Author |
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Des (Des)
Username: Des
Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.145.36.243
| Posted on Sunday, March 22, 2009 - 09:38 am: | |
The rollercoaster ride of reality finishes for someone every second of the day. RIP Do not marvel that some of us care about the abitrary one. Just marvel that we care about the arbitrary sometimes at all. |
Joel (Joel) Username: Joel
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.169.134
| Posted on Sunday, March 22, 2009 - 12:12 pm: | |
Arguably, in raising awareness of the importance of cervical cancer screening and the vaccination that is now available, Goody made an active contribution to culture for the first time instead of being an object of synthetic media attention based on her novelty value. We all find a way to connect with history, and 'celebrity' has nothing to do with history. Let's hope this opens the way to greater public debate about the merits (and where relevant, the drawbacks) of early diagnosis and preventive treatment for many serious conditions. The Government's decision to recommend a cervical virus inoculation that is cheaper, but more limited in its effects, than some alternatives should be more widely discussed. Perhaps seeing this death as rather less arbitrary than the career that preceded it is an appropriate mark of respect for the deceased. |
Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.241.143
| Posted on Sunday, March 22, 2009 - 01:35 pm: | |
I loathed this woman, and am not going to pretend otherwise now that she's dead (till this moment I thought it was all a big publicity-seeking put-on, such was my opinion of the way she's always conducted herself). It is very sad, however, that someone aged just 27 has died of cancer, and two young kids have lost their mother. My compassion goes out to those kids. |
Niki Flynn (Niki)
Username: Niki
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.32.69.29
| Posted on Sunday, March 22, 2009 - 03:07 pm: | |
I can't say I was a fan of her either, and I found the whole "dying on TV" spectacle incredibly distasteful. It seemed like a case of "better a freak than forgotten" and I'm glad her pain (and exploitation) is over. |
Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.241.143
| Posted on Sunday, March 22, 2009 - 03:22 pm: | |
Nicely said, Nikki. |
John (John) Username: John
Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.1.217
| Posted on Sunday, March 22, 2009 - 04:33 pm: | |
There's a vast catalogue of people who should be ashamed of themselves in Jade Goody's story, including the vile lassie herself. I don't think I've been so repulsed by coverage of someone's death since Diana Spencer - she was a vacuous media whore too. Glad it's all over. |
Des (Des)
Username: Des
Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.145.36.243
| Posted on Sunday, March 22, 2009 - 05:14 pm: | |
Fate can be freakish indeed. If the arbitrary can lead to specific good, then we should cherish the arbitrary more often. For the hidden good it might contain. Catholic (with a small c) as well as eclectic (and perhaps serendipitously random) in our secular crusades. |
Huw (Huw) Username: Huw
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.176.96
| Posted on Sunday, March 22, 2009 - 06:30 pm: | |
This whole culture that seems to have sprouted up in the last ten years or so is mind-boggling to me. It's a strange world indeed when more attention is focused on an obnoxious 'celebrity' (who isn't famous for any discernible talent) than the various tragedies occurring around the world. When did people begin to mindlessly celebrate the tacky, the vacuous, the inane? Are mediocrity and shallowness now virtues to be aspired to and to be championed? |
Des (Des)
Username: Des
Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.145.36.243
| Posted on Sunday, March 22, 2009 - 06:56 pm: | |
“The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity.” James Fenimore Cooper |
Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.111.93
| Posted on Sunday, March 22, 2009 - 06:56 pm: | |
I feel sorry for her children and the fact that an awareness campaign has had a focus over the last few months is good but I'm unhappy about this whole celebrity business and the effect it has on children in general. |
Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.20.31.211
| Posted on Sunday, March 22, 2009 - 07:03 pm: | |
>>>>“The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity.” James Fenimore Cooper "Democracy: everyone gets what nobody wants." Wayne Winston Norris and Barry Taylor, Germany, 1982. |
Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.241.143
| Posted on Sunday, March 22, 2009 - 08:41 pm: | |
Whe-hey...the Pet: the most profound TV show ever made. |
Des (Des)
Username: Des
Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.145.36.243
| Posted on Sunday, March 22, 2009 - 09:12 pm: | |
You've nailed it. |
Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.208.59
| Posted on Sunday, March 22, 2009 - 11:06 pm: | |
I'm baffled by some of these comments. Ms. Goody made the decision to stay in the public eye as long as possible simply in order to accrue as much money as possible for her now-bereaved children's lives. |
