Ours is a society obsessed with beauty, overindulgence, money and power – and in a time when the world of celebrity is full of self-absorbed entertainers, Susan Boyle, a woman who has none of those qualities, has emerged out of the shadows of obscurity.
During the recent economic calamity, footage of the unemployed, 47-year-old’s audition on Britain’s Got Talent hit the Internet and one hundred million people tuned in, skyrocketing this absolute nobody to superstardom literally overnight. Yes, Boyle went viral.
And so began the Susan Boyle media blitz that had press camped outside her home in Blackburn, Scotland with an almost Diana-like hunger. Boyle, who, just weeks before, was a woman who lived in solitude with her 10-year-old cat—a woman who as a child had been ridiculed by classmates and beaten by teachers for a learning disability and dubbed, “Simple Susan,” had abruptly become the world’s most sought-after superstar.
“I had promised my mum I would do something with my life just before she died – that I’d do something with my singing. So I applied for Britain’s Got Talent,” The Sun quoted Boyle as saying.
Boyle added: “We’d seen a soloist singing on the TV just before she passed and I said, ‘Is that what you want me to do, Mum?’ She said, ‘Yes.’ She had a good belief that I could do it. So I decided to do something about it. I couldn’t straight away because the bereavement hit me hard.”
With the economy in the tank, this was the feel-good story we desperately needed. Boyle brought forth the message that, at the risk of sounding hokey, dreams really can come true.
Today, Boyle’s first album, I Dreamed a Dream, went on sale and has already broken records on the heels of Amazon’s announcement that the album has become its biggest global pre-order in history. HMV projected they will sell nearly 400,000 copies this week, which would make Boyle’s the fastest selling album of the year, surpassing sales of some of the music industry’s biggest names like Robbie Williams and Mariah Carey.
It will be interesting to see how much momentum the Susan Boyle phenomenon actually has. And it was with this question in mind that Sports Interaction’s oddsmakers put together some interesting Susan Boyle props. For example, if you were to bet $10 that Boyle’s album sells 10 million copies US; you could make a cool $40. There are also props on whether or not Boyle will win a Grammy, sing during the Super Bowl halftime show, perform in Les Miserables, or appear on 30 Rock. If you want to get crazy, you could throw some money down on whether or not Boyle, who claims she’s never been kissed, will get married. That bet pays out a good chunk of change. Think you know will be next for the spinster turned superstar? You can bet on Susan’s dream in Sports Interaction’s entertainment odds.
In literature, the story of the underdog has been told and retold. Susan Boyle is the underdog. The everyman. The person we all dream of becoming when we hold the hairbrush to our lips and belt out Aerosmith’s “Dream On” in the bathroom mirror—one who represents the triumph of the ordinary.
