The story of overnight singing sensation Susan Boyle has captured the hearts of people around the world. When Boyle, a forty-seven-year-old unemployed single woman from Scotland, walked onstage at Britain’s Got Talent, the judges and audience mocked her strange clothes and demeanor, yet when she began singing, she silenced her critics with her unexpectedly wonderful voice. Now, Boyle has been interviewed by London’s Daily Mirror and NBC’s Today Show, videos of her performance are flooding the Internet, and she even has a Facebook fan group.
I’m among the millions who watched Boyle’s performance and found myself getting both teary-eyed and incredibly inspired. (If you haven’t yet seen it yet, you should definitely check it out.) It’s hard to see someone with such a pure, guileless talent and not root for her to succeed. Boyle, with her dowdy clothes and spinster style, is definitely an underdog in the competition, facing competitors who are younger, thinner, flashier, and more polished. But she’s the one the world will be rooting for, hoping that talent and spirit can trump a pretty package. Everyone loves an underdog story, but what is it that makes them so enchanting?
Underdogs Are Like Us
Underdogs are people we can relate to; they’re unpolished and authentic. In the 1980 Olympics, the U.S. Hockey team’s victory over the U.S.S.R. was called the “Miracle on Ice.” Why? Because the U.S. team was comprised of amateurs and college kids who fought a team of hardened, well-trained professionals and came out on top. When we see a rag-tag band of misfits like the Mighty Ducks pull out a win against overwhelming odds, we’re reminded of regular people like ourselves. There’s no pleasure in watching people who have had every advantage do what they’ve been trained to do—win. It’s hard to feel a kinship with a girl whose parents spent millions teaching her to be a tennis champion. We’d rather root for the average kid who picks up a racquet and discovers a preternatural gift for the game. We can’t relate to flashy packaging, expensive image-consultants, or artifice. We like the real thing.
