russel brand's thoughts from his blog

 

Comedian Russell Brand has paid tribute to the late Jade Goody in his blog.

 

The comic said he dislikes the "fetishisation of grief" that greets public figures' deaths, but claimed it is "understandable" in the case of Goody.

 

"Sentimentality is often called the unearned emotion and intrusive carnivals of public mourning unsettle me," he said. "In the case of Jade Goody however it is understandable to feel morose. She was a young mum from an awful background who got a break and shrewdly capitalised on it."

 

Brand also confessed to spending time with the Big Brother star at the Edinburgh festival when they were under the same management.

 

"We all hung out, me my mum, Jade, some people from the agency and a few of my mates," he said. "She was a right laugh, she joined in with everyone and created a garrulous giddy vibe in bars and cars that elevated the perfunctory time between shows into something which retrospectively seems more special now than it did then."

 

He continued: "One of the charges often levelled at Jade was that she was just a normal girl with no trade or practised skills. Well people didn't care and our heroes are not prescribed to us, we have the right to choose them and the people chose Jade.

 

"Fame has long been bequeathed by virtue of wealth and birth and this was the first generation where it was democratically distributed by that most lowbrow of modern phenomena - reality television."

 

Speaking about the media's response to her death, he added: "I hope some of the lessons of this modern fairy tale are learned, that the people who aspired to be like Jade observe the price she paid.

 

"I hope her sons are ok and that on some imperceptible level contrition is felt by the media that gave Jade Goody everything."

 

scource... digital spy.

 

this highlights what i like about brand, his use of the english language, and his observation on the 'jade goody circus' is spot on imho.

 

mind you, no doubt 'brand haters' will use this as another way to attack him and her <_<

sorry... just WHERE in that article does it say that mc talked her out of having her ACTUAL DEATH filmed? THATS what scott insists she meant which clearly wasnt the case! she was refering to her GRADUAL DEMISE, not her actual moment of passing

 

SCOTT AND YOU are wrong m8!

 

and what makes you think i condone this pitiful circus? I DONT and never have... ive merely stated that jades demise is for HER to decide and ive been openly critical of the morons following it! i for one will NOT be watching the funeral.

 

i KNOW it wont be the end of thejade media circus... but i WANT it to be.

 

Well I don't know how you can possibly interpret Jade Goody's full statement, unless she had developed a Morrissey/Stephen Fry/Russell Brand-esque level of understanding on the nuances of the English language I think it is pretty BLOODY obvious what she meant:

 

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/17772...f-them-too.html

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/world/eu...oody&st=cse

 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/columnists/su...15875-21129600/

 

http://www.wowowow.com/post/living-and-dyi...fference-214533

 

http://www.showbizspy.com/article/182184/g...t-die-on-camera

 

It was only once when Max Clifford stepped in (and hence my earlier post) due to the disquiet amongst members of the British public, that the possibility of her death being filmed ceased.

Oh for sure if Jade had her way she would have passed away with the cameras rolling, I have no doubt there, she is simply not clever enough to have meant anything else in her statement

 

For even a parasite like Clifford to find it tasteless and unacceptable is a sad indictment on Jade's mindset

I'm not exactly a fan of Russel Brand, but it was nice to see him give a balanced and impartial view like that on the subject.

Well I don't know how you can possibly interpret Jade Goody's full statement, unless she had developed a Morrissey/Stephen Fry/Russell Brand-esque level of understanding on the nuances of the English language I think it is pretty BLOODY obvious what she meant:

Personally I'm not getting why you'd have to be the likes of Stephen Fry for "maybe I'll die in front of them" to mean anything other than filming her death. I'm hardly at that level of intelligence but even I can see that it's very likely she meant that she'd be filmed during her last few weeks rather than her actual dying moment. I don't think even Jade would have stooped that low.

 

I think she meant that she'd continue the series until she died, nothing else. How would they have even filmed her death? It would have required her being constantly filmed for that last week of her life (where she was outliving when they expected her to go) it just wouldn't have happened, or even been possible.

