[Headie]

Viewers of The X Factor have been branded ‘racist’ for voting out black contestants.

Comic Chris O’Dowd, who is a regular on X Factor spin-off the Xtra Factor, made the claims in this week’s Radio Times.

He said: “Generally my favourites go out in the first few weeks.

“And, of course, because the viewing public is so racist, all the black, strong singers go out in round five every year.”

Although we reckon Chris’ words were probably said in a rather tongue in cheek manner, we decided to look back at series past and see whether there is any truth to the claims.

The answer is rather simple: There isn’t.

Let’s start by pointing out one thing: Viewers don’t vote anyone “out” of The X Factor. Those that leave are simply the least popular with voters. It doesn’t mean they’re disliked or even unpopular overall, with many eliminated acts going on to enjoy more success than winners.

Now it doesn’t take long to go back in the history of X Factor finalists to see that actually, non-White acts to remarkably well.

In fact of the ten series to have aired, only three have not included any black performers in the final stages and perhaps notably, two of those series – the first and fourth – produced arguably the least successful winners in Steve Brookstein and Leon Jackson respectively.

And if we’re being brutally honest, we can’t foresee Sam Bailey not going the same way.

The show’s most successful finalists are actually black, such as Alexandra Burke and JLS.

So why do people think that black acts go out early? It’s fair to say that last year Hannah Barrett and Tamera Foster both had a rough time in the sing-off, each appearing at least two times before finally going home.

But the stats suggest it was more down to their song choices and performances than the colour of their skin.

In the voting percentages released at the end of the series, Hannah was proving to be a potential winner in the early stages showing that she had plenty of support at the beginning with voters.

But in Week 3 Hannah’s support had slipped by almost half from the week before, going from the third most popular contestant to the least.

The reason? Did the show’s voters suddenly all became racist in the space of seven days? Obviously not. The more logical and altogether obvious explanation is that Hannah just gave a pretty boring and unforgettable performance… and unfortunately she didn’t really get any better.

Read more: http://tellymix.co.uk/reality-tv/the...#ixzz2t1s0p62D
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I find it hilarious how defensive the author of this article is clearly getting

And he got his facts wrong too, saying there were no black acts in Series 1

Did he forget the wonderful Voice With Soul?

[Headie]

In a way this kind of applies to BBUK in the way that black women are perceived negatively by the public too.

[Shaun]

Tellymix articles always come off as hysterical, badly-written pieces of shite tbh so nothing to see here.

[Tom4784]

I think he has a point, typically voters don't tend to warm to the black female contestants, there's a few exceptions yes but there's more examples of this happening then there are exceptions.

[Headie]

The other various articles about this that I have read on the internet seem to be pointing out 'Leona Lewis' and 'Alexandra Burke' but are failing to understand what O'Dowd was saying.

It's a pretty good debate actually, if done well.

[Pete.]

gina

[Z]

Originally Posted by Hayden

I find it hilarious how defensive the author of this article is clearly getting

And he got his facts wrong too, saying there were no black acts in Series 1

Did he forget the wonderful Voice With Soul?

The author didn't get their facts wrong, they said there were no black acts in the final stages of three of those series, i.e. the last couple of weeks of the show. This is such a piece of nonsense; the X Factor is about positive, not negative, voting and people vote for the performers they like the most. If somebody were to make a case for the underrepresentation of Asian people then that would be far more compelling to read because there would be some truth to that; black people are more than well represented in the UK X Factor.

[Mystic Mock]

Originally Posted by Hayden

I find it hilarious how defensive the author of this article is clearly getting

And he got his facts wrong too, saying there were no black acts in Series 1

Did he forget the wonderful Voice With Soul?

Voice With Soul didn't make the final though? And Hannah hit the bottom two so many times because she never had a late slot apart from week 2 and 4. And Tamera was hated for plenty of reasons, bad performances, forgetting the lyrics, and being one of the more attractive girls in the competition made her struggle really badly in the competition and had to take all the late slots that Hannah and Abi should've had in some of those weeks.

[Samm]

Alexandra Burke.

[Gstar]

I would love for x factor to be 'vote to evict'

[Shaun]

tbf Tamera would've gone in like week 3 then

[Headie]

Originally Posted by Zee

The author didn't get their facts wrong, they said there were no black acts in the final stages of three of those series, i.e. the last couple of weeks of the show. This is such a piece of nonsense; the X Factor is about positive, not negative, voting and people vote for the performers they like the most. If somebody were to make a case for the underrepresentation of Asian people then that would be far more compelling to read because there would be some truth to that; black people are more than well represented in the UK X Factor.

Originally Posted by The Mockinator

Voice With Soul didn't make the final though? And Hannah hit the bottom two so many times because she never had a late slot apart from week 2 and 4. And Tamera was hated for plenty of reasons, bad performances, forgetting the lyrics, and being one of the more attractive girls in the competition made her struggle really badly in the competition and had to take all the late slots that Hannah and Abi should've had in some of those weeks.

By 'final stages' they mean the Live Shows.

If they're on about the actual final, then there's only like 3 or 4 finals that had any black acts left in it.