Every week, Jo Hemmings, Behavioural and Celebrity Psychologist, will give her analysis on a topical news story, a celebrity scoop or a relevant piece of research in a way that you will be able to relate to in your own lives. As a Relationship Coach, who has counselled singles, couples and celebrities as well as having had regular appearances on TV analysing the behaviour of A-Listers through to reality TV contestants, Jo’s unique psychological spin will have you hooked! You can also find Jo on Twitter.
Frankie Cocozza, The X Factor and the real reality of reality TV
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X Factor is a must-stay-in-to watch show for millions every weekend. In spite of lower viewing figures than Simon Cowell would have liked this time around, losing out regularly in the ratings battle to Strictly Come Dancing, it has become a part of our traditional autumn viewing and everybody has an opinion on who they want to see go in any week or who they want to ultimately win.
Like panto, we know that the spats between the judges or Kelly Rowland’s mysterious illness are somehow manufactured for our entertainment and to massage the viewing figures, by ensuring that the show is kept in the public eye each and every week.
And now in the latest twist, 18-year-old Frankie Cocozza, self-styled bad boy, has finally been ejected from the competition due to breaking a ‘golden rule’ – in this case boasting about taking cocaine. The fact that he couldn’t sing in tune, showed his tattooed bum cheeks to the judges at his first audition and was out proudly bedding girl after girl in spite of the producers pleas to tone it down a bit, didn’t really seem to matter.
We the viewers had the final voting right to keep him in or boot him off.
But he had to go, swiftly and without ceremony, as his alleged drug taking was simply a step too far. There was no choice. And so the headlines have all been about bad boy Frankie and who was to blame for this turn of events.
Well, who was to blame? Since the Susan Boyle debacle, reality TV shows have a ‘duty of care’ to vet and protect the more vulnerable contestants. Some production companies are very good at this, providing a psychologist like myself to clinically assess and advise the contestants throughout the audition process and be on hand during the series themselves.
Others are abysmal, only calling in ‘emergency’ help when their contestants are likely to seriously screw up expensive filming schedules or when the bad press that might ensue from a contestant meltdown would put the show in a poor light.
There are numerous arguments for and against this duty of care. Contestants should be assessed and protected as individuals and yet they volunteer themselves and understand what is involved. Young people should be monitored particularly carefully, yet they have parents or guardians who should be advising them as well. And so on.
At the end of the day, Frankie is a cute and cheeky 18-year-old boy, already a fave with the girls and probably having a whale of a social time in his home town of Brighton. Put any teenager into a situation where the popstar lifestyle is just a few moments away and they are tempted by premieres, photoshoots and new found fame, wouldn’t most of them succumb to some temptation or another?
Frankie knew the rules, but he rebelled against them, and paid a heavy price. And I suspect that his falling-out-of-nightclub antics with a new blonde on his arm most days, did the X Factor PR machine no harm at all, especially in the light of dwindling viewing figures.
The point is that all the counselling and assessment in the world probably couldn’t have prevented this catapult to fame from going to a young boy’s head and I don’t believe any one individual is to blame, it’s a force of circumstance in an evolving reality TV world and perhaps the only real lesson to be learnt from it, is that he may serve as a warning to others in the future that no one individual is bigger or more powerful than the show which created them in the first place…
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