» Dying Jade Goody gathers family and friends to say goodbyes as she now 'only has a short time to live'

noraleah:

My American brethren have no idea who she is (a former Big Brother competitor and one of the UK’s biggest reality stars) — but I think you can appreciate how bizarre this story is.  The woman’s dying, apparently.  She has said her goodbyes to friends and family.  There are photos of her being wheeled into a hospital.  She doesn’t look well, but she’s also wearing heavy eyeliner and she looks like she’s had some last-minute work done on her lips.

Meanwhile, she is “considering withdrawing from the public eye.”

Her publicist says that he told her:

The minute you don’t want them taking pictures, I’ll ask them not to take pictures so do let me know. […]

And she said: “No Max, I’m happy to do a photo as long it’s going to take a couple of seconds. I don’t want to stop them”.

Call me synical, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she lives to the ripe old age of 85 (I hope she does).  Sick as it is, this is tabloid catnip.  And she knows it.

This is indeed deeply horrible. But there are a couple of things that have made me think twice about this. 1) women going for pap smears in the UK have increased by 25% since Goody was originally diagnosed which is undoubtedly the most positive impact that she has made on the world ever - so even though it is tabloid fodder, tabloids have a huge impact in the UK that can’t be ignored and 2) the woman hasn’t done anything off- camera for about six years, so one can kind of understand her inability to withdraw from the spotlight when she is dying - it’s the milieu in which she is most at home. That doesn’t excuse it, per se, but I guess it kind of justifies it…or makes me feel a surprising amount of sympathy for her.

It’s tragic and horrible and a dream topic for someone’s cultural studies thesis. Maybe it’s time for me to go to back to grad school…