Is it me or is there a pattern developing here? The fact that someone with some form of disability either wins, or comes very close to winning pop idol.

Gareth, who I think is a pretty good singer, but nothing amazing vocally, would have probably been the runaway victor of pop idol, if the more uniquely vocalled Will hadn't stud up to Simon Cowell during the rounds.

Same goes for Michelle, is she that great a singer? Or did the "disability" of being overweight give her the edge? She doesnt sound that great to me.

I think its admirable that people can triumph over adversity and suceed, but I get the feeling its starting to make too good a story too, with pop idol, and singing talent is becoming secondary. And the singers who are "ordinary" in areas other than their singing abilities are at a big disavantage.

I think unless someone in next years pop idol is a good singer, and has a personality that shines through, we'll end up with another "diadvantaged" person winning. Either blind, in a wheelchair, or a serious/ex-serious illness sufferer.

The public (and tabloids) like a good story about the underdog who won through. Maybe we don't really like celebrities to be as perfect as the entertainment industry assumes. Or maybe we are sick of the same stereotypical beauty and over-confidence.

Take Robbie Williams: Take That jobless drop out binging on booze and pies makes good and still likes to reveal his inner insecurities to us.

Maybe the disadvantage could become inability to sing: a new reality TV Flop Idol show: that takes the worst of Pop Idol auditionees and tries to teach them to sing.

Well they did vote for that lisping tw*t will young

I disagree, I'm not a fan of Gareth, but I can remember being very impressed by his vocals and Will Youngs.

The fact that these pop Idols are ALWAYS singing live (on the show) proves that they are somewhat better than the others they are going out to compete with (such as Blue, Atomic Kitten, Westlife, Rachel Stevens etc.) Anytime I have seen Gaeth or Will perform they have sang live and sounded great.

Now you can slate the show as it is an absolute pile of shite and it annoys me that these people are virtually guaranteed a run of successful singles just by getting into the top 5, but you really have to leave the contestants a bit of slack. This is there dream and if anything you have to give them credit for getting up on the stage (or even on TV) in the first place because I know that I would rather die than sing in front of millions of people.

I noticed a distinct difference in the quality of singers in the first series compared to this series. Will and Gareth may make music that is not to my taste, but I really cannot deny that they are both FANTASTIC singers.

Good attitude Ray.I sometimes wish more people could at least appriciate a singers talents, even if they dont like the music.

Just seems these days some people personally dislike and insult an artist, because they dont like the music they do.
Whats that all about?

Will the next winner of Pop Idol be blind? If it's someone as talented as Stevie Wonder then probably not.

As we've discovered over so many talent shows, it helps if there's a back story, some sort of triumph over adversary or disaster.

For PI1, there was Gareth, sweet, big brown eyes and a horrendous stammer that disappeared the second he opened his mouth to sing. I predicted he'd make it to the final the second I saw his audition like everyone else. Will was geniunely nice, and very funny, and of course stood up to Evil Simon Cowell when he was dismissed as average.

In PI2, obviously there was Michelle, no need to explain this, everyone is aware of her 'circumstances'. And we had Mark, another genuine, nice guy with a good line in the funnies, survived week after week when dismissed as nothing special.

In Fame Academy this year, there was Alex, tiny, vunerable, gay and an ex-clown, plus Alistair - genuine nice guy, funny, dismissed as bland etc etc.

I think we already have a pattern! Vocally, every one of them needed to carry a tune, and make it sound convincing, but none of them are exactly challenging Whitney Houston or co for best voice ever. It just has to be 'good' and 'different' (insert your own interpretation of these words here!!).

Personally, seeing as every single one of the people above is white and fairly middle class, I'd like to see a bigger proportion of ethnic minorities represented in PI. Of course there's always those who'll complain if there's any hint of 'positive discrimination', but there's got to be more Lemars out there. I always felt that Simon's biggest mistake in this series was dismissing Grace as 'too cool' for the show. I think she could have blown this competition out of the water and really raised the standards, making it a much more watchable competition.

I quite like Alex, but the way that was put made me laugh!

She was tiny
She was vunerable
She was gay...

She was an ex-clown!

Alex - The Movie!
Coming to a theatre near you!

This is ridiculous and a total over reaction to Michelle not fitting the mould and not sounding good to you...so now she's 'disabled' in your opinion? Nonsense...absolute nonsense. Of all the things I have ever heard said about Michelle...this has to be scraping the bottom of the barrell of sour grapes.

This thread is a disgrace, IMO. We now have people slagging off Will's speech difficulty; great. What a thread to start. Are we going to find some 'failing' in all the winners if we don't think that they are worthy? They all 'must' have something 'wrong' because we don't agree with the public voting someone in?

And so what if someone with a visual impairment wins PI? It makes a change to some people currently punting out manufatured rubbish when they often have singing impairments....

I love you , I really do , anyone that can appreciate the travesty of dismissing Grace so early on must indeed be wise, I agree with you wholeheartedly Grace not being allowed through was the single most upsetting thing that happened in the whole of this series for me personally , It really did upset me for weeks , there were whole threads on the subject at the time , someone needs to go out and search the streets of London for that girl and offer her a contract .

Great post, ZipGypsy. I agree with every word you say. When I read the threadstarter I thought, oh God where do I begin? Thanks for putting this viewpoint across so clearly - especially your final paragraph!! We should be so lucky as to find another Stevie Wonder, hey!

