As for Jade Goody, media construct I feel nothing but revulsion. Why? Because we, as a society, have finally reached rock, rock bottom.
I was flicking through the channels the other night and I came across this "Jade" show on Living TV. I had heard of it, of course, but up until then I had never seen it. Jade looked terrible. Balding and sick, of course, but still talking to camera about her blood transfusion and how her bones aching made it hard to get up in the morning. Then, ad break. Car commercials, food commercials, insurance commercials. Sexy women slinked across the screen trying to sell shit you'd never want or need. Then I turned it off. I couldn't watch anymore, I couldn't.
Because that's when the veneer of this sham fell right off.
This show, this media spectacle, isn't about helping to save lives, it's chronicling, for posterity, the death of a young woman for our perverse enjoyment. Don't for a minute believe anything else. This is no different from having a woman in a bikini walk next to a car accident with a sign advertising beer to the passing rubberneckers.
The scum in the tabloid press love it. "Brave Jade" they say, "Poor Jade". In January of two years ago they were saying "RACIST JADE IS A NASTY FAKER". In the copy of that article (the Sunday Mirror) said
"Goody didn't only put on a display of ignorant bigotry. In that horrific verbal assault on Shilpa, she revealed herself to be a disgusting, domineering bitch too."
This year they have her on the front page, all soft focus. Brave Jade, Poor Jade, because that sells papers for the tabloids this week. If they thought gloating about her impending death would sell papers then they'd run that and don't think they wouldn't. Remember those words. Disgusting. Bitch.
Living wouldn't be running the show if hordes of people weren't watching it. The ad revenue certainly helps the 'grief' they must be feeling. If the Mirror, Sun, Daily Mail and Star knew it wouldn't sell papers buy the fucking skip full then this story would be page 5, half page boohoo column, at best. Look at Terry Pratchett. Suffering from Alztheimers, an equally horrible disease, but where's his front page? Where are his hourly updates on Sky News? It's because he didn't entertain Michelle from Essex by getting his kebab out on national TV and abuse an Indian woman and that's that.
Jade the media construct is a commodity that those in the media will squeeze every last cent out of before she inevitably, tragically dies. We allow them to by our interest. We rubberneck and disguise it as 'concern' but rubbernecking it certainly is.
Will more women get smears because of this? Probably. They almost certainly have. How about in 6 months? In 3 years? In Jade's name? Probably not. But it'll do for time being. That'll be our excuse as we look on, as we voyeur. It's helping people, right?
With the money she's made from this I hope her kids have some bit of her fortune left to keep them going. If there's any left. Her new husband (jailbird Jack Tweedy) has been put in charge of it until they're old enough.
We'll see how that goes.
I'm sure we'll hear about it if it doesn't go well.
We'll buy the papers and watch the documentary.
