This Must Be Said...

I know I'm several days late to the dance on this but the more I think about this, the more aggravated I get.

I cannot help but think of Susan Boyle, whom I'm sure you've seen sing or read about in the papers and online. Englishwoman, late forties, having stumbled upon full adulthood without owning a computer or even having been so much as been kissed. Zaftig, merry, and reportedly--because I've never heard it--one hell of a singing voice. Anyway, Susan gets on Britain's Got Talent--NBC airs an American version as a summer replacement--and sets the world on fire with her renditions. Everybody's in love with her, except for the people in Britain who think that a dance troupe called Diversity is just a little more Talented.

Now instead of performing in the Royal Variety Show for an audience that would have included no less a personage than Queen Elizabeth the Second, Susan Boyle was only yesterday released from a hospital, as a result of a nervous breakdown.

Let me tell you this--if I were Susan and I were invited by the producers of America's Got Talent to perform for the Yank audience, I shouldn't even have to flinch when I say no. Why even have a spoonful of such poison when I've already had a gallon jug.

In his commentary track on the DVD of Network, Sidney Lumet, who directed live teevee before he ever directed films, tells us that inevitably, somebody is going to get killed on live television, just like the main character of his film. He may be more right than he knows. As much as anything else, the Colosseum mentality that drives reality television similary drove Susan Boyle to a nervous collapse. Is this what television has become? I just about wash my hands of teevee--reality and otherwise--if this is so,

As for Susan herself, I envy and empathize with her in equal measure. I don't even know how she resisted the pressure as long as she did, but it would have driven me just as nuts.

Life goes on, for sharks and minnows alike.