ANGRY MOB

So is Susan Boyle a freak? The program introduced her as one, yet she has amazing talent and is a firm favourite to win the show. However, she is in many ways a freak and this forms part of her appeal. Her voice seems wholly detached from the media generated image of what the female singer should be. Therefore, in order for the media to protect their true image of what a female singer should look like, they must treat Susan Boyle as a freak, a one-off that exists outside of conventional celebrity rules.

Hence why the tabloid media constantly repeats the phrase 'hairy angel' in almost every headline concerning her¹. 

The majority of tabloid newspapers refer to Susan Boyle the 'hairy angel', but most of the time they use inverted commas to distance themselves from the term - as if someone else created it and they are reluctantly repeating it to be factual. Yet, as far as I can see the first use of 'hairy angel' originated in a Daily Mail article by Liz 'I hate fellow women' Thomas who uses it in her headline: Middle-aged ‘hairy angel’ wipes the smile off Britain’s Got Talent judges' faces.

'The Victorian freak show never went away, now it’s called Big Brother or X Factor where, in the preliminary rounds, we wheel out the bewildered to be sniggered at by multi-millionaires.'
Andy Millman (Ricky Gervais, Extras)

Britain's Got Talent is supposed to be just another talent show to fuel our obsession with the fleeting chance of becoming a celebrity - the holy grail for many people. Yet, as Andy Millman so wonderfully points out in a rare moment of quality TV comedy-drama, the modern talent show puts a far darker spin on the process of seeking fame.

Susan Boyle was the perfect person to demonstrate the janiform nature of the modern TV talent show. It gave producers the chance to wind-up the viewer's expectation that Susan Boyle was another 'pathetically deluded' individual who wanted to be a 'singer'. Cut to sneering audience, cynical judges and Ant and Dec waiting to lead the mocking abuse meted out to all those that don't share Susan Boyle's happy ending.

'You'se didn't expect that did you, did you, no.' crows either Ant or Dec (whose sole talent is the ability to be consistently bland and inoffensive) after the first few words are sung. Well no, but then you didn't want us to.