So here we are dying with Jade Goody

According to Yahoo news this morning, Jade Goody has 48 hours to live, if she's "lucky". A 27 year old mother of two dying of cervical cancer is a tragedy in itself, and in my case one that rings close to home as she is my age. Though this is undoubtedly, unfortunately, not a unique occurence of a life cut short, of children orphaned, of cancer triumphing over modern treatment, what does make this story unique is of course the character of Jade Goody herself.
For those who know nothing about her, Jade Goody is a British woman who reached a particular kind of fame in 2002, the kind associated with reality TV, which emerged in the late Nineties. I remember reading an article (in 1999?) about the uproar caused by a new TV show in Holland, where people were locked together in a house for 90 days, filmed, and the resulting images transformed into entertainment via careful editing and a weekly TV show. I remember when Big Brother arrived in the UK, and then in France, under the slightly dodgy name of Loft Story.
I never followed BB in England but just by living there you had to follow a certain amount just to be allowed to have a conversation at the pub. As a result, my knowledge of Jade Goody is vague, but here is what I know. JG entered BB in 2002, an overweight, loudmouthed, vulgar chav with a ghastly family background and zero knowledge of anything that wasn't binge-drinking-linked. Infamously, she said she thought that Cambridge was in London, and when informed that it was located in East Anglia, deduced that it was abroad (in a country called East Angular in fact).
In BB she was portrayed as a fat, bullying, ignorant cow/pig hybrid, with a basic vocabulary of 30 words (including fuck, fucking, fucked, fuckoff and so on), which to be fair, she completely deserved. Her sophisticated side even led her to the first grope in the BB house, a drunken fumbling with a guy called PJ , which the nation criticised with glee. Othe JG moments include calling an Indian girl Poppadum in a later edition of BB, and getting the trademark Burberry print tattooed on her arse. The Indian episode led to 50000 complaints in England, and Jade made several grovelling public apologies, pleading stupidity over racism which in her case was probably true. In any case, the Indian episode led her to join the cast of the Indian version of BB which is where she learnt, on live TV as the concept of the show would have it, that she had cervical cancer. After repatriation to England, the initial survival rate she had been given, of around 60% was reduced. The cancer then spread to anus, bladder and liver, and it soon became clear she was in terminal mode with only months to live.

Overnight, fat, ignorant, lower class bully Jade, the daughter of handicapped drunk and a heroin addict (her father died after she reached fame, keeling over from an overdose in a public toilet), became the nation's favorite tragedy. The tabloids that had criticised her with malice and joy during the BB years were now running healines like "Brave Jade pledges to wed love" or "Big Brother legend Jade Goody talks of heartbreak". Now that she is dying, Jade is a hero, a brave soldier and loving mother, crippled by the unfairness of life. Humanism demands that we feel very sad about this woman's life, and forthcoming death, but the hypocrisy and voyeurism displayed by the media is breathtaking. Tha satirical newspaper Private Eye ran a "before and after" column, comparing descriptions of Jade in the tabloids before and after the news of cancer. The result is quite shocking.

Though one can hardly blame Jade, who has decided to die in front of the cameras ("I lived in front of them, I will die in front of them") and is milking the media for every penny she can, one can only wonder what the hell the media are up to. Jade got married a month ago the her imprisoned boyfriend and sold the pictures for a million pounds. Until recently she was giving press conferences and being paid for interiews. one TV channel is filming her last days and, a priori her last moments. She justifies this by saying she isn't spending the money on houses or cars, but to ensure her sons' future, which seems rationl enough. The media however can only be accused of profitting from this woman's personal tragedy and the public of morbid fascination. Jade will be dead in a few days, if not hours, and I predict there will be a flood of debates bringing this up. In any case a new media page is being turned. Ten years ago people were saying that the Big Brother concept was too much, crossing the thin line of good taste and what was tolerable. Now someone is dying and the cameras are rolling, and that debate seems pretty tame. The question now is, what next?

[Post scriptum : Jade Goody died, off camera, on Sunday 22nd of March - Mother's day]