BTW I think the reference was to Gareth's speech difficulty, not Will's lisp. But it's the same difference.

DryHumper - I don't think I'm going to be adding you to my buddy list.

Your comments are entirely misguided, and were not worthy of a thread.

I'm tired of reading comments that suggest contestants of PI or Fame Academy win these shows based on anything other than merit.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Thanks, Ruby

Scroll back and have a look at TOML's post...(I didn't even want to ahve to repeat and quote that one)...but it's about Will.

Well, DryHumper, your true colours shine through with those words.

I agree with ZipGypsy - your motivation and actions in starting this thread are absolutely shameful and a disgrace. Purely because Will / Gareth / Michelle / Alex don't fit your mould of a perfect person, they are automatically disabled.

I'm sure you're not perfect yourself - no-one is - so what gives you the right to criticise someone else's abilities?

If I were a moderator here, you'd be banned straight away for such discriminatory comments - not the sort of thing I expect to see on Digital Spy.....

I couldn't agree more; I'd love to see this thread wiped and closed. Where are the mods?

Zip, I think you're over-reacting. Dry's point is that Michelle and Gareth were both handicapped in the industry's eyes by difficult-to-sell imperfections. I don't think you can hold Dry responsible for TOML's reply.
In my opinion, these competitions are likely to favour "non-standard" auditionees, as the likes of Rachel Stevens and Duncan from Blue will make it on their own without risking credibility by entering reality shows. With those with both looks and talent already cherry-picked by record companies, the quality of vocals/performance is likely to be lower among the photogenic contestants. (The only exception is probably the very young - Roxy for example.)
If anybody is being discriminatory, it's the music business as a whole, and I suspect that's not so much judgemental as pure laziness. If you want to change the business, you will have to appeal to their self-interest; berating everyone won't achieve anything.

I for one totally agree with the previous poster. It is a ridiculus suggestion to say that either Gareth or Michelle are disabled or handicapped. It is derogatory to suggest this and does a disservice to those people who are genuinely disabled in my opinion. It trivialises the problems the true disabled have to deal with.

What the f*** are you on about will has more talent in one finger than you have in ur entire body!

Well said...

An over reaction on my part, Pushka...fine? It was an appropriate reaction, IMO to the over the top post which started this thread. If Dry's point is as you say...then s/he should have made those points without bringing the realm of disability into it.

Serious here, for a change. DH actually has a point, that it seems as if talent is secondary to a USP (Unique Selling Proposition): that it becomes impossible to win a show like Pop Idol on talent alone. I think that is perfectly valid, even if stated a bit dramatically, and it's unfair to slate him for putting forward what is, when you read it objectively, a perfectly reasonable argument.

Can't agree with this...the poster is speculating that winning PI could be due to disability. The winner isn't worthy, let's look the reason for the symapthy vote.

Why disability...why not just 'fat'? And....why 'Will the next winner be blind?' That's just too much, IMO.

In all of the people who have won PI or Popstars or FA...I have seen nothing which in my book constitutes a physical or cognitive disability. Michelle is fat - she isn't disabled. Being fat may run Michelle some health risks and may place her in the unattractive shelf...but she is hardly disabled.

If DH is making the point that due to some 'sympathy envoking factor', people may win PI. Who else, other than Michelle, who has ever won PI or Popstars fits that bill?

This, IMO is just another attempt at trying to say that Michelle shouldn't have won because she wasn't the best. Now we'll just call her disabled...there must be a reason why people voted for someone so crap. Ergo....lets' expect that people who have voted for a non-worthy type will vote for future winners who can evoke sympathy - being blind...or having an illness.

This posulation can only hold if people think Michelle is a poor winner; many of us don't. However, Michelle either won due to sympathy votes - one explanation. Another view is that Michelle was good enough...however much out of the mould.

But that is an old argument...to be found in many threads. My main problem with this thread being started is the irresponsibility of the whole thing. There are examples of Will be slagged off because of his speech difficulty....anyone with any conscience could have seen that coming.... a mile off.

Zip, normally I agree with you, and I can see just where you're coming from, but in this case I feel a number of posters on this thread are overreacting. After reading through the thread-starter a few times, I have to say that the point, though put a bit clumsily, is perfectly reasonable.

Remember, if Susanne had won, someone could have turned round and said, 'Oh, well, you have to be really nervous to win.'

If Chris had won, we'd be quoting the great geek book of words, and qualifying his success as well.

We could go on to Roxanne, Kim, Marc...

The point isn't that Michelle didn't deserve to win. The point is that Pop Idols, as one can see from World Idol, don't tend to fit the mold. This may be good, or it may be bad. But I do feel that positive discrimination, which I am as much against as discrimination of any kind, does play a part in competitions like this.

Calm down please guys! Don't want you falling out! I think the thread title and the stuff about real disabilities (like Gareth's stammer and Will's lisp) were offensive and inappropriate imo, but the argument as to whether michelle would have won if she was slim is an interesting one, it should just have been said in an inoffensive way.

I think it's rather a lovely image that DH is painting - the nation rallies round to give a helping hand to those we perceive as disadvantaged in some way in their chosen field. If it's discriminatory, then it's positive discrimination not negative.

(btw, the reason no one mentions the word F-A-T is that it tends to provoke a hysterical reaction from some of Michelle's supporters - I do hope words like handicapped and disabled don't go the same way, as according to the dictionary there are a number of perfectly valid uses for the words)