Thursday, May 28, 2009
Susan Boyle: How are we conditioning our kids?
| Few days back, I came across a news article about the recent British singing sensation Susan Boyle. A broody Scottish woman well past her mid 40's is participating in a show called "Britain's Got Talent". She was introduced as the woman with completely unpolished appearance and her admittance of never been kissed in life made things even worse. A laughing stock for the judges, participants and audience, this britain's got talent star left everyone dazed once she started to sing. Her vocal talent wooed the judges and audience alike. When I read this story, I couldn't help but wonder the stereotypical mindsets and cynical attitudes we have indicating the obsession of the world with physical appearance. If someone is beautiful, fair and attractive, we presume that the person definitely has some talent even if it is just about average. And on the other side, we mock and don't appreciate people with bad appearances and dismiss them right away. Our judgemental skills are the result of years of conditioning of our minds that fair and attractive is good and ugly is always bad. Even our fairy tails glorify this assumption(remember snow white). But this story also suggests one more fact that we love sad stories, rags to riches personas and enjoy the kick they give to our emotions. The success of emotional dramas on tv and movies on complete make overs move on to prove this fact. Susan Boyle's video was seen record number of times on Internet with no restriction of age, gender or geographical location. The truth is we talk about it, show symapthy and then move on and choose to do nothing. Can we change the world? Are we giving our kids the same conditioning we had for years and decades or do we have the courage to break the stereotype? We can change the things, we can outrun the obsession but the point is do we want to? This is the irony of life. Labels: attitude towards physical appearance, britain's got talent, raising kids, susan boyle |
