It may seem churlish, but until now, when she has but weeks to live, Blade was not overly impressed by Jade Goody. She appeared to him to be a rather unreconstructed soul, one prone to shooting first and forgetting to ask questions later, unless she was told to by her advisers.
The diagnosis a few months ago that Ms Goody is suffering from terminal cancer altered Blade’s opinion. It seemed to him sensible, indeed inevitable, that she would capitalise on her fame for a few last pay packets from the media, the funds from which will go into a fund for her children. She who has been created by the camera has every right to die by it, if she so chooses. Moreover, only a truly cynical, heartless old cove could not feel sympathy for a fellow human being told, in no uncertain terms, that her number is up. Despite years of exposure to Fleet Street, Blade isn’t yet in that category.
But increasingly Blade finds himself discombobulated by the whole thing. Being a spectator at anyone’s deathbed is unseemly and distressing. Watching the nation gear up for a mass convulsion when Ms Goody does leave this mortal coil is also disturbing. But so, too, is all the commentary.
The latest voice to opine on Jade Goody in life, and as she approaches death, is Stephen Glover’s. Writing in the Independent, Glover tells his “gentle readers” that, like them, he is not wholly sure who Jade Goody is. It is a shame that he opens thus, for he unerringly reminds us of Mr Justice Harman who, in 1990, when Paul Gascoigne was at the height of his post Italia ’90 fame, asked a court: “Who is Gazza?”
Gascoigne, himself the subject of a recent television documentary which mawkishly told us he was but months from death through alcoholism, was then suing Penguin Books over what he claimed was an unauthorised biography. The opening submission from his lawyer, Michael Silverleaf – “Mr Gascoigne is a very well-known footballer” – was met by Harman J. saying “Rugby or association?” So far, so comically well-timed, but later the judge interrupted the evidence to say: “Isn’t there an operatta called La Gazza Ladra?”
Gazza’s lawyer couldn’t say, but Glover goes on to analyse Ms Goody’s spell in the media spotlight, concluding that he loathes “the mass worship of the ordinary” that it represents. He laments the end of the good old days: “Before the last war papers like the Daily Mirror ran stories about the goings-on of the more glamorous members of aristocracy. As they faded from our national life, they were replaced by film stars and, more recently, by pop singers and sportsmen. Such people were often good-looking, and they all excelled in some way. No one had thought, until Jade Goody came along, of making a star out of someone who was neither particularly good-looking nor remotely distinguished in any field.”
Glover is a much-respected journalist and he makes a good point about the so-called ‘cult of the ordinary’. But it’s regrettable that he chooses to do so in so lofty a fashion. The idea of any British journalist not knowing Jade Goody – her media persona and travails, if not her person – is as absurd as it is patronising. Moreover, the days when we were told who to worship – by Hollywood, by slick PRs, by the media – are over. More than shows like Big Brother, the Web 2.0 world has changed our perception of what counts for glamour and success irretrievably. If he’ll forgive the pun, Glover should put his gloves on, lace them up and engage with the modern world rather than sitting in his ivory tower – and the rest of us, now that she has had her wedding, should leave Jade Goody in peace.
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