Susan, Susan, Susan

From cigarette lighter to iPod charger to iPod to radio input to speakers, a podcast sounds in the cavity of an automobile barreling down the highway at eighty miles per hour.

(paraphrase)
IRA GLASS: How did you react when you saw the clip of Susan Boyle in Britain's Got Talent?

SOME RADIO GUY: Oh, I totally got choked up, which, you know, just made me wonder about my own ethical outlook... that I should be surprised to such a reaction, when the only difference is how the woman looks.

Ok, so some effete, liberal intellectual on NPR has his values challenged in a kind of wake-up call about the actualities of cultural perception. "I know that all human beings are equally capable regardless of race and appearance, so I am wrong for reacting emotively to her performance. The television people are manipulating my sentiment for the sake of entertainment and thereby cheapening one of my dearly held democratic principles."

Hey! This isn't about you, NPR guy.

I've heard the sentiment elsewhere: why should people be so surprised that she can sing just because she isn't a pop star? What's the big deal?

Well, for starters, this isn't about the triumph of an ugly person getting on TV and SHOCKING everyone by being able to sing. The drama is a different one entirely: Susan Boyle broke all the rules of the game, and there's nothing we all love more than a very small dose of liberation.

What she did was tear down the dramatized definitions of success and achievement upon which shows like "Got Talent" and "Idol" prey. They are venues for humiliation of the have-nots and the glamorification of the haves, operating under the shoddy narrative pretext that reaching for the stars and attaining your dreams means winning over completely the hearts and minds of your audience--nay! the world!

Then along comes this woman who is solitary and well-adjusted at 47. Scooby says "ruhwhaaaa?" She has been singing since she was 12. She did not display an ounce of regret regarding anything, and, as her performance speaks for itself, she obviously has been active in her practice of voice. She didn't need "Got Talent," though it certainly must have been a large and exciting venue for her. She was not participating in some manufactured achievement narrative for the unrealized.

And herein lies the juice, the game-breaking elements. All of the tension and effort and pound-your-head-against-a-wall striving that the shows stoke for drama and ratings are stripped away and performance becomes more than a nice voice and a pretty song. In an environment of dull, sniping, and insecure drudgery, a simple, sincere thing sings liberation, and our hearts are warmed.

Am I so naive as to think some producers didn't have an inkling as to what they were doing when they let Ms. Boyle pass by wardrobe and makeup? No, not so naive. But what that does make this, as far as I'm concerned, is one fantastic piece of television in the last place you'd expect to find it.