Huw (Huw) Username: Huw
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.192.157
| Posted on Monday, March 23, 2009 - 06:42 am: | |
Proto, I didn't mean to sound insensitive. I don't really know anything about this person other than what I've seen on the news once in a while (and I've always asked myself why exactly is it deemed newsworthy?). Obviously it's sad when anyone dies, and I'm sorry for the family she left behind. My comments are more directed at the whole reality game/celebrity phenomena which I personally find ridiculous and crass. |
Joel (Joel) Username: Joel
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.136.218
| Posted on Monday, March 23, 2009 - 09:08 am: | |
Indeed – and the elevation of very ordinary, untalented, incapable people to 'celebrity' status is purely motivated by profit, since these people draw more attention – INCLUDING that of people whose main topic of conversation is how appalling xxxx has been and how many stupid things they said. There are people who watch terrible films and then talk about how much more terrible they were than the previous fourteen in the same franchise. It's exactly the same principle: we watch bad art and talentless people in order to feel superior. Jade Goody was a prime example of that: set up to be despised first for her weight and second for her ignorance. Anyone who invested time and emotion in detesting her was playing the 'celebrity' game according to the rules. |
Des (Des)
Username: Des
Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.145.36.243
| Posted on Monday, March 23, 2009 - 09:38 am: | |
A horror trope that that zombie film recognised. Entertainment has always included the freaks, the charlatans, the clowns - all talented in their own because they worked. Also there are some very interesting implications here regarding the theatre of the real, of the fabricated and of the absurd...and the blurred overlapping margins between that feed into fiction and/or philosophy...imho. |
Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47
| Posted on Monday, March 23, 2009 - 11:17 am: | |
I despised the woman. She stood for everything I hate about the culture of today's "celebrity". She managed to turn dying of cancer into a tacky three ring circus for her own self-publicity. I am not going to pretend I give a damn about her and I'm truly glad that once the pantomime funeral is over we'll have heard the last of it. I do obviously feel sorry for her family (although I did while she was alive in any case) but as this woman did nothing at any time to earn respect I can see no reason why I should pretend to show any just because she's died from a common disease. |
Joel (Joel) Username: Joel
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45
| Posted on Monday, March 23, 2009 - 11:40 am: | |
The first rule of political disengagement is to make everything about personalities, not about class or profit-making social relationships. The second is to blame the pawns by asserting that they 'stand for' the system that manipulates their images for profit. The third is to allow your emotions to become locked into the play of faces and names set up for 'entertainment', and to imagine that because your emotions in relation to that fantasy-world are negative, you have risen above the situation. Internalising the fantasy that a deeply ordinary and unremarkable person deserves to be loathed and despised makes you as much a part of the 'celebrity' game as those who imagine themselves to be in love with the same person. If you were really able to detach yourself from media 'personalities', you would not have seen or heard enough of them to have emotional reactions of this kind. There is much that can be said about, and learned from, a preventable early death that goes beyond our like and dislike for the person. Does it invalidate the work of the Terrence Higgins Trust that Terrence Higgins, who was probably the first man to die from AIDS in the UK, was not generally well-liked? |
Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74
| Posted on Monday, March 23, 2009 - 12:43 pm: | |
I was hoping the subject of this person wouldn't show up on this board. We recently lost someone about whom we cared a great deal - infinitely more than her. I just didn't make a row about it, and I don't want any sympathy now, thanks. But Christ, Gordon Brown's statement about the woman's death struck me as so grotesque it was beyond inventing. |
Des (Des)
Username: Des
Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.145.36.243
| Posted on Monday, March 23, 2009 - 01:09 pm: | |
I apologise for starting the thread then. That's probably what I meant by my first statement: The rollercoaster ride of reality finishes for someone every second of the day. RIP It's intriguing though how it can be a thread that divides people. Encompassing many strains in society, as well as artistic/philosophical considerations that I find interesting and have follwed meticulously in the rite of passage that is 'Big Brother' for me and many others (in different ways). I'm quite happy for this thread I started to be deleted. |
Des (Des)
Username: Des
Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.145.36.243
