Jade Goody is dead and the celebrity culture that created her public persona is already in overdrive. Tabloid and magazine coverage of her funeral will be as prurient, intrusive and watched as Princess Diana's demise.
Jade's children have already become public property with past treatment of Wills and Harry held up as the template for permissible media intrusion.
The father, widower and grandmother -- it’s up to them. How they play it will guide the media. So said a former Sun editor on Radio Scotland yesterday and he was speaking no more than the truth. All the adults in Jade’s life are now “players” in the “game” of her celebrity death. And it serves truth badly to pretend that money, fame and media savvy might not be considerations in what those adults do next.
Jade’s last rites were performed by OK magazine in a bizarre and macabre black-edged tribute edition published a week before her death. The strapline “in loving memory” elicited only 60 complaints. No wonder. Numbed by the curious complicity of Jade in her own exploited demise who could complain? Especially when the ultimate justification was always at hand. She did it to safeguard the future of her children.
Despite all the depressing news of recent weeks, this is the saddest reflection on British society.
Jade sold images of her own death to support her children in an applauded act of celebrity prostitution designed to keep her children from the clutches of state care. And the country that created the welfare state just sat and watched.
Who wouldn’t do anything for their kids? Who wouldn’t sell their soul if it guaranteed their children’s health and happiness? And who in Britain these days would rely on the welfare state to provide?
Herein lies our shame. To read more - click here.
excellent critique - been thinking the same myself of late
Posted by: paul T | March 23, 2009 at 11:50 PM