FRANKIE COCOZZA

What happens when you take an impressionable teenager, propel him to the heights of national fame, applaud him for his talents as a singer, encourage him to think of himself as a latter day Keith Moon and leave him to the tender mercies of the tabloid press?

This week we all found out when the antics of eighteen year old Frankie Cocozza led to him being dropped from X Factor, the show that he had been a contestant in.
His behaviour finally became unacceptable when it was revealed that he had taken cocaine, but for weeks there had been a slew of ever more tedious stories about his alleged excesses. True to form, Simon Cowell was quick to drop Frankie when the revelations came to light.
The Sun newspaper reported him as saying: ''Frankie's blown a wonderful opportunity. It's very sad, but he has no one to blame but himself.''

To take Simon Cowell seriously (and it is likely he doesn't care whether we do or not) we have to ignore most, if not all the context of what has occurred, he seems eager to profit from the successes of his protégés, and all too keen to abandon those who are deemed to have failed.

Firstly, Frankie Cocozza has been consuming a powerful, addictive and frequently lethal drug in massively dangerous doses with the full glare of publicity upon him for weeks on end. The fact that the drug in question is alcohol relegates it in news value to a story about youthful exuberance and harmless fun.

Secondly, the publicity machine that surrounds Frankie and other teenagers like him facilitates much of his behaviour, in order to craft a certain persona, in order to guarantee column inches in the tabloid press, in order to boost the show's ratings, in order to please advertisers, Frankie must make a spectacle of himself.

The X Factor has shown us a degree of naked mercenary greed and selfishness, not to mention monstrous hypocrisy, that few other programmes have ever managed. The moment this admittedly foolish young man has become damaged goods, he is abandoned; there was no question that Simon Cowell, Gary Barlow or anyone else on the show might have felt slightly responsible about his wellbeing at all. To do so might have accidentally apportioned some kind of culpability to the show and the culture that surrounds it, lethal in these times; one only had to look to the example of the News of The World to see what happens when an organ of celebrity culture is held accountable for something.

But the X Factor should be held accountable for failing in its care of Frankie, and there is an interesting parallel thrown up by reality TV this week.

On Saturday, Frankie arrived at the show after having had one hour's sleep. He had been on a long drinking and drug taking bender. Any addiction professional (or layman for that matter) should easily be able to see powerlessness over substances writ large in this scenario; where were the responsible adults around Frankie, where was the guidance?

On Monday night, Junior Apprentice was broadcast, where Lord Sugar reluctantly had to fire yet another hopeful looking to start a business career.
The house where the contestants in this programme were staying was undoubtedly supervised (it was a spotless mansion in an exclusive part of Chelsea or some other salubrious location, with ten teenagers inside it, the chances that they were left to their own devices are next to none existent).

In this scenario, the duty of care that the production company has towards other people's precious beloved children is fulfilled, the idea that they are human beings and worthy of some degree of concern and safety, and not simply commodities to boost advertising revenue or ratings has been implicitly understood.

Why do we have these two different approaches to young people who generate entertainment for us in the two biggest shows on TV? In case of Junior Apprentice, drinking, inappropriate sexual behaviour or drug taking would destroy the show, but in the case of the X Factor, it positively makes the show.

We are left with two wreckages before us, firstly, the wreckage of a young man's life, he has left the X Factor, badly in need of treatment, publicly shamed. Whilst he is certainly not blameless, the true extent of the show's responsibility will no doubt be conveniently ignored.

The second wreckage is that of the state of public discourse about drugs and alcohol, once again a magic, invisible line has been drawn between the two, hiving drink off as a special exempt class of substance, not really a drug per se.

The effect of this is to help mythologise drinking for a whole new generation, and Frankie has unwittingly done this, propagating an unspoken but tacit message: "Don't do coke kids, but drinking is fine."