A dance troupe!

I’m not sure how the voting is conducted by Britain’s Got Talent, but I think I read somewhere that there are ten finalists and they are all voted on by the public. I have to imagine that if the show pitted Susan Boyle against any of the other nine finalists in a head-to-head showdown, she would win the vote hands down. Having potential votes siphoned off by eight other acts is tough on any contestant in any competition.

After Susan Boyle lost the competition, she reportedly hollered that she hated Britain’s Got Talent as she went back to her dressing room. Worse yet, she checked herself into a hospital as she was suffering from extreme exhaustion. Frankly, I blame the tabloid media in Britain as they tried to paint her as a monster after she blew up earlier in the week letting off a few four-letter words. The poor woman – who gives a shit if she told someone to fuck off? The woman was tired and overexposed by the very media that then had the gall to call her overexposed!

Regardless of her loss on Britain’s Got Talent, expect big things coming for Susan Boyle. She has a raw talent that, once refined, will make her a good living in the European theater scene for the rest of her life. And besides, while she may not have won Britain’s Got Talent, she certain won the hearts and minds of the world-at-large and, most importantly in terms of marketability, she won over the internet crowd.

And now they’ve given her a makeover, damn it (take a look after the jump).

Look at what they’ve done to her! Ms. Boyle has gone from the charity worker living in a small village in Scotland to the fashionable mother who gets her “tea” at the fancy eat-ins and attends wine and cheese tasting events in her spare time. She’s wearing a Burberry scarf for Heaven’s Sake! Do you think anyone in her village wears Burberry? And is that a leather jacket? Good grief…

Sure, Ms. Boyle didn’t appear to be a “superstar” when she appeared on Britain’s Got Talent, but it was that lack of that typical image that actually made her a superstar. Here’s hoping that even though she’s received a makeover, she retains that village charm that made the whole world forget about their problems – even if for just a few minutes – and root her on.

Ms. Boyle appeared on Britain’s Got Talent, more specifically the episode that aired last weekend. And the reason why it’s important to note that she appeared on last weekend’s episode is because of how big of a phenomenon she’s become since then. As of this writing, the video of her on YouTube has garnered 29.9 million hits. In a week! Ms. Boyle is an internet sensation if there ever was one and she’s probably the most deserving one in history.

What is remarkable about Ms. Boyle is that the judges on Britain’s Got Talent (of which Simon Cowell is one) immediately wrote her off as a bland, hopelessly untalented wannabe. And the crowd in the theater was no better. They immediately fell back on to the sad innate biases of the 21st Century – that a 47-year-old, homely, somewhat frumpy looking virgin charity worker had nothing of significance to offer the world and thus, let’s laugh at her. In fact, if you watch the video linked above, you’ll hear that people are laughing at Ms. Boyle just as she stands on the stage. It’s ridiculous.

But the laughter immediately changes to adoration a few seconds into Ms. Boyle’s rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables. It’s stunning. It’s the type of real world reaction that the entertainment types cannot recreate and that no money can buy. And the humiliation embodied by the judges after Ms. Boyle’s amazing performance shows that there is at least some large degree of remorse that comes along with judging a book by its cover.

So, during a time when the global population is concerned about local, regional, and the worldwide economies and at a time when we’re not sure what the next day holds, it’s good to know that a person like Susan Boyle can become not just an internet sensation, but the hope of a generation. Like the rest of the world, America – and New Jersey – is pulling for Ms. Boyle to win this season of Britian’s Got Talent. Good luck!