Althouse: "The media have exploited her and she has exploited them, and it seems to have worked very well for both of them."

March 22, 2009

"The media have exploited her and she has exploited them, and it seems to have worked very well for both of them."

The reality TV star, Jade Goody — dead at 27.

26 comments:

Balfegor said...: Ms. Goody herself said she wanted to earn as much money as she could for her sons. And her spokesman, Max Clifford, said that the years she spent in the public eye had been the happiest of her life.

It's sad, but given how horrible the private bits of her life sound, this doesn't sound quite so bad as it might in other cases. And if she got enough to provide for her children after her death, well, that's a better motive than most have to indulge in this kind of exhibitionism.; 3/22/09, 9:05 AM
Anonymous said...: Had she been 12 years younger she would have gotten the cervical cancer vaccine.; 3/22/09, 9:14 AM
bearbee said...: She went out on her own terms but........Oy*!

* Note to data miners: not intended in any way to be anti-Semitic.; 3/22/09, 9:15 AM
TitusItIsABeautifulDay!!!! said...: I find the entire thing depressing.; 3/22/09, 9:17 AM
Jason (the commenter) said...: Balfegor : It's sad

I wouldn't say anything nice about her when she was alive, so I see no reason to say anything nice about her now that's she's dead. Sadness is for when people die, she was just an animal. It makes you a little less human to have any consideration for her. The truth is, she was a pathetic person and the world is a better place without her.; 3/22/09, 9:26 AM
john said...: What inspiration. Who among us could claim that our lives are so filled with experience, meaning, even pathos, packed into so few years, that we could produce not just one, but two, autobiographies?

Oh.; 3/22/09, 9:29 AM
vet66 said...: People sure die young in countries with socialized medicine.

One could make the case that this sort of pathos comes from living in a society that diminishes the importance of the individual initiative.

She reminds me of the female in the Apple commercial decades ago where the female hurled the javelin into the "Big Brother" screen droning on about the virtues of compliance and submission to the status quo.

A true individual standing above the crowd!

R.I.P.; 3/22/09, 9:48 AM
Bissage said...: OPENING NARRATION BY MR. SERLING: Ever since the dawn of man, it has been heard as a constant refrain from both near and far, that life isn’t fair. A baby takes its first breath with a piercing wail, yet there is no choice without consequence, in this, the best of all possible worlds. If a tree falls in the forest, and does not go gentle into that dark night, does it make a sound? We meet Jade Goody, a woman of peculiar talents resolved to choose “none of the above.” She may yet get her wish . . . in the Twilight Zone.

CLOSING NARRATION BY MR. SERLING: It has been said that reality is the stuff of fiction and that life is but a dream within a dream. So too, an object appears smaller in a side view mirror. Can it be a better dream where a horse may ride a beggar? Tune in to find out. And when we change the channel we will cease to exist. Here’s to wishes that come true . . . in the Twilight Zone.

From Twilight Zone episode 42: “Sixteen Minutes of Fame.”; 3/22/09, 10:26 AM
Balfegor said...: I wouldn't say anything nice about her when she was alive, so I see no reason to say anything nice about her now that's she's dead. Sadness is for when people die, she was just an animal.

It would take rather a lot more viciousness on her part before I'd be comfortable writing her out of the human race, I'm afraid.; 3/22/09, 10:27 AM
Laura(southernxyl) said...: Agree with Balfegor. The fact is, "the human race" encompasses Jade Goody, as it does Hitler, Mother Teresa, Stalin, Alber Schweitzer, and so on.

RIP, Jade.; 3/22/09, 10:53 AM
Anonymous said...: I thought Gordon Brown didn't do "celebrity".; 3/22/09, 11:34 AM
Ophir said...: It makes you a little less human to treat people like animals.; 3/22/09, 11:49 AM
KCFleming said...: Welcome to socialized medicine.

In the NHS as of 2004, the age for women to get routine cervical screening was raised from 20 to 25, "in line with World Health Organisation guidelines".

Unknown to most citizens, the NHS will not allow women to get a Pap smear under age 25, no matter at what age they started having sex (which is how you catch HPV, it's major cause), or even if she demands it be done. If a doctor does perform an 'underage' Pap, the lab will not process it.

But I hear their emergency care is top notch, at least in the ERs that are still open.

Jade Goody sparks age limit review for cervical cancer testing; 3/22/09, 12:21 PM
BJM said...: For all the sturm und drang on Althouse of late, this is by far the most loathsome comment to date:

Jason said: Sadness is for when people die, she was just an animal. It makes you a little less human to have any consideration for her. The truth is, she was a pathetic person and the world is a better place without her.

