Rod Liddle says that the stunningly tasteless announcement of Jade Goody’s cervical cancer on Indian Big Brother marks a new low. But that won’t stop TV bosses saying it is a public service
Here’s a notable first for television — a contestant on a Big Brother programme was told, in front of a television audience, that she had cancer. The woman in question was Jade Goody, whom you may vaguely remember as the coarse, thick, Bermondsey chav who sprung to national prominence for having been allegedly racist on a previous series of the programme. This time she’s on the Indian version of Big Brother called Bigg Boss — an attempt, apparently, to convince everyone that she isn’t racist at all, but is quite happy to trouser fairly large sums of money from darkies the world over. Anyway, she was invited into what’s known as the ‘diary room’ on the programme — a booth where contestants face a remote camera and say stuff like ‘it’s doin’ my ’ead in’ when they are unhappy or ‘I’m lovin’ it’ when they’re happy or ‘I’m livin’ the dream’ when they’re extremely pleased with themselves. So Ms Goody got called in and was promptly told she had cervical cancer. Apparently she cried. The show was aired this week, without apology. Big Brother is notorious for springing surprises on its contestants and many devotees of the show will consider this the best one yet. Cancer — beat that! They did it properly too, by using Jade’s own doctor to break the news to her, instead of just the faceless hosts of the programme. That gave the whole thing a lot of dignity, I felt. It could have been just cheap and exploitative, you know? So credit to the show’s producers.
I assume she really does have cancer and that they weren’t all joking, having a bit of a laugh, ‘pulling her plonker’ as the demotic has it. Or — another consideration — that it’s a publicity stunt whipped up by Jade’s charming agent, Max Clifford. Or again, it is not inconceivable, I suppose, that written into Goody’s contract was a demand that at some point she be seen to be suffering from a potentially fatal illness, given that without one she isn’t very interesting any more. A stroke would have made for more dramatic television, but cancer, you have to say, has a certain cachet. Jade’s life expectancy as a celebrity has certainly entered its tamoxifen and radiation therapy stage, although it is not quite at the no-more-drugs-I-just-wish-to-be-at-home-with-the-family endgame. It has been a fairly brief life in the spotlight, although not brief enough for many. Calling the smug Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty ‘poppadom’ and thus causing a national furore about racism was the high point of her career; since then it’s all been downhill.
Big Brother is a bit of a comedown for cancer, too, of course. Cancer’s previous appearances in film and television have tended to be in resonant, leading roles, where the illness has been able to exploit its strong image as a deeply serious, rather baleful, life-threatening condition which exerts a necessarily transformative effect upon those with whom it has direct interaction. And now here it is, taking a cameo in Big Brother — you might well contend that it is not protecting its excellent brand, that it is but a short hop from this to ‘I’m a tumour, get me out of here’. However, I suppose cancer might argue — much as did both George Galloway and Germaine Greer, if you remember — that by appearing on such a show as Big Brother it can reach a new audience and, in the process, show itself to have a welcome lighter side. Cancer may indeed resent its old-fashioned, rather fusty ‘downbeat’ image and is perhaps anxious to prove that it is nothing if not a versatile and inclusive affliction, with a very real relevance to young people. That may be the message it wishes to get across, much as George Galloway wished to persuade people of the need to nationalise the top 100 companies and shoot the royal family, which he attempted to do on Big Brother by pretending to be a cat and lapping milk from Rula Lenska’s hands. George pronounced it a big success: and as a result it is probably only a matter of time before the workers take control of the means of production — probably as part of one of those whacky-yet-informative shows about real ishoos they have on BBC3, the channel funded by the licence fee for the benefit of Britain’s vibrant educationally subnormal community.
Jade Goody has been diagnosed with cervical cancer, so mercifully there are very good odds indeed that the poor woman will survive. An 83 per cent chance, according to the various tabloid newspapers which covered the story, provided it has been caught sufficiently early. I daresay we will be told very quickly indeed if it has not been caught early and there will be cut-out-and-keep diagrams of Jade’s cervix to help us all understand what is going on inside her. There may well be sidebar articles on the possible causes of cervical cancer and, in the rightwing tabloids, warnings about recreational sex to the nation’s young women — exposure to semen is suspected of causing pre-cancerous changes in the cervix and Ms Goody has had plenty of exposure to semen over the years, apparently.
These discussions and the continued plight of the poor young woman — her struggle with the side-effects of cancer treatment, friends and family rallying round etc — will undoubtedly be pounced upon by the makers of programmes such as Big Brother as evidence that they provide a public service; look, here is a public health issue which has arisen spontaneously from a reality TV show — and this is the whole point of reality TV shows. They are not simply cheap, mindless dross piped direct into the living rooms of our most stupid citizens, the broadcast equivalent of a KFC party bucket or a bacon double cheeseburger. No — they have gravitas, they have resonance, they enable people to understand the crucial issues which will face many of us. Jade Goody’s comments about Shilpa Shetty provoked a ‘national debate’ about racism, according to supporters of the programme. And now her ‘battle against cancer’ will provide a similar public service. On this point the broadcasters, and the broadcasting regulators, will all be in agreement.
It’s real life, you see — and sometimes we’re lovin’ it and at other times it does your ’ead in, so don’t bother yourselves with questions about dignity, perspective and taste.
