My new hero
Susan Boyle, from the latest episode of Britain's Got Talent.
Embedding has apparently been disabled for this clip, but you must -- MUST!!!! -- click this link and watch the video at YouTube. And watch the whole thing, too; don't skip over the intro and exit to watch only her performance in the middle.
Kate Harding at Shapely Prose says it best:
In a culture that values youth, wealth, and carefully-maintained femininity, this woman is like a cheat sheet for “don’t take me seriously” signifiers. She’s over 40, she’s ungroomed, she’s on the fat side, and her accent denotes low class. As it turns out, she also has learning disabilities and has never been on a date. She flies in the face of what we expect out of a performer and what we, as a culture, esteem in a woman. The judges respond accordingly: they snigger and mock, and her confident posturing just makes her (in their eyes) more ridiculous, more dissonant. Dissonant because confidence and sass don’t compute from a woman who falls so short of the ideal.
And then she KICKS THEIR FUCKING FACES IN. .... They’re all so overwhelmed they don’t even taste the crow.
The Mirror online has an article about Ms. Boyle. It's definitely worth reading.
Embedding has apparently been disabled for this clip, but you must -- MUST!!!! -- click this link and watch the video at YouTube. And watch the whole thing, too; don't skip over the intro and exit to watch only her performance in the middle.
Kate Harding at Shapely Prose says it best:
In a culture that values youth, wealth, and carefully-maintained femininity, this woman is like a cheat sheet for “don’t take me seriously” signifiers. She’s over 40, she’s ungroomed, she’s on the fat side, and her accent denotes low class. As it turns out, she also has learning disabilities and has never been on a date. She flies in the face of what we expect out of a performer and what we, as a culture, esteem in a woman. The judges respond accordingly: they snigger and mock, and her confident posturing just makes her (in their eyes) more ridiculous, more dissonant. Dissonant because confidence and sass don’t compute from a woman who falls so short of the ideal.
And then she KICKS THEIR FUCKING FACES IN. .... They’re all so overwhelmed they don’t even taste the crow.
The Mirror online has an article about Ms. Boyle. It's definitely worth reading.