I think she meant that she'd continue the series until she died, nothing else. How would they have even filmed her death? It would have required her being constantly filmed for that last week of her life (where she was outliving when they expected her to go) it just wouldn't have happened, or even been possible.

 

She did.

 

But that is why Max Clifford made her stop filming her Living series with her wedding.

 

Which Living TV were originally going to carry on filming afterwards until Max Cliffords intervention.

She did.

 

But that is why Max Clifford made her stop filming her Living series with her wedding.

 

Which Living TV were originally going to carry on filming afterwards until Max Cliffords intervention.

Ohhh... all this time I thought you were implying that Jade wanted them to film her actual dying moment.

Well I don't know how you can possibly interpret Jade Goody's full statement, unless she had developed a Morrissey/Stephen Fry/Russell Brand-esque level of understanding on the nuances of the English language I think it is pretty BLOODY obvious what she meant:

 

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/17772...f-them-too.html

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/world/eu...oody&st=cse

 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/columnists/su...15875-21129600/

 

http://www.wowowow.com/post/living-and-dyi...fference-214533

 

http://www.showbizspy.com/article/182184/g...t-die-on-camera

 

It was only once when Max Clifford stepped in (and hence my earlier post) due to the disquiet amongst members of the British public, that the possibility of her death being filmed ceased.

 

they are ALL the same lazy quote which YOU and scott are deliberately taking literally to try to prove a moot point.

 

Personally I'm not getting why you'd have to be the likes of Stephen Fry for "maybe I'll die in front of them" to mean anything other than filming her death. I'm hardly at that level of intelligence but even I can see that it's very likely she meant that she'd be filmed during her last few weeks rather than her actual dying moment.

 

EXACTLY! :cheer: and thats how the vast majority of the understood the comment.

 

 

Ohhh... all this time I thought you were implying that Jade wanted them to film her actual dying moment.

 

:lol:

 

well said!

 

tbh i dont get why tip and scott should waste so much time attacking this dead celeb... THEY are the only ones insisting that jade meant her dying moment, no one else in the media has suggested it.

 

what a waste of time, bickering over a moot point that they were proven wrong on. <_<

they are ALL the same lazy quote which YOU and scott are deliberately taking literally to try to prove a moot point.

EXACTLY! :cheer: and thats how the vast majority of the understood the comment.

:lol:

 

well said!

 

tbh i dont get why tip and scott should waste so much time attacking this dead celeb... THEY are the only ones insisting that jade meant her dying moment, no one else in the media has suggested it.

 

what a waste of time, bickering over a moot point that they were proven wrong on. <_<

 

I will not stop bickering over a lazy point when it is so BLATANTLY black & white and you keep consistantly digging your own grave (excuse the pun) regarding this story.

 

The references are all taken from February 19th in the immediate aftermath of Jade Goody's quote.

 

How you can possiblty come to a different conclusion than that made by most of the high brow media is quite frankly beyongd myine & Scott's comprehension. Unless you are either A) Stupid. B) Being deliberately argumentative for the sake of a debate.

 

Just look at the (most important newspaper in the world that is far more highbrow than the likes of The Sun FFS) New York Times (which I included in the link):

 

Squirming, but Watching a Dying Reality Star

New York Times By SARAH LYALL

Published: February 19, 2009

 

LONDON — Before television shined its warped light on her, Jade Goody was surely destined for a life of hardship and obscurity. Crude-talking, hard-drinking, overweight, barely educated, in debt, the child of drug addicts, she appeared on the reality show “Big Brother” in 2002 as a kind of token lowlife.

 

Jade Goody on Thursday leaving her home in Essex, England. As she succumbs to cancer, cameras are a constant presence.

 

But something about Ms. Goody, then 21, struck a chord — even if it was a patronizing one — in a restless nation searching for ways to allay its millennial boredom. She became a bona fide media star, a working-class Paris Hilton. Britons eagerly devoured every detail of her life, no matter how banal. They worked out to her exercise videos, bought her perfume, read her autobiography and, when she made racist remarks about an Indian actress on “Celebrity Big Brother” in 2007, angrily turned against her.