| Posted on Monday, March 23, 2009 - 01:46 pm: | |
Actually, my wife agrees with Ramsey! And, btw, I myself also agree about the Gordon Brown statement. I think I feel about the Jade Goody death in the same way as I thought about the Princess Di death. Interesting. |
Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243
| Posted on Monday, March 23, 2009 - 02:04 pm: | |
Des, you are a fascinating man. And I mean that seriously. |
Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74
| Posted on Monday, March 23, 2009 - 02:13 pm: | |
Don't worry, Des, we don't delete threads here. You're thinking of Shockl - Shoc - Sh - |
Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 160.6.1.47
| Posted on Monday, March 23, 2009 - 04:39 pm: | |
But what do any of us know really? On reflection, I think Joel's completely right -- I shouldn't have an opinion on this. |
Des (Des)
Username: Des
Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.145.36.243
| Posted on Monday, March 23, 2009 - 04:49 pm: | |
I shouldn't have an opinion on this. =========== The quote below that I personally picked out from the Avignon Quincunx is one I have as a programmed 'signature' on my emails: "From the cosmic point of view, to have opinions or preferences at all is to be ill." Lawrence Durrell |
Joel (Joel) Username: Joel
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45
| Posted on Monday, March 23, 2009 - 05:08 pm: | |
What we certainly can take a stance on is the flooding of our 'news' media with manufactured and bogus pseudo-personal viewpoints that encourage us to view the world in the terms of a simplistic and false emotionalism. This is one aspect of the way in which the awareness level of press and broadcasting has been degraded by the Murdoch empire and its imitators. Des, I don't find 'Big Brother' poses any philosophically interesting questions. But I do feel it exemplifies Debord's 'society of the spectacle', and vividly demonstrates why that society needs to be brought crashing down in order to create space for real human thought, feeling and communication. Nothing could be less appropriate than building up personal hatred for the performers. If they're stupid, what does that make the viewer? Who's paying for it all: us or them? |
Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.30.234
| Posted on Monday, March 23, 2009 - 05:28 pm: | |
BB is the Coliseum - the lions are the press/the viewers and the victims - everyone. We all lose. What next I wonder. |
Des (Des)
Username: Des
Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.145.36.243
| Posted on Monday, March 23, 2009 - 06:04 pm: | |
Nothing changes vis a vis human behaviour, just the frames for analysing it or crudely scrying it. BTW, if Aesthetics is a branch of Philosophy, then Reality TV poses some interesting philosophical points. Philosophy is not necessarily didactic or positive. In fact, much Philosophy is negative from the viewpoint of many people. |
Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200
| Posted on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 07:26 pm: | |
I’d rather hoped this thread wouldn’t appear as well. But, as it has . . . I don’t think Gordon Brown had much choice but to say something about Mrs Tweed. He’d’ve been hounded by the press if he hadn’t. I think he’s been as low key about it as he could probably manage to be. He has, in recent years, aligned himself closely with the work done by another young cancer sufferer, the now late Adrian Sudburry, best known for his Baldy’s Blog, and for campaigning in his dying days for the introduction of better schooling about bone marrow donation and registers. I would have liked Brown to have diverted his tributes by way of mentioning the work he’d done there, but Brown was no doubt aware of how it would look politically. |
Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.241.143
| Posted on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 08:53 pm: | |
Or he was trying to curry favour with the Heat-reading, Sun-reading voters for the next election. But, no. That would be far too cynical. |
Des (Des)
Username: Des
Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.145.36.243
| Posted on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 10:27 pm: | |
The Mirror was full of Jade-sympathetic stuff today. (I today visited my elderly Mum who has read the Mirror all her life - that's my excuse for reading it today). So I agree with Zed - currying favour with all manner of left-wing and right-wing Jadeites. |
Steve Bacon (Stevebacon)
Username: Stevebacon
Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.211.103.83
| Posted on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 10:37 pm: | |
The front of the papers today suggested her funeral might be comparable with that of Princess Diana, in terms of spectacle. We need to remember what has happened and get some perspective, in my opinion. |
Des (Des)
Username: Des
Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.145.36.243
| Posted on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 10:44 pm: | |
Yes, decry the phenomenon or not, one has to unpick why you decry it and why it is even there at all to be unpicked. I watched both Jade Goody Big Brother series so I probably 'know' her better than most people here...and I can't unpick it. |
