Susan Boyle, The Dream Keeper

Everyone has had hopes and dreams at one point in their life, if not more. But a lot of the time, their hopes and dreams get lost in the cynical, judgmental world we live in. If your dream is ridiculous, you’re judged. If you cannot achieve your dream, you’re judged. If you’re trying to achieve your dream, but your appearance shows you cannot live up to your dream, you’re judged. It’s so common to be judgmental about dreams that we needed a wake up call.
Susan Boyle made this call. In Britain’s Got Talent, a woman at the age of 47 walks out confidently on stage with her curly, gray hair, yellow dress and heels. With a cheeky grin, she introduced herself. Susan Boyle. Her dream? To become a professional singer, as big as Elaine Paige. Like Simon Cowell, who we all know to be honest whether it’s a bad comment or not, Amanda, Piers and all members of the audience, I was very skeptical of her dream and how much talent she could really have. I very highly doubted if she could even sing. She saw the looks on everyone’s faces, from the judges to the audience sitting in the back row. And yet, she smiled and got ready to sing. On her face, I could see the yearning to prove people wrong, to wipe all the cynicism off their faces. Her confidence came from the inside.
Finally, Simon Cowell gestured her to sing. Susan Boyle looked at the backstage crew, nodded, and they started the music. She took a breath before belting out, and when sound came out from her mouth, my jaw dropped in shock. Like the audience and the judges, everyone in class was shocked too. Amanda, one of the judges, said that the audience had been too cynical, and we needed a wake up call from the harsh judgments we make of people from their appearance.
Paul Potts has a similar story. He does not look like someone who knows he has the talent of such an amazing opera singer and he isn’t that confident. But his dream is to become an opera singer, and thus he joins Britain’s Got Talent to pursue his dream. Again, cynicism, but upon opening his mouth to belt out, everyone is proved wrong. Both Paul Potts and Susan Boyle challenged themselves to overcome everyone’s judgments and contempt of them to pursue their lifelong dream.
These videos were such an inspiration to me, as well as a wake up call that being judgmental never gives the right impression of people. You can never really have the right first impression of people if all you do is look at their appearance and decide who they are to you. On Youtube, both videos have had millions of views and comments. I think this shows what an inspiration the two have been to others and pursuing dreams.
In all senses, this links to Langston Hughes’ poem The Dream Keeper. In his poem, he says, Bring me all of your dreams. He connects it with “heart melodies.” Not only is this literal to Boyle and Potts because their dreams are to sing, but also in a more literary sense. Dreams come from the heart, singing its melodies that tell you what to pursue. The people’s cynicism is what Langston Hughes describes to be the “too-rough fingers of the world.” It’s a good representation because dreams are delicate, and if rough fingers were to break them, they would be gone; away from your grasp, too far to reach and dream of again. And thus, as his poem says, dreams need to be wrapped in “blue cloud-cloth” to be protected. Obviously, Paul Potts and Susan Boyle’s dreams have been carefully wrapped in this cloth because it has been protected for a long time from the world’s contempt.

"The Dream Keeper"