An article by Johann Hari, that leaves me feeling a tad ambivalent on Jade...

 

Jade showed the brutal reality of Britain

She jabbed a knitting needle into the subconscious of Britain just as surely as Diana Spencer

 

There will be no rewrite of ‘Candle in the Wind’ for Jade Goody’s funeral, but in her own glottal, gobby way, she jabbed a knitting needle into the subconscious of Britain just as surely as Diana Spencer – and revealed something dark and darkening about us.

 

Why was a big-hearted, big-mouthed young woman who came fourth on a reality show back in 2002 seized on with such glee and turned into one of the most famous people in the country? Because we needed her, to salve our own soiled consciences.

 

In her short life, Jade showed how as Britain has spiralled into one of the most unequal and immobile societies on earth, we have begun to openly jeer and sneer at the people trapped at the bottom. We gleefully seized on her as “proof” that the people rotting on abandoned estates were not there because of the grim accident of birth, but because they were stupid and ugly and bigoted. And all we proved – with unwitting irony – was our own stupidity and ugliness and bigotry.

 

Here was a twenty year old girl with a noisy laugh, a quick wit, and almost no knowledge at all. She thought “East Angular” was a separate country, and wondered what currency they use in Liverpool. So the press jeered that she was “a moron”, “the High Priestess of the Slagocracy”, and “poof of Britain’s underclass”, while protestors began to appear outside the Big Brother house with signs saying “Kill the Pig.”

 

That summer, a string of images of white working class women presenting them as bestial imbeciles dominated our screens. Vicky Pollard – a single mum so thick she swaps her baby for a Westlife CD, played by a multi-millionaire private schoolboy – was becoming a national icon. A chaotic single mum established ‘Wife Swap’ as one of our favourite shows. Words of straightforward snobbish abuse – “chav” and “pikey” – were becoming acceptable again.

 

Go to any extremely unequal society – say, South Africa, or South America – and you will find a furiously suppressed sense of guilt. It’s hard not to ask, at the back of your mind: why am I here in this mansion, while they are in the slums? This guilt is resolved one way: by convincing yourself that the poor are sub-human, and don’t have feelings like you and me. Oh, the people in the barrios and townships? They’re animals! They stink! They’re stupid! Jade and Vicky and the labelling of the poor as “chavs” filled that role for us. They know nothing! They are repulsive!

Nobody wanted to stop and ask: why doesn’t Jade know much? Here’s why. Her mother was a seriously disabled drug addict, so Jade didn’t go to school much because she stayed at home to look after her. From the age of five she was in charge of doing the cooking and ironing and cleaning. Jade explained: “As early as I could remember I’d spent my whole life trying to protect my mum – frantically hiding the stolen chequebooks she used to have lying around the house when the police barged in on one of their raids; desperately denying to the teachers at school that she’d hit me for fear of being sent to social services.”

 

Her father treated her even worse. He stashed a gun under her cot, and her first memory was of him shooting heroin in her bedroom, his eyes rolling back and his body juddering. Eventually, after periods in and out of prison, he was found dead from an overdose in the toilet of a Kentucky Fried Chicken. “He died without a single vein left in his body,” Jade explained. “In the end he’d injected every single part of it and all his veins had collapsed – even the ones in his penis.”

 

Despite this, Jade always worked, in shops, for minimum wage, and stayed away from drugs (apart from weed). She applied for Big Brother because her mum was sinking into crack addiction, and she couldn’t think of any other way to avoid witnessing it. To the end, she was terrified of matches, and couldn’t bear to have tin-foil in her house, because they reminded her of crack.

 

And so she appeared in British public life – and we jeered and howled and held her up as a poster-girl for “the underclass.” Jade soon proved her latent smartness by turning her fourth-place on Big Brother into a fortune, launching her own brand of perfume, a beauty salon, and a series of sensitive, rather beautiful autobiographies, all appealing to young women who had never seen people just like them on television before. The perception of her slowly changed. As people learned about her life story – and saw her chaotic, broken mother being interviewed – many realised that their gleeful poring over her mispronunciations had been vile. The sense of superiority was, for a moment, scrambled.

 

Then came Celebrity Big Brother – and oh, how we rejoiced. Jade was placed in the house with Shilpa Shetty, a sweet, unworldly Bollywood star who had been raised with servants and never had to do anything practical for herself. She activated all of Jade’s feelings of being sneered at and patronized all her life. Jade said: “Ultimately we were fighting because we were from different classes… I didn’t want anyone to think they’re better than me, just because they have more money or have had a more educated upbringing. And, to me, she was a posh, up-herself princess.”

 

One day, Shilpa tried to flush an entire cooked chicken down the toilet. Jade – enraged and perplexed – started to scream at her. “Who the f*** are you? You aren’t some Princess in Neverland!” she yelled. She said Shilpa clearly had no idea how ordinary Indians lived, and howled: “You need a day in the slums!”