 

Now they are watching her die.

 

Ms. Goody, who has two young sons, learned she had cervical cancer last August, on camera, as she appeared in the Indian version of “Big Brother.”

The cancer has since spread to her liver, bowel and groin; on Friday, her doctors told her there was nothing more they could do.

 

And then she told the British public.

 

“I’ve lived my whole adult life talking about my life,” she explained on Sunday in The News of the World, one of the media outlets that have bought the rights to her end-of-life story. “I’ve lived in front of the cameras. And maybe I’ll die in front of them.”

 

This is reality television carried out to its most extreme, grotesque conclusion, one not even envisioned in the film “The Truman Show” all those years ago. The question of why, exactly, the story is so compelling — how to negotiate the line between poignant and voyeuristic, whether newspapers are exploiting Ms. Goody or she is exploiting them — has twisted the media into knots, even as they provide daily updates on Ms. Goody’s deteriorating condition and state of mind.

 

They are motivated partly by guilt. Many newspapers have been intermittently nasty about Ms. Goody, holding her up as a sorry symbol of vulgarian, instant-gratification Britain, “someone who achieved a sort of fame for having displayed her incalculable stupidity on television,” as Rod Liddle wrote in The Spectator. Some people even suggested at first, as have many anti-Jade sites on the Internet, that she did not really have cancer but was just trying to get publicity.

 

Now that she is dying, many of the same papers are now squirming with unease at their collusion in the endless building up, knocking down and exploitation of a woman they always counted on to increase their own sales.

 

Every time Ms. Goody, now 27, leaves the hospital, hunched in a wheelchair, her head wrapped in a scarf, the cameras are there to watch. They were there when her 21-year-old boyfriend, Jack Tweed — recently released from prison after serving time for assault, and wearing an electronic ankle bracelet — proposed to her after hearing her grim prognosis. They were there when the couple went to Harrods to pick out her wedding dress, and to Tiffany to pick out their rings.

 

The wedding is scheduled for this Sunday, and the celebrity magazine OK! has reportedly paid more than $1 million for the rights to cover it. Mr. Tweed, who has reportedly secured permission to break his court-mandated curfew so he can attend the reception, has said, “She’ll be down that aisle — even in her hospital bed.” Elton John has reportedly offered the use of one of his houses for their honeymoon, if there is one. The whole thing is to be filmed by the cable channel that is following Ms. Goody’s cancer struggle in a program called “Jade’s Progress.”

 

“The whole country will be worried and anxious about her health,” Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain told reporters at his monthly news conference on Wednesday.

 

“We’re all obsessed with it — broadsheet and tabloid audiences are alike in being transfixed,” said Julia Hobsbawm, chief executive of the media analysis firm Editorial Intelligence. “I don’t know who’s doing the exploiting, but it’s very, very compelling.”

 

Some are arguing that Jade, as everyone calls her, should reclaim some of the dignity she sold years ago by doing her dying at home, alone. “Please, please, please demand some privacy now, for your own sake and your children’s,” Jane Ennis, former editor of the celebrity magazine Now, where Ms. Goody had a column and appeared frequently on the cover, wrote in The Daily Mail. After the racist remarks that led to the debacle on “Celebrity Big Brother,” the magazine printed an article titled, “Jade We Hate You.”

 

The alternative school of thought is that Ms. Goody, far from being a pawn, has seized control for the first time, cannily leveraging the only commodity she has ever had — her life — to secure her children’s future.

 

“I know some people don’t like what I’m doing, but at this point, I don’t really care what other people think,” she told The News of the World.

 

Perhaps she feels there is really no other choice.

 

“Presumably she’s become desensitized to the media because, to some extent, she only exists now in front of the cameras,” Ms. Hobsbawm said

 

Ms. Goody’s publicist, Max Clifford, said that there were no plans to broadcast the moment of his client’s death. He explained that she had three reasons for wanting to spend her last days in public: to earn money to leave to her children; to keep busy through the horror of dying; and to alert young women to the need to have regular tests to detect early signs of cervical cancer.

