the judges in the above video, I couldn't help but think of Hillary Clinton.
Tanya Gold: It wasn't singer Susan Boyle who was ugly on Britain's Got Talent so much as our reaction to her: This lust for homogeneity in female beauty means that when someone who doesn’t resemble a diagram in a plastic surgeon’s office steps up to the microphone, people fall about and treat us to despicable sub-John Gielgud gestures of amazement. . Because Britain’s Got Malice. Sing, Susan, sing - to an ugly crowd that doesn’t deserve you.
Patricia Williams: I know those sneers. I've heard them too: I grew up in a culture of racial hierarchy, where being black and female automatically meant that you were oxen-like, stupid, undesired. Such measures are insidiously, seductively easy and they are powerful; hence I spent my life grasping for that Susan Boyle moment when I might open my mouth and rock the world to its foundations.
Amy Wilentz: Susan Boyle's extraordinary ordinariness: Please please please, Susan! The vintage women of the world beg you: Don't lose a pound. Don't buy a new wardrobe. No highlights! No Botox! Don't touch chin one, or chin two.
Lisa Schwarzbaum: In our pop-minded culture so slavishly obsessed with packaging — the right face, the right clothes, the right attitudes, the right Facebook posts — the unpackaged artistic power of the unstyled, un-hip, un-kissed Ms. Boyle let me feel, for the duration of one blazing showstopping ballad, the meaning of human grace. She pierced my defenses. She reordered the measure of beauty. And I had no idea until tears sprang how desperately I need that corrective from time to time.
Sadie at Jezebel: To attempt this sort of show, but not to buy into the accepted mold, was an act of impunity that seemed to disregard of all the rules of the game, and made one fear that here was another deluded, oblivious person being exploited for laughs. Our joy was as much relief as surprise. And that joy is very real.
Elizabeth Snead: Susan Boyle already gets a makeover? Oh, NOOOO!
video via
Feminist Politics News Gender Sexism
