Jade Goody, we hardly knew ye

So on Mother's Day of this year, Jade Goody finally left us for good. Since the revelation of her cancer - and indeed, since her TV debut in 2002 - she has been a controversial figure for many, especially so during her final days. With the Jade Goody gags already doing the rounds, I thought an appropriate blog post this time round be to voice my thoughts on the woman, her 'legacy' and her career.

I apologise in advance if this offends anybody, I hope it doesn't amount at any point to speaking ill of the dead or libel; by the same token I have no interest in pandering to the public opinion of an individual in light of her struggle.

I am no fan of Jade Goody. I was no fan of Big Brother or its celebrity equivalent either, but that didn't stop me watching the show for however many years before finally giving up as it got more and more convoluted. The point is, while I may have disliked her while she was on my screen, the fact of the matter is that nobody forced me to watch Jade Goody on my TV, and it was my fault for watching and finding her annoying. As amusing as a lot of what she said was, it's a bit harsh for people to totally dismiss the girl on the basis of being essentially an ordinary English girl in this day and age, with perhaps a less than average intelligence. I'm also inclined to detest anyone associated with a certain PR expert, because he is fairly well documented as a man without scruples.

The whole Big Brother 'racism' incident is, to me, not an example of racism so much as an example of total ignorance. And there's a great deal more ignorance and stupidity in the world than thinking that all people in the East eat with their fingers, don'tcha thing?

Let's give the girl some credit here. She may have seemed stupid, but either she was actually a lot smarter than she seemed or she surrounded herself with very smart people (which in itself is a clever thing to do). She sold her name brilliantly, doing TV shows, books, perfumes, all sorts of merchandising based on no discernible talent whatsoever, although I'd suggest she at the very least was a good business woman. To be honest, I can't really fault her for that. One of the reasons why, as a music journalist and fan, I've always found it so hard to call a band or artist a sellout is because... well, money matters. And I think most of us would be hard pressed to make the 'right' decision when so much money is involved.

Which brings us to her last days. Any gossip magazine had a story about Jade every week from her diagnosis to her death. Jade has herself admitted that since she was dying, she cashed in on that to cement a future for her children. Now anyone willing to take the criticism she took for that decision, sacrificing her own credibility for the needs of her children, deserves applause. Anyone willing to undertake all of the horror of cancer in the public eye, just to solidify her children's future, deserves praise. And anyone who helps raise awareness of cancer, even if only one case that otherwise would've slipped through the net is find, deserves a medal.

Jade Goody may have been a lot of things both positive and negative. But at the end of the day, she never did anything bad that you couldn't avoid by turning off your TV or putting down the newspaper; and the good that she did was probably well worth all of that.