Steve Bacon (Stevebacon)
Username: Stevebacon
Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.211.103.83
| Posted on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 11:09 pm: | |
The sad thing to remember is that, had Jade never entered Big Brother, she would've ended up sadly dying of cancer anyway. Just as hundreds of other people in obscurity do every week. I find it distasteful that the people who were vilifying her during the Shilpa Shetty scandal are now deifying her like some kind of Cancer Campaign Queen. It's important that people do gain something from her death - witness the publicity towards smear-testing - but surely the people exploiting this sad event (namely Heat/OK!/Reveal/the tabloids, etc) are the ones who should hang their heads in shame. |
Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.159.87.217
| Posted on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 11:29 pm: | |
One problem I have with all this is that I don't like this "famous for being famous" lark. Plus, it would've been nicer if Brown had mentioned Natasha Richardson as well as/instead of Goody. |
Steve Bacon (Stevebacon)
Username: Stevebacon
Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.211.103.83
| Posted on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 11:53 pm: | |
I think that's the problem with the cult of celebrity now, Mick. How can celebrities be people like the McCanns or the Ingrams, people who are famous for simply being in the public eye? I'm sure it's been mentioned on here before, but there was a recent poll of schoolchildren where they were asked what they wanted to do when they grew up. Many of the answers were "to be a celebrity" or to be "famous", not yearnings to be actors or train drivers or footballers or pop stars. It may be allogorical, but like all allegories there's a degree of believability to it. I'm reminded of the Celebrity Big Brother in Extras. One of the celebrities was the mother of a murder victim... |
Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.78.123.166
| Posted on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 - 12:16 am: | |
I have a ten year old daughter and all week long we have been talking about this 'famous for being famous' rubbish. Thank God she's reading books and going to football training Friday. She likes all the things girls have always liked doing but actually has the ambition to do something interesting when she is older but Steve's right about the playground chatter. I've ordered this book for her... "Uglies is a 2005 science fiction novel by Scott Westerfeld. Set in a future post-scarcity dystopian world in which everyone is turned "Pretty" by extreme cosmetic surgery upon reaching 16...it tells the story of teenager Tally Youngblood who rebels against society's enforced conformity... A tiny thing to do but every little helps the fight back. |
Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47
| Posted on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - 01:09 pm: | |
Jade Goody is the Daily star equivalent of Princess Di for the express. Every friggin' day they have to run a story about how f***ing great the ignorant cow was. Star "readers" obviously have no memory because it's not so long ago the Star used to brand her an evil racist. |
Frank (Frank) Username: Frank
Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 79.187.206.46
| Posted on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - 09:09 pm: | |
Guys - I haven't seen Tony on here for ages. Is he okay? I mean, I flit in and out, but Tony's usually regular as clockwork. |
Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.122.108
| Posted on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - 09:23 pm: | |
He's got restricted internet access but hopefully he will be back with us soon. Moved house - exchanged with his dad - I think. |
Mark West (Mark_west) Username: Mark_west
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.39.177.173
| Posted on Wednesday, April 01, 2009 - 11:03 am: | |
I think Ally's right, he just has restricted access (I've had a couple of emails regarding VideoVista and I think he's put a couple of things on Facebook). |
Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.111.148
| Posted on Wednesday, April 01, 2009 - 11:14 am: | |
Whilst you are here Mark - hope everything is going well with the new novel. Is it out at the end of the year and who with again? |
Tony (Tony) Username: Tony
Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.23.233.247
| Posted on Wednesday, April 01, 2009 - 02:07 pm: | |
I don't think we can help having opinions, let alone question why we do. Recently I decided to go and see a film I didn't want to see instead of one I did, i.e. Watchmen, which I walked out of. The film was Beverley Hills Chihuahua, and it made me nearly blub three times, and inspired me once, then amazed me one other time. And it was about talking dogs. I have come to the conclusion that it is actually harmful to ur tastes to stay close to them. We need to be more random. I felt sorry for Jade dying, and think she did the best she could with her life. Her kids looked nice, and good. That's an accomplishment to me. |