OK (or not OK)

I have thought about this and I still can’t decide what I hate most about the tragedy for our times that is Jade Goody.

So in no particular order:

I hate the producers of Big Brother and Celebrity Big Brother who both built JG up, knocked her down, and then led her to take part in India’s version where she ended up being televised live hearing she had cancer.

I hate the ‘celebrity’ obsessed media who will fill page after page with trash about people such as JG. I also hate that I knew all about the fairy tale wedding (Costing £1.5 million – money well spent I am sure), but did not know until someone with family in Cairo told me, that there was a bomb in the main market in Cairo on Sunday which not only caused death and destruction but will have an on going seriously negative effect on Egyptian peoples livelihoods. I expect the BBC had no time left to report on this once they had covered the wedding of JG so comprehensively..

I hate the fact that we the public still buy these rags and allow the media to profit from the trash they print. And I hate people like Max (slime ball) Clifford (3,383) profiting from someone who is dying by selling the various ‘exclusives’.

I hate the fact that somewhere along the line I became so cynical about the media that when I first heard the JG has cancer story I assumed it was fabricated or at the very most - grossly exaggerated.

I hate seeing the effect the blanket coverage has on my close friend at work who has had cancer twice and tells me she finds the JG story really hard to cope with.

I hate the fact that even our government has to get dragged into the saga with Gordon Brown expressing his regrets and Jack Straw lifting the curfew on her jailbird bloke so that he can spend one evening cavorting in women’s underwear, and the next one boozing till 4.30 in the morning, whilst we are told his beloved bride had long since retired to bed. Yes - can sure see what she must see in him.

I hate the hypocrisy with which people who had not a good word to say about JG after the racist bullying incident are now falling over themselves to express their sorrow for her imminent demise. And when people who are total strangers to JG write things in comments on web pages like “Goodbye brave Jade. I shall never forget your beautiful smile. You are an inspiration to us all.” …Well, I am afraid it just makes me feel nauseous.


I think I can understand and appreciate that living out this final act in the drama that has been Jade Goody’s life in the public eye is her way of dealing with it. What I can neither understand or appreciate though is how on earth our society became so obsessed with the trivial that such a person - famous only for showing herself up on reality TV shows - is actually in a position where she CAN live out her final days in the public eye, and in so doing add to the huge amount of money she has already made

As a final observation when Jade’s popularity plummeted following the Celebrity Big Brother racism row Living TV cancelled her programme. Now Living TV is making money by filming Jade whilst she is dying. Irony or what? Maybe Living TV should reconsider what they call themselves?