Reality TV Star Jade Goody's life to be turned into film. What are your thoughts on this?

...This woman became a Reality TV star . . . a celebrity, and the most talked about person during her (brave) battle with cancer and after her death; we must admit that she climbed the fame ladder in a very short period and became one of the most annoying and most hated celebrities for years!

To get the full picture of her life and some of her irresponsible actions, let’s start from the very beginning and we will see if there is anything ...
...to enter the British TV reality show Big Brother with two successful series, they thought to make the third and to invite contestants to apply for it . . . offering a huge sum of money for the winners and of course the media fame.

The 21-year-old dental nurse Jade goody applied for the series and she was selected from among thousands of applications: from here . . . the Goody story has been started!

In 2002 and from ... more

Last month, we heard about the ‘tragic’ death of Jade Goody. Jade Goody was an unknown person who became very famous for her strange and irresponsible actions during her short lived life and even after her death!

She is so famous that a film is proposed to be made about her . . . what’s more . . . reviews are being written about this person and my review is one of them!

I never thought that I would be going to write about her, not in a million years! Well I didn’t write about her, or her career, books and videos during her life; but I’m writing about her after her death. I don’t know what all the fuss is about Jade and her story - in my opinion I didn’t find anything special about her. I didn’t particularly like the woman, but I don’t hate her either . . . what I really hate is the path that she took, some of her actions and surely the very public way her life ended.

We all have to admit, whether we liked her or not, that she has done something for us to remember her (good or bad); this woman has managed to leave us talking about her even if we don’t want to.

We can’t just judge the book by its cover . . . That’s what I have always said . . . therefore we must look deeply into her life and then we can judge fairly.

Surely everyone has heard about the “Goody” phenomenon, if not during her life, I’m sure throughout her illness and after her death. This woman became a Reality TV star . . . a celebrity, and the most talked about person during her (brave) battle with cancer and after her death; we must admit that she climbed the fame ladder in a very short period and became one of the most annoying and most hated celebrities for years!

To get the full picture of her life and some of her irresponsible actions, let’s start from the very beginning and we will see if there is anything different or outstanding that can justify a film being made about her.

Jade . . . the making of . . . (3 .. 2 .. 1 .. action!)

Scene one: Jade . . . Her childhood and early life before Big brother.

Jade Cerisa Lorraine Goody, was born on the 5th June 1981 in Bermondsey, London, England. Her father Andrew Goody was from a mixed race (according to Jade’s statement) and a drug addict and a criminal who was imprisoned for several years. He left Jade at the age of two and her mother Jackie in order to lead his own life . . . until he was found dead from a drug overdose. Her mother Jackie brought her up on her own in very poor conditions and an unstable life. Jade did complete her education; although she wasn’t the brightest student and despite skipping school many times. Before she became famous she worked as a dental nurse to help her mother financially after losing the function of her left arm and the sight of one eye after an accident.

Scene two: First steps to fame

Everything sounded ordinary . . . her story is like many other stories and she would have carried on and maybe her life would have taken a different way if she hadn’t become famous. Anyway . . . everything has been changed since she applied to enter the British TV reality show Big Brother with two successful series, they thought to make the third and to invite contestants to apply for it . . . offering a huge sum of money for the winners and of course the media fame.

The 21-year-old dental nurse Jade goody applied for the series and she was selected from among thousands of applications: from here . . . the Goody story has been started!

In 2002 and from the moment Jade has entered the BB house she became noticed by the housemates and the public, firstly for her complete ignorance and lack of national information about her country as a British citizen; when drunk, Jade was asked, “Where is Cambridge?” and she answered . . . is it in London? And East Anglia (or “East Angular” -according to her) was abroad! Not forgetting her most famous lines about saying “Rio De Janeiro” is a person’s name!

Jade’s actions during her stay in the BB house have given rise to a lot of questions and comments about her and whether she was doing that for fame or to be noticed. I have to say that it’s the channel four fault for organising for such a low and meaningless show; I don’t know how did they carry on doing the series successfully . . . although, I have to admit that I have watched the first four series as well as Celebrity Big Brother . . . which I’m really ashamed about.

She was drunk most of the time during her stay and stripped off (completely naked) in front of her house mates . . . even the channel four had to block some scenes of her doing her striptease actions shamelessly!

Also . . . she proudly said that she was the first in Big Brother who had complete sex with one of her house mates PJ (and of course her story with pictures was on the first page of nearly every tabloid! Her ex-boyfriend was shocked to hear the news about his girlfriend running sex crazy about the house!
She was evicted and came fourth but that didn’t stop her from being the most talked about; she started her own career and refused to turn back to her past life.

Scene three: Make way for Goody (or should that be Baddy?)

