On Susan Boyle

Exactly.

I found the video moving, unlike O'Rourke, but that just affirms her point about the effectiveness of the manipulation. It's not that Boyle isn't talented, or that it wasn't impressive to see someone upend expectations so thoroughly. What was creepy was the awesomely self-congratulatory wave that swept over the judges and audience (both local and international). It was a bogus cleansing ritual that will now be remembered as having wiped away the lingering sexism and looks-ism inherent in such shows -- we all sure learned a lesson, didn't we? Having been so cleansed, viewers will feel a little less bad about themselves when they roll their eyes at next year's doofuses.

And note the asterisk adorning the lesson Boyle "taught": It's still okay to laugh at unattractive people if they can't sing.

William Hung and Susan Boyle don't contradict one another. They're two strands of a dialectic: Mock, cleanse, repeat. Without the occasional injection of uplift, the mockery would start to feel cheap.