November 21, 2009: Has anyone noticed how ugly this woman Susan Boyle is? She looks like someone painted a face on a giant big toe, then put a wig on it. I was just about to start writing a movie review of "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" when I stumbled upon her picture and felt it was much more important that I report on her ugliness, rather than the film.
In case you don't know, she's that British singer from that British TV show that everyone loves so much. But I suspect it's primarily because she's so ugly and yet can sing fairly well that people like her. I guess she sings alright, but as an Oscar Wildian conoisseur of Beauty and Truth (and their subtle, if fabricated, connection), I have a hard time separating her innate ugliness from whatever chipper art she may produce.
Knowing me as you all do (or pretend to, those of you who merely suck up to me in order to say you know someone who writes a popular blog), you know that I've long maintained that appearances mean little to me. But did you ever stop to think that I was lying? In fact, they mean a great deal, and while I still struggle on a daily basis to even get my face shaved, my cologne applied, and my cuticles sanded, when it comes to looking outside of myself at others, I consider it my God-given American right to not be subjected to anything less than a striking, soigne apparition.
I grew up in a little town called Westport, in Connecticut, and here appearances are very important. Then I moved to Los Angeles, where appearances are vitally important. To now ask me to suddenly separate all of my most fundamental beliefs from what is, in essence, the good-natured choices of those with the luxury to be liberal, seems ridiculous and almost rude on your part. (What's your problem, anyway? Don't I do enough for our relationship without being asked to endure disturbing visions of the dissipated?)
Some of us don't have the luxury of accepting everyone as they are. We've been bred to be intolerant, and so our views and needs should always be given priority, if only because we suffer much more than other people, and at far, far less.
Again, I'm not disputing Ms. Boyle's right to exist, but merely her right to exist so publically. There's a reason God gave her a grand, old voice, I'm sure, and part of it involved His hope that she'd keep that hideous face of hers under wraps.
Well of course beauty, virtue and innate goodness are all inexctricably intertwined. Everyone knows that. (Otherwise why would the stepmothers in the fairy tales always be ugly?) And to paraphrase William Morris more than somewhat, if you can't be beautiful, at least be useful. Perhaps Susan Boyle is useful? At least in proving that not all Scottish people wear kilts. (And far be it from me to be a smart-arsed pendant...but are you perhaps thinking of the Keatsian connoisseurship of Truth and Beauty? I believe Mr Wilde was too busy declaring his genius and giving in to temptation [and rightly so])
ReplyDeleteYours, with an almost incandescent beauty that reflects the fineness of her sensibility,
M. Glee
(Oh, and as if to prove the correctness of your hypothesis, I realised I originally misread your title as The Ugly Sinner. I rest my case.)
ReplyDeleteDo you remember The Unknown Comic? He used to be on the Gong Show...oh dear, Liotta, I am really showing my age here, ANYhow, that fella had the right idea. Perhaps we should send this poor woman a paper sack and all would be well with our view of the world again. ... oh and Westport skewed our view of the world so completely that somebody should apply for a grant and commense a thorough study of the damage that was done!
ReplyDeleteI find her strangely alluring.
ReplyDelete