A reality TV star wants her final moments to be chronicled.
I’ve been greedily consuming every sentence of Lance Armstrong’s It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life. It’s a book where Armstrong, “a world-class athlete with a mansion on a riverbank, keys to a Porsche, and a self-made fortune in the bank”, talks about his fourth-stage testicular cancer.
It’s a book with a soul and one where Armstrong talks about death. “That is the essential truth you learn. People die. And after you learn it, all other matters seem irrelevant,” he says.
But why should Armstrong share such thoughts with us? Death is, after all, a dark, uncomfortable truth; it’s another matter that Colors recently ran a one-hour special to show a young bridegroom dying on his wedding day, or, for that matter, ran, till recently, a promo where a new-born baby girl was dunked in water. For Armstrong, the reason was simple: “All I can do is tell you what happened.”
For Jade Goody, on the other hand, money has been the prime reason why she wants to share her last days of cancer with the world. The only difference: she’s not writing her story, she’s showing it to the world, allowing cameras to mark the dilapidating condition of her body. So, from selling the rights of her last days to TV channels to even allowing magazine cameras to follow her, Goody’s made sure that even in death she’s reality television’s favourite baby.
In one of my previous columns I’d written about an American family crumbling soon after TV cameras followed their lives. From a divorce going public, to a son declaring that he was gay on TV, members of the Loud family admitted to suffering after cameras entered their humble home.
I’m frankly at a loss to describe whether Goody’s right or wrong. Reality TV has been Goody’s best friend and she’s ensuring that TV remains her children’s security blanket too. That she wants to secure them with enough money — £3 million, suggest reports — long after she’s gone makes me think, why not? Goody knows what she’s doing, she’s clearing her severely tarnished image and since baring herself on TV is what she’s always been good at, who are we to complain?
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She even has audiences like Elton John and Mohamed al-Fayed, to name just a few, observing her last journey closely. And they’re just two names that add to the vast numbers of audiences and readers who are lapping up every bit of Goody’s last moments.
She’s a smart woman, a veteran of sorts on reality television, who knows what she’s worth. Some quick deals and here she is; dying, but with a better image, even as a leading magazine gives away £700,000 for exclusive wedding pictures, a television channel gives her £100,000 to film the event and another £100,000 she gets for a television interview.
Despite having grave problems with Goody’s latest — and, alas, her final — plan, I do think it’s up to her to advertise and subsequently cash in on her death. I’m unable to deal with her entire wedding hoopla (though again, it’s a personal choice) and how her children will cope — despite all the money — in the long run. Will her husband, Jack Tweed, serving an 18-month sentence on charges of assault, ensure the goodwill of her children? Goody says she’s preparing her children, but will they be finally prepared knowing well that their grief — in the public eye — isn’t private anymore? She’s securing them financially, but will they grow to accept her death, aware that it’s been recorded for history, uploaded onto the Internet? Their mum’s last moments will always be just a click away. But is that a comforting thought?