Susan can sing...AND?!

Last week several people bothered me (as they are want to do as I'm an admitted misanthrope) that I simply HAD to watch a video on You-Tube of a British show called "Brittan's Got Talent". Being that iconoclastic fool who takes pride in taking a left when everyone else takes a right I initially refused but having grown weary of hearing the masses bleating I eventually gave in.
I went to YouTube and saw a large, ordinary looking woman who looked as if she'd just walked out of a supermarket who announced to two grinning panelist and a stone faced Simon Cowell that she was going to sing a song from Les Miserables. I sat there thinking how much I didn't like musicals but decided that her voice was what she was being judged on and my personal musical taste had no real bearing.
The music started and Ms. Susan Boyle of Scotland sang like an angel. A smile crossed my face as I was quite impressed with her vocal talent. Having gone to High school and college with some people with extraordinary vocal talent, it was not the first time I'd heard someone with a classically trained sounding voice rising to challenging material. I was fortunate enough to have gone on a couple of dates with an Opera student at one point and was privileged enough to have been briefly serenaded, but that's neither here nor there. Susan Boyle received a standing ovation and impressed me with her talent but I couldn't see what the big deal was...until she stopped singing and the comments started.
One of the judges said "We expected you to fail." I was puzzled. I then saw clips of various entertainment news programs where they announced that Susan was now an " internet sensation" and many of the talking heads and hair farms (who should avoid the gene pool at all cost) on these various programs said how people didn't expect such an incredible voice to come from such an "unattractive" person.
I would say I was insulted, but as Richard Nixon once said "One can only be insulted by those he respects." I sat there and listened as many weighed in on this talented woman and used adjectives like "unattractive," "Ugly", "Frumpy" and a myriad of others to describe this woman who only wanted to sing to them. Am I the ONLY person who (If I might paraphrase George Michael) listened without prejudice? If so then I have to say you people make me sick.
I have to ask what the HELL does ones appearance have to do with one's talents and abilities? Are we as a society so superficial and UNBELIEVABLY STUPID that we correlate beauty with talent? Is Charleze Theiron a better actress than Cathy Bates because she's younger, thinner and some migh argue prettier? Is Brad Pitt a better actor than Ed Norton simply because he's better looking? Having grown up in the days when MTV was in it's infancy I remember listening to the radio in the late 70's. When radio stations played all types of music we judged all of it simply on rather or not we actually liked either, the beat, the lyrics or simply the singers voice. MTV changed the game. Musical taste shifted. People who were fun to look at became stars seemingly overnight and established acts faded into oblivion as many proved to either not know how to make good music videos or simply proved physically unappealing to those watching. When I spent three years as a DJ I was AMAZED at how much INCREDIBLE music never made it to commercial radio stations because of how political the music industry is, and just how visually oriented much of it has become. Did we learn NOTHING from the Milli Vanilli debacle of the late 80's/early 90s?
Susan Boyle deserves the recognition she's receiving as a talented singer, but we as a society need to hang our heads for exalting talentless bimbos and effeminte, tone-deaf, pretty boys while talented people like Susan are lucky to sing in their own showers.