Susan Boyle is Uneasy With Instant Fame From Britain's Got Talent, That's Fine

It's not easy for anybody to deal with the level of fame Susan Boyle has had thrust upon her and I think her screech is understandable. That level of attention and harassment is terrible. And in Boyle's case it's ephemeral: it's on her for a moment, and she has to learn to manage that, and then it will go away, and she will have to adapt again. That's a challenge to anybody, vulnerable or not.

There is a moral question here, but the problem is that you never know how anybody is going to respond. One thing you learn as a psychoanalyst is that everything you think you know or could predict about someone turns out to be far more complex. And no one could have predicted the media attention Boyle has been subjected to.

There should be some real exploration, with the potential contestants, of the costs of going on such programs, but who is it who can make the decision that one person who wants to appear on a show is allowed to, while another is too vulnerable? It certainly appears as though the producers are seeking out extreme characters but within a culture that supports that. Viewers identify with those people, it helps the ratings, and they think that level of exposure is fair dues. A show like this presents ordinary folk, and ordinary folk are varied, they have varying abilities, they harbour dreams. A program such as Britain's Got Talent becomes a vehicle for people to rewrite a life. It's a fairy story.

I do think Boyle is going to have a lot to assimilate but so would anyone in her position. Being adored and projected on to by millions of people is never an easy thing to digest. That kind of exposure is always double-edged. Particularly in Britain, where the media has turned on her; because this is still a culture in which we build people up and then we attack them. We applaud tall poppies and then we feel threatened and we cut them down.