Although I teared up like everyone else, I still felt a twinge of misery after watching the whole thing, just as the producers had envisioned it--from duckling to swan, and back again. It was quite an adventure in stages of reality.
I hoped she had been prepared for that special kind of public vulnerability because, before all of the adulation, the open disdain by audience and judges alike was awful. If you didn't squirm a little, you should check your moral pulse...
Without even knowing her story--bullied as a child for a "learning disability," living alone with her cat, never 'been kissed--it looked like she was sent out there onstage without the benefit of either coaching or hair comb...perhaps ''as is'' makes for better copy...good for a few extra groans and titters at her expense.
Perhaps she didn't care. No doubt she's had years of practice ignoring the unkindnesses of strangers, but I can't imagine that she wouldn't suffer at some point watching a re-run ....the close-ups of audience and critics rolling their eyes at the walking disaster aspiring to be a star.
And then she delivered the whole package with the voice of an angel. It was perfect irony that she sang ''I dreamed a dream..."
One might cynically observe that she'll make a little money, so what is this mush about a few seconds of embarrassment here and there?...what difference does it make?
Hey, it's a show...classic schadenfreude entertainment. What's a little casual ridicule?
Call me Pollyanna, but it matters to me.
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