I Dreamed a Dream

Bertolt Brecht believed that alienating an audience would encourage their thoughtfulness. In the case of Susan Boyle’s performance, the initial distance between her and the crowds served only as a prelude for the ultimate hook: the more you thought she was homely and comical, the more you felt the grave beauty of her untrained voice. It took me about three hours of watching the now famous YouTube video to regain my senses. I was hooked.

Britain’s Got Talent did an excellent job of editing, of course. Every second of the clip is recruited in the service of making the frog turn into a princess: They show Ms. Boyle eating a sandwich before confessing her virginity, several reaction shots of the audience and the panel coaching, coaxing us to dismiss her, etc; then she sings as if it was the last song before the music died. The song is marshaled by a cavalry of reaction shots now emphasizing the princess and the moral lesson: “Do not judge a book, yada, yada.” This narrative structure is ancient and has moved us all at one point or another. While it is important to recognize it, the Shrek story is not what brought me here today.

The song, ”I Dreamed a Dream,” was originally sung by Fantine, the single mother turned prostitute in the musical adaptation of Les Misérables (The Wretched of the Earth). Although I would not consider Ms. Boyle’s destiny to be as harsh as her French counterpart, the show does attach a certain level of tragedy to the cat lady: Ugly folk can’t be happy after all. No sex, remember. “What is your dream?” Simon asks, and this is the main theme of the tune, dreams frustrated. Another parallel: Fantine and Ms. Boyle both incite us to believe in their original state of grace and purity. Finally, “I Dreamed a Dream” speaks of the American dream, a leaflet dream long ago photocopied and distributed on the world’s campus. It is this last echo what brought me here.

In the middle of a global crisis of YouTube proportions, “I Dreamed a Dream” sung with pathos by a comic figure inspires millions. To do what, exactly? The double bind of the scene complicates the answer: While she is singing of dreams frustrated, Ms. Boyle is instantly fulfilling her dream —Like the woman who says her husband doesn’t love her anymore while he is hugging her with passion. As millions are reminded of the disjuncture between their ‘reality’ and their ‘dreams’ (mirages in the desert of the mirror for the most part), the cute (read ugly), natural (read unkempt), cheeky (read vulgar), pure (read 48 year old virgin), Susan Boyle sings on with bravura , and yet, somehow, dreams remain dreams, “y los sueños, sueños son.” Notice how the melody continues to play over the scene as the judges make her dream come true and then some, until the commercial break. If to fulfill a dream is to finally wake up from the nightmare of dreaming, then we better hope someone set the alarm clock.

Unlike the old fairy tale, Ms. Boyle does not turn into a prince at the end, she just sings like one. As soon as her song is over, a comic scene follows as she is about to go off-stage out of cue. She is still a frog after all. This is what makes this story so contemporary. The Susan Boyle in the global psyche is comic, nothing to really worry about. The embodiment of Fantine by Susan Boyle speaks to the sense of false tragedy we are being offered as consolation price for inconsequence and mild manners. It is at best condescending.

If you want me to believe that reality has developed a conscience, please invite Ms. Boyle to your next orgy. I imagine she should be pretty horny by now. In the meantime, I’m going to go listen to her a couple of more times before going to bed. There is something about her voice that is just as brutal as the real thing and I can’t get enough of it.