 

Since Ms. Goody’s diagnosis, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of British women seeking such tests, a phenomenon doctors are calling “the Jade Goody effect.”

 

In short it is as clear as clear could be, that filming was originally going to continue until her death. Although as stated her actual death was not going to be televised. It was only later due to the public media outcry that Max Clifford announced the change of plan to stop filming after her wedding.

 

 

russel brand's thoughts from his blog

 

Comedian Russell Brand has paid tribute to the late Jade Goody in his blog.

 

The comic said he dislikes the "fetishisation of grief" that greets public figures' deaths, but claimed it is "understandable" in the case of Goody.

 

"Sentimentality is often called the unearned emotion and intrusive carnivals of public mourning unsettle me," he said. "In the case of Jade Goody however it is understandable to feel morose. She was a young mum from an awful background who got a break and shrewdly capitalised on it."

 

Brand also confessed to spending time with the Big Brother star at the Edinburgh festival when they were under the same management.

 

"We all hung out, me my mum, Jade, some people from the agency and a few of my mates," he said. "She was a right laugh, she joined in with everyone and created a garrulous giddy vibe in bars and cars that elevated the perfunctory time between shows into something which retrospectively seems more special now than it did then."

 

He continued: "One of the charges often levelled at Jade was that she was just a normal girl with no trade or practised skills. Well people didn't care and our heroes are not prescribed to us, we have the right to choose them and the people chose Jade.

 

"Fame has long been bequeathed by virtue of wealth and birth and this was the first generation where it was democratically distributed by that most lowbrow of modern phenomena - reality television."

 

Speaking about the media's response to her death, he added: "I hope some of the lessons of this modern fairy tale are learned, that the people who aspired to be like Jade observe the price she paid.

 

"I hope her sons are ok and that on some imperceptible level contrition is felt by the media that gave Jade Goody everything."

 

scource... digital spy.

 

this highlights what i like about brand, his use of the english language, and his observation on the 'jade goody circus' is spot on imho.

 

mind you, no doubt 'brand haters' will use this as another way to attack him and her <_<

 

Brand makes one or two legit general points, but using Jade and Reality TV as his example is just incorrect IMO.... There have been plenty of examples of "working class lads/lasses" made good... The case in particular of four bright young things from a humble background in Liverpool and going on to becoming the greatest musical phenomenon this country has ever known.... ie, The Beatles... They had talent, they had nous, great wit and intelligence (especially John Lennon, probably the best example of a working class intellectual that there ever was), they took the world by storm more or less on THEIR terms, and they truly inspired talented people from the working classes to go out there and better themselves, because if a bunch of scouse scallies could do it, they might have achieved it as well.....

 

Reality TV is NOT about 'empowering the proles' as Russell would have it, it's about a bunch of middle class media w/ankers such as Endemol putting up these very same proles for public ridicule and amusement..... If Jade had never gotten cancer and never died, her exploitation would have continued and it would have made the likes of Clifford and Endemol even richer.... As it is anyway, whatever money Jade and her kids have gotten out of this, you can be damned sure that Endemol made about 10 or 20 times that......

 

And Rob, Rich is right, you seriously need to wake up to the fact that Jade and the Reality TV machine would happily have let the cameras keep on rolling in her very moment of death.... They were stopped only by Clifford, and prob the only reason for that was that probably more money could be made out of televising the funeral..... He's been proven right given the fact that about three different companies are in a bidding war to televise the funeral.....

 

Brand makes one or two legit general points, but using Jade and Reality TV as his example is just incorrect IMO.... There have been plenty of examples of "working class lads/lasses" made good... The case in particular of four bright young things from a humble background in Liverpool and going on to becoming the greatest musical phenomenon this country has ever known.... ie, The Beatles... They had talent, they had nous, great wit and intelligence (especially John Lennon, probably the best example of a working class intellectual that there ever was), they took the world by storm more or less on THEIR terms, and they truly inspired talented people from the working classes to go out there and better themselves, because if a bunch of scouse scallies could do it, they might have achieved it as well.....

