Snuff's Enough

First of all, as a human being, I feel sadness that another human being i.e. the real life human being, Jade Goody has terminal cancer. Full stop.

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.

Johnathan Ross Ate My Dingo, Baby.

Slow news week again, lads?

Apparently he made a joke about his producer having sex with an old lady.

It's in the News of the World, I'm not going to give a link for reasons I'll explain later.

There's a similar piece in the Mail on Sunday if you want something even more reactionary with your cereal, but I would encourage anyone reading this not to go there either.

For anyone who's in any doubt as to why this is happening again, let me fill you in.

MONEY.

I'd be willing to bet my favourite teapot (I do love it so) that circulation for all the tabloids who ran with the witch hunt the last time this happened went through the fucking roof. I'd double bet you that same teapot that the News of the World, the Daily Mail and the The Sun had somebody watching Johnathan Ross's shows this week like a fucking hawk for anything, anything, that could be seen as slightly offensive to anyone. And why?

MONEY.

Think of how many times the web pages of the newspapers will be visited in the next few days by people who are both there for the witch hunt or disgusted by all the hysteria. Think of the people who'll buy the papers to see what all the fuss is about. Think of all the radio, TV and newspaper coverage there's probably going to be about this during the week, directly refercing the papers involved. Think of all the fucking MONEY these papers are going to make selling this shit to any idiot that'll buy it.

They don't really give a shit about the joke he told, taking one look at The Daily Mail's gushing obiturary for noted bigot and renowned cunt Bernard Manning would confirm that. They only care about blowing up this shit as big as it can get so they can bleed more money from the Moral Majority they claim to represent.

Some comments from the page in question so you don't have to look at the rest of it;

cant stand the mam! he should have been sacked on the spot after the last episode,he needs some of his own medicine and then see how he reacts....not very well as we all know!ive seen him spit his dummy out many a time on tv.

Good idea, although if you can't stand your mam you should really find a better forum for expressing that then the News of the Worlds comment section.

Are you all insaine ,Sack the man he is a liability . Teach him once and for all .Foul mouthed pervert!!!!!

That's a good point too. I mean, are we all insaine?

I AM UTTERLY DISGUSTED THAT ROSS HAS DONE IT
AGAIN ! IF THE B B C BOSS,S WILL NOT LISTEN TO
THE TAPE , THEY SHOULD BE SACKED ALONG WITH
ROSS . WITHOUT ANY CASH PAYOUT ! MOST DECENT
PEOPLE STRUGGLE TO PAY THEIR LICENCE , THESE
IDIOTS GET PAID MILLIONS OF OUR MONEY TO MAKE
FUN OF PEOPLE WHO CAN NOT DEFEND THEIR
SELVES !

See the button next to the "A" key on your keyboard? Caps Lock? Try unpressing it. Just think, you were around a centimetre away from not sounding like a maniac.

And then, this beauty.

MY NAM IS 80 YEARS OLD!!!! WOUD YOU HAVE SEX WITH HER YOU SICK MAN?!

Is that a hypothetical question? Or a proposal?