From this moment on she became Britain's first reality show millionaire very fast . . . she started to look for every single opportunity to gain money and in few years she earned well over 8 million pounds. She finally took another way by fitness DVDs to show her drastic and fast figure change (although I really doubt that she did any of these fitness classes)! That’s not all . . . she launched some cook books and her famous perfume just before Christmas 2006 (which became one of the best seller perfumes!) and wrote a few autobiography books some with her early years and the last one when she was battling with cancer pictured completely bald with her two young boys.

During her seven years of being a CELEBRITY she was a constant presence on newspaper front pages, in gossip columns, magazines, game shows, and interviews making more money with 80,000+ articles being written about her; later on she was on more reality shows and another Big Brother . . . but this time it was CELEBRITY Big Brother in 2007!

When she entered the BB house for the second time, as a celebrity, her mother and boyfriend joined her as well. One of her unforgettable actions was her racism and racist comments against the beautiful Bollywood actress, Shilpa Shetty, calling her names as Shilpa Poppadom and making unsuitable racist gossip about her because she is Indian! Her mum and boyfriend were among those who bullied Ms Shetty, and her boyfriend was once caught calling her Paki . . . what made it worse was that during this period Jade was campaigning against bullying . . . which made her a double-faced liar. Soon after her racist statements, her books and DVDs, as well as her perfume were taken off the shelves; people in India, the Asian community in Britain, and around the world protested against Jade - making more than 40,000 complaints against her. Once again it was fame for Jade but this time for being racist! She later apologised for her deed and stated that she was ashamed of herself but I didn’t think she was honestly regretting it; I felt she was only trying to save her public image!

Scene four: Her personal life exposed when cancer struck

She had cervical cancer and was still looking for fame. . .

On the 17th August 2008 she tried to rectify what she had done and agreed to participate in an Indian version of big brother called Bigg Boss as she offered £100, 000 trying to clear the air about the Shilpa Shetty incident. Unfortunately, 2 days later she was informed that she had to head back to the UK for further investigations of her cervical cancer.

This fatal disease had spread into her liver, groin and bowel . . . the last few chapters of her short life had been written.

Did she try to live her remaining few months in peace? No; she used the media again to earn extra cash from selling her story about her battle against the cancer, more TV shows and interviews, opening a second beauty salon and finally selling her “exclusive fairytale wedding” photos and coverage for millions; she admitted that she is doing that for money, saying that she wanted as much money as she can to secure her kids’ life (yeah? sounds fair . . . but, Jade, isn’t £8 million and a big family house more than enough for your kids?)
I must mention her campaign to raise awareness for young women aged (25-29) to have an early cervical screen to detect any early abnormal signs; Jade was proud she had done something good for real! Later the NHS reviewed their policy concerning not offering screening for cervical cancer until the age of 25.

Final scene: deathbed

Ironically . . . she died on Mother’s day on the 22nd March 2009 during her sleep . . . not a nice present for her; her children were devastated and so was her mother. I felt really sorry for the boys . . . everyone has the right to have their mum’s love and care . . . they are still toddlers.

Leave her alone

So please have mercy on us and let her rest in peace!
Should they make a film out of Jade’s story? ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

I heard about a possibility of making a film based mainly on Jade's second autobiography “Catch a Falling Star” . . . what do I think of the idea?

NO! I don’t think they should. We have had enough of Jade Goody over the last seven years; enough of Jade’s books, autobiography, naked, racist, ignorant, irresponsible, sex-crazy, money-hungry and media-hungry Jade!

Nothing different happened in her life; she was lucky to have the money, but she left it all to her so called husband and the poor children who might take their mum’s path because they will be raised by their grandmother!

What are they going to picture her as in the movie? She was not Mother Teresa! No, she was a normal woman who lived a rough and difficult childhood and led a messy life running after fame and money; in my opinion shooting that film will make her public image worse. People trying to forget her could not; the film may hurt her family for picturing her that way and even her children, in the future.

I believe the media has told us enough about the late Jade Goody; if (someone) is interested enough to know about her, her articles and pictures are archived. She is also all over the net as her stories were featured day by day.

Some people will disagree with me saying that a lot of stories are made about ordinary people, and other stories are written and filmed about celebrities and famous actors, musicians, sports player and so on but I feel strongly that this one in particular won’t even add anything new apart from gaining some sympathy for Jade. Will it raise awareness for cervical cancer? We don’t need a tragic film and a few tears to be aware! I won’t say this film will fail if it were made . . . simply because people LIKE to hear a little gossip about a celebrity (if I can call her a celebrity) and with a good fund and an expert director, I’m sure it would make its way to the UK and make box office records (and yet again another fortune to make?) and Jade will be on the first page again even after her tragic death!

I will not watch that film because I already knew everything about her but who knows?

Jade . . . A shooting star that has fallen deeply into the ground . . .

PS...I just heard a news flash yesterday about Jade Goody's diary released...is that the first step towards the making of the unwanted film? watch this space!

Thank you for reading.

© Karimkha ~~~ April ~~~ 2009

 

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