The X Factor: How Susan Boyle Saved Emma Chawner From Ridicule
The X Factor returns and with so does Emma Chawner, the tabloids’ “beast” who will show us that in a post-Susan Boyle world much has changed. Also, look out for a live performance from Michael Jackson…
MICHAEL Jackson may not be performing on the X FACTOR this season. As we know Jackson will never be buried, securing from his nearest and dearest the birthday gift of an eternal performance at the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, Calif. It was never going to be easy to top the 50 dates at London 02 oxygen tent, but the Jacksons never got anywhere without thinking big.
After Britney Spears did her impression of Max Wall on last season’s X Factor, a source oozed to the tabloids:
“Britney was a massive coup for Cowell. But he’s determined to raise the bar even higher and secure Jacko’s services. He is perhaps one of the few artists who could outshine Britney.”
A lifeless Jackson would doubtless out-dance Spears. But the X Factor is not about the stars, really, it is about the judges and the losers and the rejects, like Emma Chawner, the Telegraph’s “Teletubby”, and the Star’s “the beast”. Emma is back for some more humiliation, says the Express.
This is Emma Chawner of the Ramsbottom Chawners, who in 2007 boasted a collective weight of 83 stone (the result of ‘medical problems’ and ‘genes’.)
This is Emma who’s on stage with her sister Samantha, and of whom the MEN reports:
Along with her parents, their dog, cat and pet bird, the sisters spent seven weeks living in the family car after neighbours complained about their late night karaoke sessions.
But just before Christmas, they moved in to a new rented home in Blackburn, having slept in service station car parks and outside a supermarket in Bury.
One might suppose the Chawners been living inside a supermarket, and that Emma and her family should be make a living climbing into the Austin Maxi of a night.
But Emma wants to sing. On stage, viewers are treated to his exchange:
Emma: “Since I auditioned on The X Factor it’s been bad and good really. We got evicted from home – we had to live in the car for seven weeks with the cat, the dog and a bird.”
Simon Cowell: “Are you saying you were evicted because of your singing?”
Emma: “Yes.”
Emma: “I’ve learned I can sing better with my sister than on my own.”
Simon: “It was arguably twice as bad as before.”
Emma: “You’re not going to stop me.”
Simon: “But Emma you can’t sing.”
Emma: “I just think you should give us a chance.”
Simon: “But a chance to do what?
Emma: “Improve:
Simon: “We have weeks not decades.”
But Cowell has given Emma a chance. Well his TV vehicle has. You’ve been picked, Emma, to sing on the telly because as a fat wannabe you are good telly. You were also picked to perform on the show in 2007. And in last December’s live final, Cowell featured you in a line-up of memorable acts from the last five years.
Emma, Cowell has given you a chance. He’s given you a chance to be pitied and mocked and to field his spiteful comments.
Simon told her parents: “People who’ve won a rosette at a donkey derby don’t go on to win the Grand National. Your daughter cannot sing.”
But now Cowell has the chance to redeem his past mocking because we now live in the post-Susan Boyle age.
Susan Boyle was the Times’ “ugly old lady, despised by all” standing up to “the jeering audience of vain young people”. Chawner is her youthful alter ego. Boyle reveals the audience “as they truly are: heartless, thoughtless and superficial; the flotsam and jetsam of the polluted seas of celebrity, likely to sink without trace into toxic foam.”
Remember how Boyle “broke the grip of this sneering world”?
So here’s Emma. And what’s more, Emma has heeded Amanda Holden’s words and remained ugly and fat.
Which means we get these Post-Boyle front-page headlines:
Daily Express: “She’s back for another round of X-Factor humiliation”
Daily Star: “X Factor – the beast is back. 18st Emma shocks judges for third time”
Susan Boyle is resting….
Posted: 22nd, August 2009 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts Comments (2) | TrackBack | Permalink
