IF THE sensational rise of Susan Boyle is a fairytale for our times, then why can't I convince myself that it's destined to have a happy ending? And if the 47-year-old "spinster" from West Lothian is truly "living the dream", why does she seem so ill at ease with the fame her appearance on Britain's Got Talent has brought her?
For a fleeting moment, the way the world took the unassuming charity worker to its collective bosom was genuinely uplifting. But as the response to her performance grew increasingly disproportionate, the thrill of watching someone so deserving have h
er moment in the sun, was replaced with a deep sense of foreboding.
I don't mean to be a party-pooper. I was as captivated as everyone else when, to snorts of derision, the "hairy angel" opened her mouth and produced a sound so gorgeous it wiped the smirks off the smug faces of the judging panel. As the enthusiasm for Boyle spread to the US and Australia, I rejoiced in the fact that a talent which had for so long lain neglected in a dusty corner of Scotland was being recognised across the globe.
But there came a point, as there always does, when the innocent pleasure of discovering beauty in unexpected quarters was distorted into something much less wholesome. As A-list celebrities jostled with each other to offer their congratulations, as strangers debated her virginity online, as cybersquatters spied the chance to make a fast buck and snapped up Susan Boyle-related domain names, she became public property and everyone wanted a piece of her.
Perhaps my sense of impending doom derives from Boyle's uncanny similarity to the character LV, from the film Little Voice, a woman rendered virtually mute by her traumatic past, but who can, in the privacy of her own room, belt out hits by divas such as Judy Garland and Ella Fitzgerald. Obviously, I am not referring to a physical similarity. Played by Jane Horrocks, LV is young, pretty in an anaemic sort of way, and so slight as to be almost ethereal... while Susan is, well, not.
But if you regard Horrocks' physical fragility as a metaphor for the fragility of her talent, then maybe you can see what I'm getting at. Anyway, LV, whose desire to sing – like Boyle's – is inextricably linked to memories of a dead parent, is "discovered" by a dodgy agent who pushes her too far, too fast until she collapses at the foot of a birdcage which forms the centrepiece of her stage set.
Boyle too is a vulnerable figure at the mercy of forces she didn't summon up and has no means of controlling. When the woman nicknamed "simple Susan" at school on account of her mild learning disabilities stood in front of the panel at the BGT auditions, she said she had always wanted to sing in front of a large audience. She didn't ask to have dinner with Piers Morgan, or to go on the Larry King show, or to be offered a part in a Hollywood film, or to be unable to go to her local shops without being pursued by autograph-hunters.
In fact, like so many internet crazes, the cult of Susan Boyle is designed to meet the needs of those who drive it rather than those of the figure at its core. We may believe that when she sang I Dreamed A Dream, we experienced a national epiphany; that, as her voice soared, we finally grasped that it is possible for plain, sturdy, unplucked women to contribute as much as svelte, attractive, waxed ones. But if our response to Boyle was really evidence of a newfound contempt for the vacuity of celebrity culture, we would have been content to cheer her on from the sidelines. Instead, we felt a need to become part of her story: to dissect her, mould her, invest her story with cosmic significance, transform her from a real person into a figment of our own imaginations.
However hard we try to put a worthy spin on it, the worshipping of Susan Boyle is just another means of drawing attention to ourselves. Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in the way in which actress Demi Moore championed the reality TV star with the words: "She made me all teary." Oh well, that's sealed it then. If she makes Demi Moore teary, she must really be something special.
In the meantime, as we all bask in her reflected glory, Susan Boyle is back in Blackburn struggling to cope with her new identity. And maybe she is enjoying aspects of it. I guess if you've spent most of your life caring for your sick mother, it must be nice to get your hair done and buy yourself some new clothes.
But Susan Boyle is no Jade Goody. She won't know how to manipulate the publicity to her advantage, and maybe she won't want to. As the pressure mounts, it's far more likely she will be chewed up and spat out like so many before her. If BGT was really about nurturing talent, the producers would be wrapping their latest protege up in cotton wool. Instead, when she isn't being hawked round the chat-show circuit, she is holed up in her council house, while journalists camp outside, desperately trying to "get a new line".
And that's before things turn nasty. Let's face it, Boyle has been allowed more leeway than most, but the backlash against her is already beginning. She has been portrayed in an unflattering light in an episode of South Park (one of the characters says that if one more person talks about her performance, he's going to puke). And you can bet newspaper editors are briefing reporters to "dig the dirt".
So Susan Boyle has the potential to bring out the worst in us, as well as the best. We may see her sudden rise as proof that we are entering a new era of recession-driven integrity. But what will it say about us if we seize her fledgling talent and squeeze the life out of it before it has the chance to take flight?
