I Have a Dream

I have a dream, a song to sing,
To help me cope with anything.
If you see the wonder of a fairytale,
You can take the future even if you fail.
I believe in angels,
Something good in everything I see.
I believe in angels
When I know the time is right for me,
I'll cross the stream...
I have a dream.

I hate to write two blogs in a day, but something really got to me and I had to write about it.

On the television show Britain's Got Talent, there was a woman named Susan Boyle who came out onto stage. She's almost 48, and physically a little bit "frumpy". As she stumbled through the questions the judges gave her, she nervously told the audience that well, her dream was to be a professional singer. The cameras then clip to a teenage girl who gets a dirty look on her face. Boyle goes on to say she would like to be like a particular famous singer (I couldn't quite catch the name) and the camera cuts to more women giving her dirty, superior looks. And then she sang. She blew the audience out of the park, and got a standing ovation moments into her song.

All of this judgement over her looks, right? It's not surprising by any means. Society, it's judgemental. I just don't think people realize it all of the time. The View had a little blurb on her performance and Whoopi makes a good point when she says that they shouldn't be hypocritical. Joy begins to talk about her frumpy appearance and Whoopi interupts, saying that only a couple of months ago they were "bitching" about how women jump on top of one another about each other's looks, and it wouldn't be right for them to turn around and do it to her. But Joy brushes her aside, saying that Whoopi's not so innocent when she partakes in a show that gives people makeovers. I have friends who go through this same thing. One minute we'll all be talking about society's impossible standards for beauty or for an acceptable appearance, and the next somebody will turn on What Not To Wear and criticize the "ugly unfortunates" who are featured on the show and made over. Their own friends and family plead to two fashionistas to follow their friend/family member around for two weeks and secretly video tape their clothes, surprise them in public and tell them they aren't good enough, take apart their wardrobe piece by piece, throwing almost everything away and then telling them what's acceptable.

Nadya Suleman (AKA Octo-Mom), the one who is spread across tabloids and gossip magazines and the news, is judged massively by people. I won't go into the reasons for her judgement, but when I read those same magazines I really try to remember that they aren't trying to make America love her. A loved Octo-Mom lasts for a couple of weeks. A psychopath, hated Octo-Mom could last months. They write those pieces knowing that. On that same line of thought, I don't think that she's completely innocent by any means (and I really do think that, given the reports, she has serious problems and probably shouldn't have custody of the children she doesn't seem to have enough time for), but people judge her too. What gets me is that she claims that she never judges people. She makes an insightful point, saying that she's not really judging those people who judge her because she knows it's incredibly easy to judge someone that you've never met for things you've never experienced...and then she claims, "I actually don't judge others."

Two points, here. First of all, everybody judges people (looking at you here, Nadya Suleman!). I'm not innocent of it either. We all judge. But that doesn't make it right, and if Susan Boyle is an example of anything it's how not to judge a book by its cover.

So here's fact number one about me: I really try not to judge people. I know I do, sometimes, but I try to be an optimist about people.

On that same note, I'm all about taking responsibility, and I think that it's important to distinguish between being unecessarily judgemental and being honest. Nadya Suleman is judged for her looks, her home, her ____ (hard not to find something that she's judged about), and I think that goes too far. Her apparent behavior, however, such as going shopping all of the time and spending more time on-camera in interviews than with her children is honestly unacceptable. Sometimes it's not being judgemental, it's just being truthful.

Here's to learning new things, being up for a good debate, and trying to give people the benefit of the doubt (when they deserve it!).

<3 Love, Caitlin