It's hard to fully grasp how strongly people rected to Jade Goody when she first appeared in Big Brother -you either loved her or hated her, and there was no in-between. I was there and there wasn't a single persont hat didn't have an opinion on her while the show was running. Having said that, a large chunk of the viewers couldn't stand her. They thought she was loud, in-your-face and annoying. And...she was. That's exactly the thing; she was being herself to a hundred percent, all the time. If some people liked it, that was great, if not...then that was okay too. When she was finally up for eviction, the producers seriously contemplated having her brought out through a back door instead of the main entrance -they were afraid the crowd of people waiting outside the Big Brother house would get hostile and hurt her.
When I first found out she was dying -she was diagnosed as late as August last year-, my first thought afterwards was how the media was going to jump on the pity band wagon. I said from the start that the very same papers posting things like the one above would be the the first ones in front row weeping at her funeral and printing their "This was her life" specials. And lo and behold, The Sun recently ran articles about her funeral service with headlines like "Son's tearful dash to see dying Jade" and "Jade's Little Fighters" with pictures of her two son's playing in the street. OK! Magazine printed a "Jade tribute" before she was even dead. Charming. But I suppose what's considered "poor taste" is a blurry concept nowadays...
Her dying wish was to get married, which she did only a few weeks ago. Many have critisized her for selling the pictures to the tabloids, while she insisted she only wanted a fincancially secure future for her sons. I'm in no way naive enough to believe that she was a victim, scrutinized by the media against her will. Right from the start, she realized how to make the most of her new found fame, and she used the media just as much as they used her. I remember watching a TV programme about paparazzis; where this one photographer had recently joined the tabloid field after having worked in news photography. He saw Jade coming out of a store, and in a stereotypical, predator-like manner threw himself behind a car (I guess someone told him that's what paparazzis do), snapping away with his camera. She kept walking, put her groceries into her car, glanced at him from out the corner of her eye, and went:
"You don't have to hide, you know. We can help each other out".
That was Jade. She knew exactly what the deal was ("I give you your picture, you ensure me continued fame and fortune") and she was fine with it. In most extreme cases, as those of princess Di and Michael Jackson, though, I'm sure there must be some sort of love/hate relationship. They hate not being able to live normally, but they need the media to cover what they do to ensure they can carry on doing it. At the same time they must panic when they realize that there's no escape from it. Ever. It must be a very twisted, disturbing thing but I guess that's what you get when you make a deal with the devil.
Having said all this, let me make it clear that there is no excuse for the vulture-like behaviour of the tabloids. However, I believe it is in human nature to be drawn to the dark and destructive. It's not called "morbid fascination" for nothing. The question is where it will stop, if it ever does. There's a sense of stability in seeing these people either 1), live and look exactly like we do (which tells us we're fine even though we're not famous) or 2),look and act in a way that is negative (because it makes us feel superior so we can say "look, he/she has all that money and fame but they're still not happy", hence stop secretly wanting it.) The tabloids seem to compete in who can find the most unflattering picture of Amy Winehouse (the more drugged up, skinny and covered in self-harm cuts the better), Times Magazine (who should know better) put Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold on the cover after the Columbine shooting, thereby immortalizing them for all future exactly the way they had wanted. "Were the nobodies/Want to be somebodies/When dead, they'll know just who we are". The media is a loaded gun when when handled by the wrong people...and it scares me.
