Time, it seems, for that most unsettling of British spectator sports: public lynching of young women.
After revealing a particularly nasty side to her character while in the Big Brother house, Jade Goody finally emerged on Friday to a torrent of abuse, accusations and self-righteous condemnation. One may say she brought it all upon herself. However, in falling over each other to call for the public abasement of Ms Goody, are not the tabloid media engaging in the sort of behaviour for which they rightly condemned Jade Goody?
Jenny McCartney in the Sunday Telegraph sums it up thus:
Viewers have been rightly disgusted by the bullying of Shilpa Shetty inside the house, but another nasty little gladiatorial drama is set to unfold outside: the dismantling of Jade Goody, a damaged, foolish girl first randomly raised up and then permitted to destroy herself for a nation’s sport.
And she is right. There seems to be an almost unnatural glee in witnessing the downfall and public humiliation of Jade Goody. It is true that by her behaviour, she brought shame upon herself, and caused real suffering to another. However, a public crucifixion is hardly the way to deal with the errant Goody. She must be given the space to redeem herself in any way she can.
January 21st, 2007 at 9:35 pm
Let’s hope more people take a page out of your book. One of the most singularly unpleasant things I saw over this episode was Edwina Currie on QuestionTime referring to Jade,Danielle and Jo as slags. I was horrified that a someone who knows what it is like to be reviled could jump so quickly on the bandwagon in that fashion. Why is her calling them ’slags’ particularly different than ‘poppadum’. Sometimes those amongst us waving fingers should do it in proximity of a mirror………..
January 21st, 2007 at 10:29 pm
if only crucifixion was available to us….
January 22nd, 2007 at 12:19 pm
i do not think jade has to pay this price…yes she was wrong for what she said but it was not to do with race it was because jade runs off at the mouth…i can understand she was just thinking of things indian(well duz that mean im racist cuz i think of indian every weekend)she did not say poppadom she said poppadoom…..yes she did not like shilpa because they are on diffrent leavels how is that a crime…jade was wrong because she did not try to get on with shilpa but that IS NOT RACISM.cast your mind back to cbb 06 peat burns laid in to tracy bingham because he diddent like her.he said she was all fake she diddent have a brain sell in her head and”black dont crack but your hair will fall out”why did he not have all this when he came out.he was a bully he had a go at everyone even shantell…than there was jodie marsh she went through hell in there did anyone make a fuss over that.she had 3 ppl in there shout her down while she coward in a couner….jade was wrong but iv seen worse than that on bb before …why now do ppl not like it?
January 22nd, 2007 at 12:23 pm
Anonymous, you are exactly right. Apart from some pantomime booing from the final night crowd, Pete Burns got away with far worse behaviour than Jade Goody.
You know that in this country, women are judged far more harshly than men? BB proves this every year.
January 22nd, 2007 at 5:18 pm
I agree Bel, for what it’s worth; though I still think she has the rage, the contempt and the ignorance that are increasingly prevalent in this country. For me it was the uncontrollable venom I heard when Radio 5 played some of it…deeply worrying; and in the modern fashion we now have the tearful apologies, the syrupy assertions of general innocence. I just don’t buy it, I’m afraid. But I don’t blame Jade exclusively. It’s what we’ve created.
January 22nd, 2007 at 5:21 pm
* should have read “I don’t blame Jade exclusively for her behaviour..”*
January 23rd, 2007 at 5:49 pm
So her career is in tatters? Good. Poetic Justice. How could someone like Jade Goody be a celebrity anyway?
Would someone like to tell me how Jade Goody has actually acheived anything of merit in the real world?
Why should we pity her? Does she deserve our pity?
This is a media circus, with Jade destroyed by the monster that gave her birth. That was the game, that’s how it works.
It is not good enough to describe her as some kind of innocent victim- She has made a fortune out of this voyeuristic racket, and now the wheel of fortune has turned has turned on her.
I don’t watch BB, but the Public Crucifiction of Jsde goody… Might be tempted.
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Her career might be at a low ebb today, but with expert coaching and a savvy PR operation she can probably make a comeback. And if she can’t? £100,000+/year interest on her £4M fortune might go some way towards softening the blow, assuming of course the impossible - that she has the intelligence to resist spending her capital.
January 24th, 2007 at 2:43 am
Joe, I thought you were a liberal at heart.
