A brave young woman

Around two weeks ago I was going to write about Jade Goody. My blog wasn’t going to praise her or her agents, far from it. I was actually going to write about the distasteful idea of having poor Jade die in front of the cameras.

However when I first heard news about her death, I couldn’t but help feel so very sad. I never really liked her, nor was I a fan, but I did see a very genuine person, who seemed to be a good mother to her children and tried to give them everything she hadn’t had in her childhood. With a lump in my throat, I thought “life is so damn short isn’t it?”

Her first claim to fame was taking off all her clothes on one drunken night in the first “Big Brother” Edition in the U.K., which was referred to as the ‘Kebab Incident’ and proceeding to win the competition, where no talent is needed. Loud-mouthed, but extremely charismatic, she was your typical ‘Nouveau’ celebrity. A young daughter of two ex self-confessed drug addicts, with no enviable I.Q. and no real talent, but with an infectious personality, which drew audiences and made her one of the most photographed and sought after celebrity.

Young British women could relate to her. One could easily be a ‘Jade Goody.’ Stars like Victoria Beckham are hard to emulate, the painfully thin image is hard to acquire by the average woman, Keira Knightley’s abs and pout are also a difficult act to follow, but Jade gave them something more ‘real’. Even when she entered the ‘Big Brother’ House for the second time joined by her boyfriend and eccentric ‘turned lesbian’ mother, people where glued to their TV screens wondering what she had in store for them.

And …Boy did she give them something to talk about. All hell broke loose following her ‘live’ dispute with Bollywood Star Shilpa Shetty. Newspapers were quick to call her a racist and people across the nation were shocked at her behaviour, which they deemed unacceptable. Pretty soon, it started to seem like her idea to re enter the ‘Big Brother’ House wasn’t so good after all, she was sent hate letters and threatened, her perfumes were taken off all shelves and people started to question why they had grown to love this reality TV star in the first place.

However a very bitter twist to her life, might have been just what no P.R. person could’ve thought up at a time when her career was holding onto a very thin thread!

Goody was diagnosed with cervical cancer last August while she was taking part in the Indian version of ‘Big Brother’ Her choice to star in a reality show about her fight with cancer and ultimately her death was met by many as a morbid idea, but she stated that if she had gained her fame on a Reality Show, then she would die on one too.

Many argued that she helped raise awareness amongst women of all ages, others were horrified at the thought of seeing her suffer live on TV with the knowledge that someone was making big bucks and taking a good old fashioned ride on that band wagon!!!

And now I’m writing about her two weeks after her death….and even though it makes me feel bad about saying this…I think to myself …is it still of news value? and THAT scares me. We come into this world once and we try and leave our mark some way or another and yet we are so easily forgotten. Let’s hope that this young woman’s brave choice to star in her own reality show will raise awareness amongst women of all ages and urge many of them to look after their health better.