Inspite of being crude-talking, hard-drinking, overweight, barely educated, in debt, the child of drug addicts, reality TV star Jade Goody for some reason still struck a chord with a restless nation searching for ways to allay its millennial boredom. Britons eagerly lapped up to her exercise videos, bought her perfume, read her autobiography and, when she made racist remarks about an Indian actress on “Celebrity Big Brother” in 2007, angrily turned against her.

Now they will watch her die. Goody, who has two young sons, learned she had cervical cancer last August. The cancer has since spread to her liver, bowel and groin; on Friday, her doctors told her there was nothing more they could do. Now Jade Goody has decided to sell the rights to her end-of-life story.

We thought that the story envisioned in the film “Truman Show” was grotesque. But what will happen NOW IS reality TV in its most extreme form. When did we cross the line between poignant and voyeuristic? Are the newspapers exploiting Goody or is she exploiting them?

Some are arguing that Jade should reclaim some of the dignity she sold years ago by doing her dying at home, alone. But somehow I am compelled to think that, by choosing to sell her inevitable and nearing death, Jade Goody has taken control of her life for the first time, in order to secure her children’s future. Maybe used to living her life before the media and de-sensitized to it by now, she simply sees no other choice any longer.

Via : International Herald Tribune