I’ve used this space to write about
schadenfreude in
the past. Usually, it’s been in relation to
American Idol, and the cruelty of the auditions. When
Paula Goodspeed killed herself outside of Paula Abdul’s house last fall,
I wondered if the tide had shifted and if people would finally tire of laughing at the misery of others. Of course, reality TV is rooted in such schadenfreude and it will always be present. But the eventual success of people like William Hung (
who’s now a millionaire) and
Paul Potts have given these underdogs the last laugh. When
Susan Boyle’s video went viral, it marked a true tipping point in the medium. In his
blog, Douglas McLennan writes about the “New Arts Gatekeepers”, and
Leonard Jacobs expands on this by stating:
With everyone from the lowliest poor person to the Pope, presumably, atwitter (literally and figuratively) over Susan Boyle — who I hereby predict will become the enduring symbol of this we-have-hope period — I have been reflecting on a blogpost by Doug McLennan on his Diacritical. McLennan writes:
Power in the mass culture model is controlled by gatekeepers – the TV networks, radio stations, record producers, publishers. They had power because they could afford expensive cameras and studios and recording equipment essential to making things and getting them to an audience. Some of the “talent” – the musicians, actors, writers, journalists – did very well in this model if their work found a huge audience. The vast majority of musicians, actors, writers, and journalists did considerably less well.
The mass culture model only works when the means of creation and distribution are limited in some way – a small number of TV channels available, for example. One could think of the record companies or the TV networks as middlemen who were essential for an artist to connect with a large audience.
But the online world has largely been a revolution of plenty. Now anyone can make studio-quality recordings, professional-looking books or movies or radio shows. So goodbye to the middleman, right?
McLennan next quotes another writer who views the middleman mythos with a quick-and-dirty historical mega-analysis that returns him to his point:
Gone are the days when a Sol Hurok could make a star or a Tchaikovsky Piano Competition winner have an instant career.
…Now artists can produce their own work and often distribute and promote it better than the old channels could. But one can imagine so many voices braying for attention that just being able to make and get one’s art out to an audience doesn’t mean that there’s an audience interested in it.
And that brings us back to Susan Boyle. What is going on in terms of the media hoopla surrounding her proves that mass media is still the gatekeeper, yet it is necessarily a partnered gatekeeper; i.e., TV can launch but the Web must distribute. Just read the comments on this story alone. Indeed, Boyle will now have a career that is so indescribably instant that just three or four days after her appearance on Britain’s Got Talent, rumor is she’ll sign a contract with Simon Cowell’s label.
As Mark Blankenship points out on his blog, Susan Boyle means so much to us now because she “Rebukes the bitchy cynicism that often defines reality talent shows, and she isn’t young.”
“When we laugh at someone for being a freak, we’re laughing out of fear. We’re laughing because we want to prove that we are not like that loser over there. If we can shame the people who don’t belong, then we can prove that we do.
When we embrace an outsider, though, we’re paving the way for our own acceptance in the future. Eventually, we’ll all feel like outcasts, and none of us wants to be laughed at. The Susan Boyle Story suggests we won’t be. Instead of fearing for our own eventual shame, we can count on society to hear what’s beautiful in us. We can trust that if we just show our true selves, we will be embraced.
Whether or not that moral is true in the real world, it’s alluringly true in the Susan Boyle Story. By participating in the narrative that television has constructed for her, by cheering her on and watching her video over and over, we can not only feel good about graciously welcoming an outsider, but also feel relief for helping create a world that will someday welcome us.
It’s the same reason Slumdog Millionaire connected with so many people around the world. Most people alive today have never lived in tougher times. These stories connect us all. DListed reports that, “Even Patti LuPone, the original Fantine in Les Miz, called up Susan and said, “Susan, you’ve got pluck, girl.” Way to slap a ho in the caterpillar-brows, Patti!” Of course, Susan’s choice of song didn’t hurt either. It’s always been one of mine and Claudio’s all time favorite songs! So now we know who’s going to win “Britain’s Got Talent”. I guess now, only one question remains:
Update: Here are some photos I took of Adam and the others at the American Idol after party in 2009.
It’s 4 AM, and I have to be up at 7 but I wanted to post the photos
I took at this year’s American Idol after party. It was just a block from my house again; so after everyone went to bed I walked up the street to check it out. The party this year was pretty tame/lame compared to past seasons. 2 years ago, the big story at the after party was who hooked up with whom and last year it was who was the most wasted. This year everyone seemed pretty subdued. Crystal Bowersox was a little tipsy, but that’s about the most scandalous thing I saw. David Hasselhoff wasn’t even there, and he’s always there! I guess they don’t have any big personalities like Adam Lambert this year. I did have a short chat with Simon Cowell tonight, and he was surprisingly cordial. I wonder if the show will last without him? Here are some photos. Good night!
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