 

Reality TV is NOT about 'empowering the proles' as Russell would have it, it's about a bunch of middle class media w/ankers such as Endemol putting up these very same proles for public ridicule and amusement..... If Jade had never gotten cancer and never died, her exploitation would have continued and it would have made the likes of Clifford and Endemol even richer.... As it is anyway, whatever money Jade and her kids have gotten out of this, you can be damned sure that Endemol made about 10 or 20 times that......

 

And Rob, Rich is right, you seriously need to wake up to the fact that Jade and the Reality TV machine would happily have let the cameras keep on rolling in her very moment of death.... They were stopped only by Clifford, and prob the only reason for that was that probably more money could be made out of televising the funeral..... He's been proven right given the fact that about three different companies are in a bidding war to televise the funeral.....

 

Brand was commenting on a current news item, not something which happened well over 40 years ago! And saying that The Beatles story is more deserving because John Lennon could be considered a working-class intellectual and Jade was poorly educated (or was poor at learning...take your pick!) is utterly ridiculous.

 

I'm sure Jade was well aware that the likes of Endemol were making far more from the "circus" than she was making for her family and I'm sure that she'd probably have been more than a little annoyed by it. But moreover, she was simply determined to make as much money as she possibly could for her kids' sake.

 

You may be right about Jade's view on having her actual death filmed, but that's not something I'd even like to begin to speculate about.

 

And whomever "wins" (ugh, that word sounds obscene when used in this context) the TV rights for the funeral, you can add me to the list of people who won't be watching.

Brand was commenting on a current news item, not something which happened well over 40 years ago! And saying that The Beatles story is more deserving because John Lennon could be considered a working-class intellectual and Jade was poorly educated (or was poor at learning...take your pick!) is utterly ridiculous.

 

I'm sure Jade was well aware that the likes of Endemol were making far more from the "circus" than she was making for her family and I'm sure that she'd probably have been more than a little annoyed by it. But moreover, she was simply determined to make as much money as she possibly could for her kids' sake.

 

You may be right about Jade's view on having her actual death filmed, but that's not something I'd even like to begin to speculate about.

 

And whomever "wins" (ugh, that word sounds obscene when used in this context) the TV rights for the funeral, you can add me to the list of people who won't be watching.

 

I made the Beatles comparison because that's where we've gone from to what we have now, which is basically ridiculing stupid, desperate and thick people.... As a side-bar to that, we also have in another thread the guy from a Realilty Talent show being denied his right to put out his own album because of a totally unfair contract which he was duped into signing by a hardened industry operator like Simon Fuller....

 

These "reality" shows do NOT empower the masses, that's my whole point.... Russell Brand is totally wrong if he thinks they do..... It's a bunch of upper middle class, Oxbridge educated media pros exploiting the poorly educated plebs for their own amusement and financial ends..... And it is simply WRONG......

 

In short it is as clear as clear could be, that filming was originally going to continue until her death. Although as stated her actual death was not going to be televised. It was only later due to the public media outcry that Max Clifford announced the change of plan to stop filming after her wedding.

Then I think this has all been a big misunderstanding. As I understand it, me and Rob thought you were taking the comment to mean the actual moment of death was going to be caught on film (i.e. from when she went from living to no longer living) rather than her last few weeks being filmed.

 

I wouldn't have thought there would be such a big reaction to that. I'm sure there have been loads of documentaries that have followed people with illnesses where, at the end, it says something along the lines of "a week after this was filmed, X lost their battle with Y disease". I guess the difference here is that those documnetaries usually have some class, these fly on the wall shows don't.

I made the Beatles comparison because that's where we've gone from to what we have now, which is basically ridiculing stupid, desperate and thick people.... As a side-bar to that, we also have in another thread the guy from a Realilty Talent show being denied his right to put out his own album because of a totally unfair contract which he was duped into signing by a hardened industry operator like Simon Fuller....

 

These "reality" shows do NOT empower the masses, that's my whole point.... Russell Brand is totally wrong if he thinks they do..... It's a bunch of upper middle class, Oxbridge educated media pros exploiting the poorly educated plebs for their own amusement and financial ends..... And it is simply WRONG......