When you assume this jejune pose for effect you know full well the subtext, which is even more repulsive.; 3/22/09, 1:01 PM
Anonymous said...: Like Jason I am glad she is dead because she was a worthless piece of fat chav scum.

I despise the media for exploiting her and the public for consuming her. I do *not* despise her for milking the opportunity given to her: she was trailer trash who got a one in million break for money. She is to be applauded for having the nouse to seize her chance.

She deserved to die only for being vile. I am glad she is gone & we are rid of her tedious appearances in the media.

She will be replaced of course.; 3/22/09, 1:47 PM
Joe said...: Had she been 12 years younger she would have gotten the cervical cancer vaccine.

The HPV vaccine only prevents two of the cervical cancers it causes and none of the cancers caused by other reasons.; 3/22/09, 2:21 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: The British satirists are having their field day. One emerging meme is her badness Photoshopped as Heath Ledger's Joker with the text "Why so cancerous?" But this is expected when you sell your spectacle. Note Nadya Suleman, to name but a single American.; 3/22/09, 2:35 PM
Jason (the commenter) said...: When you assume this jejune pose for effect you know full well the subtext, which is even more repulsive.

But don't you love my candor and lack of self-consciousness? Well, maybe I should have stripped naked when I said all of that.

I have no problem with people acting however they want to act. They can commit suicide, make sex tapes, or bully Indian actresses. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to say horrible things about them, even when they're dead.; 3/22/09, 3:26 PM
Laura(southernxyl) said...: Geeklawyer - and you deserve to live because why?; 3/22/09, 3:38 PM
Automatic_Wing said...: She was the modern equivalent of a carnival sideshow freak, which certainly doesn't make her any less human or deserving of life. It was her job to entertain the crowds and that's what she did. RIP.; 3/22/09, 6:01 PM
Jason said...: I just want to note, for posterity's sake, that I am NOT Jason (the commenter).

I think his comment shows him to be no better than Goody.; 3/22/09, 8:35 PM
Anonymous said...: I just want to note, for posterity's sake, that I am NOT Jason (the commenter).

I think his comment shows him to be no better than Goody.

Perhaps, as she faced death, Ms. Goody was a good deal better ...; 3/22/09, 9:07 PM
CarmelaMotto said...: Not only does the national health service only pay for pap smears after the age of 25, but then only every 3 years after that. So if you get one at 25, you can get another one in 3 years!

That's nationalized health care folks.

Any insurance plan I have been on pays for twice a year for a gyno visit and a pap smear is included in most plans "healthy woman" screening (each plan has their own stupid name). That is preventative medacine.

I did a whole "public speaking class" speech on HPV, so .... Yes, the vaccine prevents only two types of the strains (it is a virus!) that cause cancer, but they cause 70% of cancers. Typically, the kind that cause cancer are not the types that have obvious cause symptoms (such as warts), so it can be invisibly deadly without a pap smear to view cells under a microscope. Even worse, it's one of the things that can be transmitted with or without a condom. Therefore, they say most people who have had 5 or more partners in their life are likely to get it and not know it. Men have no symptoms for the non-wart-cancer strains.

Pap smears are so important.; 3/22/09, 9:30 PM
CarmelaMotto said...: I meant medicine... and pardon my other typos please. thank you.; 3/22/09, 9:31 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: You can't get a pap over there until you're 25 and then only every three years? That's insane.

Lots of animosity towards this woman. I don't know anything about her, but doesn't someone generally need to have expressed some sort of gross malevolence in life to be despised even in death. Why hate this woman?; 3/23/09, 1:50 AM
kentuckyliz said...: I had HER2-neu positive breast cancer, which is more aggressive and deadly--Mom died four years after her diagnosis. In addition to the regular chemo and radiation routine, you also get a biological treatment called Herceptin, which makes chemo and radiation effective. Without Herceptin, treatment is pointless.

Visiting English relatives told me last summer that I was "lucky" to be getting Herceptin treatment, because the regional NHS boards don't approve it because it's too expensive for their finite budgets.

To which I responded, well, it would crack and scramble my nest egg, but if I had to, I could pay for it.

They said if you paid for your own Herceptin treatment, NHS didn't cover any of your treatment.

WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT! They don't want people to have effective treatment, even if they pay for it themselves!

So I said...basically, only the very wealthy who are willing and able to write some serious checks can get the treatment they need?!

Yeppers.

I tried emigrating to England after graduating from college, and it didn't work out. Little did I know then, that this would save my life.

God bless America.; 3/24/09, 9:25 PM