(Actually, I thought no such thing, that is just what you would have us believe) 
Does your empathy not extend to the likes of Jade Goody, then?
January 24th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Ah Bel, I like to think I am liberal enough to be prepared to tolerate everyone, but conservative enough to realise that in the real world there are limits.
I am concerned that we live in a culture that rewards people like Jade for ‘being themselves’ with no real positive contribution for society. I am aware that in reality people like her are merely pawns in this ratings war and that is what she has been paid so much for. But I lament that such a culture exits.
Like anyone who truly values a liberal society, I recognise that liberal values as a whole are dependent on creating a society of a certain degree of civilisation and intellectual refinement. You cannot have a fair, free and culturally enightened society if you propagate the values of the lowest common denominator, allow programmes like BB to form cultural expectations and allow people like Jade Goody to be role models to the next generation.
If you do, two thousand years of cultural, intellectual and moral development have been in vain and we are back to the Bread and Circuses ideals of the Romans.
January 24th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
Jade, like any other ‘product’, should be left to the invisible hand of the market. If that market thinks she is worth being paid £100,000 for a magazie interview, then wonderful! Rock on, I say.
If, on the other hand, the market feels that Jade is not worth even £100 for an interview, then they won’t pay it.
It has absolutely nothing to do with the supposed ‘merit’ or ‘talents’ of Jade.
January 24th, 2007 at 8:57 pm
People pay money for snuff films, it doesn’t mean society is better for that.
The market doesn’t in itself create culture.
Cultures have to exist for markets to thrive in the first place. A market that unravels the culture that give it birth will die with that culture.
Freedom can only exist where there is true community responsibility, a social standard all voluntarily agree to live up to.
If this is forgotten, then society itself fractures and we descend in to anarchy- and then dictatorship, because that is the inevitable consequence. This isn’t sensationalist- it’s just the way history works.
Bel, all sorts of awful are bought and sold. I just worry when I look at Jade Goody and the success of BB, whether or not, as a nation, we haven’t sold our soul.
January 24th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
So you would legislate for culture? In an ideal world in which Joe’s word was law?
How would you do this? Remember HLB Mencken: no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
I would submit that that saying is true of the English public as well. ‘Twas ever thus, Joe. In matters of the market, culture should not, and ought not, be an important factor.
January 24th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
You try getting a decent book at Waterstones these days, Bel…
I wouldn’t legislate, no. This is the point I am trying to make. If cultures do not maintain certain cultural ideals, then some control freak- a bit like the one running us now- WILL legislate. I don’t want to see that. It’s a responsibility we ALL have, that we all share.
The whole point of being civilised is that we are grown up as people not to think that pre-adolescent antics in a fake domestic setting is somehow entertainment. A grown up society doesn’t need to be censored.
As I said ‘If you would be free, learn to govern yourselves’.
People themselves need to sit back and think in the aftermath of all this and decide whether this is what WE THE PEOPLE want on our screens.
January 24th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
Since we are quoting ….. Joe I am “LOVING your work!!!”
January 24th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
Cheers, Morag, I always aim to please!!
January 24th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
Joe, where do you think culture comes from? You know the answer to that. From us.
Given the kind of society we now live in, is it any wonder that popular culture is as it is?
January 24th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
Ah, now you’re seeing my point, Bel!
Society is what I’m talking about. Society and culture go hand in hand. BB is a sympton of the hollow values which permeate all eschelons of our superb western culture- the one people are dying in Iraq to uphold. OK, BB permeates from the fetid depths of chav culture, but the supposed thinking classes allow it to form a part of their daily lives, watching these opinionated and usually unpleasant airheads with an elemt of voyeurism. It’s like a 21st century zoo- it’s inhumane to do it to animals, but offer an eighty grand cash incentive and you can find people who will better the baboons and the sloths hands down.
I don’t care much for Dickens, but last century people bought him in cheap installments as popular entertainment.
But that’s partly why they bulit railways across India where now they can’t build one across London.
You are right, Bel. It is about society. That’s people like you and me. If enough of us say no to being dumbed down, one day someone might listen.
January 24th, 2007 at 11:51 pm
It just occurred to me that anyone reading that sentence about superb western culture might not realise there is meant to be dose of irony in that sentence. I apologise. It should be there.