 

To a very minor extent, I believe they do. However, I also believe that they do far more harm than good. So, why is it that I still find the lure of the entertainment value of X-Factor impossible to resist? <<< (rhetorical question! And the only reality TV that I watch :P )

 

 

To a very minor extent, I believe they do. However, I also believe that they do far more harm than good. So, why is it that I still find the lure of the entertainment value of X-Factor impossible to resist? <<< (rhetorical question! And the only reality TV that I watch :P )

 

As a music lover, I have absolutely no problems in resisting the lure of X-Factor mate..... :P :lol:

 

I still really dont see how they empower anyone in the long-run..... Although, at least you do concede they do more harm than good..... :)

 

As I see it, these people who are responsible for these "reality" shows are the heir apparents of that lot in the 50s and 60s who went out to "deepest Africa" to make "documentaries" about native women with big tits performing "fertility rites" for the amusement of their chums...... Instead of "native women" in Africa, they are now exploiting "native women" from Essex housing estates..... :rolleyes:

]In short it is as clear as clear could be, that filming was originally going to continue until her death. Although as stated her actual death was not going to be televised.

 

EXACTLY!!!!!!! .......... that is precisely what i and everyone else has been saying!

 

richard, everytime we disagree, its usually because you dont actually read or understand what im saying....

Then I think this has all been a big misunderstanding. As I understand it, me and Rob thought you were taking the comment to mean the actual moment of death was going to be caught on film (i.e. from when she went from living to no longer living) rather than her last few weeks being filmed.

 

exactly! .... there was never any doubt, and ive said that on numerous occassions, that her gradual demise would be followed, it was her actual moment of death that scott still insists she mean <_< that we never believed for 1 moment, nor did anyone else i know in real life! NO ONE thought she meant her actual moment of death.... only scott.

 

and again, scotts on about 'talent'... SHE NEVER HAD ANY, she couldnt 'learn' any, she was an unfortunate case of a nobody who by stoke of luck found herself with 1 opportunity to make some money... now i dont like the celeb culture, hello, ok, etc are $h!te mags feeding bollox to idiots, but i dont blame jades lifestyle decision at all..... 2 choices, obscurity in poverty and struggle, or a tawdry life of wealth and comfort doing what she did... NO BRAINER!

I wish I could be convinced by Max Clifford that there were no initial plans to keep the cameras rolling at the point of death, but frankly, I'm not, he probably put the brakes on and just doesn't want to admit how close it actually came to being a reality (pardon the pun).... They'd've done it IF they could've gotten away with it, these media types really have no scruples or morals, people are just a commodity to them to be bought and sold... The only thing stopping them would be the legal and ethical questions.... They pretty much came as close as they could to actually doing it.. Next time something like this happens, perhaps there wont even be the pulling back from the "cliff's edge"....

 

Mind you, I reckon this whole situation kind of crossed quite a few ethical boundaries as it was.... As for the televising of the funeral.... :puke2:

and again, scotts on about 'talent'... SHE NEVER HAD ANY, she couldnt 'learn' any, she was an unfortunate case of a nobody who by stoke of luck found herself with 1 opportunity to make some money... now i dont like the celeb culture, hello, ok, etc are $h!te mags feeding bollox to idiots, but i dont blame jades lifestyle decision at all..... 2 choices, obscurity in poverty and struggle, or a tawdry life of wealth and comfort doing what she did... NO BRAINER!

 

That's my whole problem with Reality TV, people being "famous" for having no talent and no ability other than shouting lots, attention seeking and being stupid.....

 

Yeah, how "empowered" we all are by it.....

 

That's my whole problem with Reality TV, people being "famous" for having no talent and no ability other than shouting lots, attention seeking and being stupid.....

 

Yeah, how "empowered" we all are by it.....

 

Exactly, the death of a talented actress and member of one of Brtish theatre / cinema's dynasty's (Redgrave clan) gets barely a mention yet a screeching racist banshee gets a televised funeral and national mourning

 

As Richard Littlejohn would say - You Couldn't Make It Up