This was seized on as racist, equivalent to telling her to go back where she came from. But it wasn’t. Other housemates did indeed say despicable racist things about Shilpa: the beauty queen Danielle Lloyd said “I think she should f*** off home… She can’t even speak English properly.” But Jade didn’t: her own father was mixed-race, for one.

 

But here was a way we could rehabilitate our Jaded view of the white working class – and feel self-righteous about it too. If we can’t feel superior to the poor because they are stupid, then we can feel superior to them because they are racist. One newspaper ran the typical headline “Class vs Trash” over a picture of Shilpa and Jade, while a columnist huffed that Jade's problem was "hating her social superiors". Once more, we could hate the poor and feel good about it too.

 

And even when she was dying, we continued to jeer. Nobody said John Diamond was “exploiting” his cancer by writing about it in The Times – but Jade’s decision to talk about it on TV so she could leave a pot of cash for her kids was apparently evidence of her “vulgarity.” One newspaper huffs that now we will be subjected to “a chav state funeral.”

 

Even as she rots, we still want to see Jade Goody as a “chav” imbecile, subconsciously reassuring us that our own higher place in the class pyramid is earned by our intellect and sensitivity and anti-racism, rather than by the fluke of birth.

 

Believe that if you want – but you should know it’s not Jade you are condemning, but yourself.

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.....

 

i dont LIKE it scott, but its here and unfortunately legitimate, therefore she had every right to drag herself out of the gutter (well almost), it aint HER you should dispise but all of the idiot fans she exploited. without them she and her like, wouldnt exist.

JADE'S FUNERAL IS A FAKE...

 

JADE GOODY'S final resting place is being kept secret to keep ghoulish fans away.

 

Her grieving family are trying to fool freaks and sickos by dropping false hints about possible burial plots.

 

A source revealed last night: “Jade’s loved ones are desperate for her to be buried with dignity and to rest fully in peace.

 

“They want to be able to bury Jade in private and to keep the location a secret.

 

“Sadly, they know there are ghouls and freaks out there who might turn up at the grave site looking for souvenirs.”

 

Her family have already leaked information that Jade is being buried in Epping Forest, Essex, in a “green” grave.

 

DAILY STAR VIDEOS: SHOWBIZ NEWS AS IT BREAKS!

 

It was also hinted she would be laid to rest in a cemetery near her home in Upshire, Essex.

 

But the Daily Star can reveal that neither of these options will be taken up.

 

Instead, Jade will be buried in an unmarked grave at a secret location.

 

The Daily Star knows the details but has agreed not to reveal where it is.

 

At a later date the family will arrange a memorial to the mum-of-two, who lost her battle with cervical cancer last month at the age of just 27.

 

The family will head to the grave after tomorrow’s funeral at St John the Baptist Church in Buckhurst Hill.

 

DAILY STAR SPORT: FOOTBALL, IN THE RING AND MUCH MUCH MORE...

 

Newspapers and TV crews have agreed to respect the family’s wishes by not following the hearse.

 

But fans have blasted TV chiefs over plans to limit coverage of Jade’s funeral to news bulletins.

 

They are angry BBC and ITV are restricting coverage to just short snippets and won’t interrupt their usual scheduling for live pictures. Sky plans to cover the event live – but only on its news channel.

 

And there will be no TV cameras inside church. Jade’s family have demanded that her funeral is not turned into a media circus.

 

Meanwhile, flowers from David Beckham and his family were on display in the funeral parlour in Bermondsey yesterday.

 

A simple message said: “Our thoughts are with your family and friends at this sad time.”

 

And council leaders in Bermondsey, where Jade was born, have announced plans to pay tribute to the star with a “Blue Plaque” on her former home.

Taken from Daily Star so make of it as you will.

Trust Charlie Brooker to hit the bullseye regarding the public & the media's fascination with Jade Goody:

 

Charlie Brooker's Newswipe S1E2P1

 

Charlie Brooker's Newswipe S1E2P2

 

Charlie Brooker's Newswipe S1E2P3

 

Especially part 3.

As if the Daily Star would know where the true funeral was and not say anything!

As if the Daily Star would know where the true funeral was and not say anything!

 

Well they probably would tbh

 

The Express and Star are published by the same group and has the same owner as OK Magazine (porn baron Richard Desmond)

 

8 page pullout in the News of The World, and the first 7 pages of the paper all dedicated to Jade. -_- :rolleyes: NO COMMENT

ffs.... shes dead.... let her go, its over... (oh i know merchandising will come along soon <_< )

does anyone know the name of the song used on her funeral it was song by a woman it was a lovely song played by sky news also ove rthe part of the joourney of her coffin leaving the church