I Think I'd Like to British, Maybe

This summer Sue (who is so young and beautiful with all of her long blond hair) and Charlotte had a YouTube link on their blog to Paul Potts. You can link to him
here
if you like, but he's not actually the point of my story. Anyway, as Rachel and I were watching the video, she said, "Oh, I've seen him. Did you see the one with the little girl? She should come on right after. I think her name is Connie." Ok, two points to this story. A. How does my seven year old know about a YouTube video, make that two videos, that I never showed her?! This isn't going to be the last time this happens, but it sure made for a shock this first time. Turns out that when she was with my parents this summer, my Uncle Joe had showed both my mom and her the two videos. Whew. She hasn't taken to surfing on her own yet.

The other thing about this story is the actual video of Connie. You can watch it here.
As I watched this lovely little girl sing I was struck by the fact that she actually looked and sounded like the six year old that she is. Even when you see her sing in the finals, she still looks like a little girl. She's wearing a sweet little girl dress that was, or at least could have been, already in her closet. She has no make up on, or it's done to look like she has none on. And she just has clean, combed hair. In other words she does not look like a tart in a tiny body, which is totally what would have happened in an American TV talent show. And now that I think about it even more, there is no way that Paul Potts would have gotten the reaction that he got from an English audience from an American audience.

We are so dang shallow in this country! Why is that? Why do we seem to value style over substance and making everyone fit a very narrow definition of acceptability? I'm not trying to be anti-American, but this is something we should look at in ourselves and see what we can do about it. I can't change TV or magazines, but I can change how I respond to them and how I respond to people who don't fit the narrow definition of how you're "supposed" to look. I can also refuse to allow anyone, even myself, to put my children or me into set boxes.