How Many Times Must We Insult Susan Boyle?

The new narrative swirling around singer Susan Boyle sounds a lot like the old narrative that catapulted her to international fame:

Middle-aged and (insert additional unflattering or downright mean description here) woman is stunning us all over again.

The small-town lady from Scotland wowed much of the civilized world earlier this year with her performance of "I Dreamed A Dream" on "Britain's Got Talent." Visible Measures, a company that tracks such things, says various forms of the YouTube video of her debut have been viewed more than 300 million times.

Now Boyle has a new CD, and it's shattering records with the zeal of a betrayed wife with a pile of plates and a cornered husband.

Boyle's was the fastest-selling debut album in British history. Here in the U.S., it sold 701,000 copies in the first week, toppling musical giants Eminem and U2. Her CD is the best debut for a musical artist since Snoop Doggy Dogg's "Doggystyle" in 1993. (I can't be the only one laughing at this.)

One more little statistic: Only 6 percent of Boyle's U.S. sales were digital downloads. Why? The New York Times' Ben Sisario wrote last week, "For many in the music industry, Ms. Boyle's sales are a reminder of a large and often forgotten audience: older listeners who, whether they are less tech-savvy than younger consumers or they simply prefer to hold purchases in their hands, favor CDs over downloads."

I am typing this on my MacBook, which is recharging my iPod as my BlackBerry hums nearby with incoming e-mail, so I guess that means my sorry middle-aged self bought Boyle's CD because I wanted to hold it like a puppy. And here I thought I was using my buying power to boost her staying power. Just supportin' the sistah, you see.

Had Sisario ended his story there, I wouldn't be writing this column. Months ago, I made a fuss over Susan Boyle after her YouTube video reduced me to shoulder-shivering sobs, which elicited howling empathy from our pug but taxed the patience of our kids.

But Sisario felt the need to describe Boyle as "frumpy" and "a woman of modest and unfashionable means." Add him to the tiresome list of writers and television commentators who insist on offering their own disparaging takes on the appearance and lifestyle of a woman who dared to showcase gift over glamour and, at age 47, was also incredibly late to the stage.

I know the argument: How else to explain the sensation of Susan Boyle?

Yeah, well.

If you Google "Susan Boyle" and "makeover," you'll get at least 398,000 hits. That's more hits than "dowdy" (130,000), "middle age" (212,000) and "spinster" (157,000) but far fewer than "cat" (1,150,000) and "never been kissed," which on Friday showed 247,000,000 Google hits.

Boyle admitted to having a cat but no boyfriend, and until she shattered sales records, she had no job, either. The noive of that dame — or, as The Wall Street Journal dubbed her, the "onetime unemployed cat lady."

As for why we middle-aged women like Boyle? Hold on to your Depends, ladies. Apparently, we watch her through the lens of our own despair and see what we coulda, woulda, shoulda been, if only we had managed to stay 30.

In a story on Boyle, Daily Mail reporter Sarah Hughes quoted writer Susan Reimer, who depicted a woman's middle age as one long slog into oblivion:

"As women age we begin to fade from view, moving from vibrant to translucent to invisible. ... Soon enough, (our) husbands only pretend to listen when we speak. (Our) children dismiss us with a flip of the wrist. And the rest of the world, full of people who might once have thought we were pretty or interesting, does not even see us when we pass."

Holey moley. So that's why I like Susan Boyle. 'Cause everybody's ignoring me.

Sing, Susan. Sing.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the author of two books from Random House, "Life Happens" and "... and His Lovely Wife." She is a featured contributor in a recently released book by Bloomsbury, "The Speech: Race and Barack Obama's 'A More Perfect Union.'" To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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