Ugly Talent

By now you must have heard of the internet phenomenon Susan Boyle. A woman in her late forties, she appeared on the reality TV show "Britain's got Talent" and floored everyone. Why? The woman was as homely as homely gets. No style, grey hair that looked like it was about to pounce on the nearest small rodent, and an admission that she had never been kissed allowing us to form the impression that another delusional nutcase was about to get immediately booed off the stage. The audience seemed poised to be racked with laughter, and the judges had their laughter at the ready. It was not to be, she knocked everyone off their high-horse. She sang like a slightly-out-of-tune angel. In fact I honestly prefer her rendition of the song "Cry me a River" (originally composed for Ella Fitzgerald), which currently resides on my computer and is on constant replay (next to all sorts of Korean shizz I'll cover sometime later).
As an overweight, downright homely (I hate to use the word ugly, it seems so harsh, LOL) person living in such an image conscious society, it must have been sincerely difficult to have such talent, and have it constantly overlooked because your outward appearance instantly puts to mind that you have nothing to offer. I get it. While beauty might not equal talent, not pretty is almost immediately equated with a lack of talent. Especially with women.
If you are intelligent, you often get the "ohhhhh, alright, I get it now" look, as if somehow intelligence and beauty are two separate sets in a Venn diagram that rarely, if ever overlap. Which to be honest is quite a stupid assumption.
It was a proverbial smack to the back of the head to the British (and the Americans who created this internet snowball); a reminder that in days of yore talent was supposed to be a good thing and shared with the world irrespective of the owner's looks. A lot of people connected with her story, felt a kinship with a woman who is representative of a good chunk of a global population.
I guess after years of "you'd be prettier if you did this, or that, wear contacts, get your teeth fixed, dress properly, lost weight, did you hair, wear makeup, wear high heels, skirts, tighter trousers, stop using big words, yadah, yadah, yadah" the list goes on and me saying "no, I wouldn't cos I'm not pretty", it is nice to identify with someone. Then again that someone is alone and lives with her cat.