When former winner Shayne Ward appeared on last year's X Factor it was a portrait of desperation: "It's great to be back," he gushed repeatedly, almost grovelling to Simon Cowell while the studio audience gave subdued whoops. But this homecoming was the start of his final act: after a flop album he has been dropped by Cowell's label Syco and joins Steve Brookstein, Joe McElderry and Leon Jackson in the pop wilderness.
These ex-winners have something in common besides shattered dreams: they're all men. Leona Lewis and Alexandra Burke, the show's two female victors, are still signed and successful. You can find good individual reasons why each man failed: Brookstein rebelled against Cowell, Rage Against The Machine left McElderry a lame duck and nobody expected Jackson to win in the first place. As for Ward, when you're pinning your comeback hopes on Nickelback cover versions there can only be one result. Even so, current winner Matt Cardle might be worried – does the X Factor carry a Y-chromosome curse? And if so, why?
The truth is that male pop stars are notoriously hard to launch. Even Robbie can't command the audiences he used to, and most of the biggest UK male stars now make R&B or grime-inflected pop – not a style X Factor voters are known to reward. Instead, the male former winners – poor Joe excepted – seem to gravitate to pained, dignified acoustic pop-rock. There's never been much evidence that people want to hear this style of music outside a busking pitch, but every male reality show victor from Fame Academy's David Sneddon onwards seems convinced otherwise. They still worry about their imagined credibility, whereas female winners are more ready for the red carpet.
People criticise the X Factor for not being about music, and they're right. It's about narrative: once the winner's journey to triumph is over, their story hits a natural end. Ward, Jackson and the rest no doubt imagined their subsequent career was the point of the entire exercise. Instead, it's an embarrassing afterthought: the straight-to-video sequel of a blockbuster family film.
