Monday, January 22, 2007

Made by the press, undone by the press

The critics are outraged by Jade Goody: as if they were not expecting the very notion of dumbed-down, cheap, voyeuristic TV to backfire at some point

For years we were helpless witnesses of the plague-like mushrooming of celebrity programmes and their satellite-magazines. All we could do was frown and stand on the back-foot while the body snatchers got their pods into gear and took over the world. Big Brother, 'Celebrity-island', 'Celebrity-this' and 'Celebrity-that', along with scores of Paris Hilton (and clones)'s pictures on each copy of each magazine, simply, seemed unstoppable. Until, that is, this week.

A remarkable comeback, courtesy of an own-goal from Jade Goody, one of the most poignant interpreters of this world of nothingness. A Frankenstein of fatuous 21st century TV. "A perfect monster of televisual incestuousness- on telly for having been on telly" noted Howard Jacobson on Saturday's Independent, the only journalist who actually talked a bit of sense amongst the inches of columns wasted on the free-for-all of Jade's "appalling-hideous-bigoted-racist" behaviour.

An ironic case indeed, as if they were not expecting the very notion of dumbed-down, cheap, voyeuristic TV to backfire at some point. The cult of celebrity-for-the-sake-of-being-celebrity has now bizarrely turned on itself. All the while Channel Four is accused of failing to perform the same self-censorship tabloids could do with. Lord, if they could.

You promote cheapness and vacuity; you champion the Jade Goodies of this world; you fill your pages with their oh-so-outrageous inanity, be it turrets or inability to spell; you titillate your readers/viewers with tits-out and sex scandals…and now you play knocked for six cos Jade Goody on Celebrity BB says that "Indians cook without washing their hands"? Get over it.

P.S. Cue from the Jade Goody/Shilpa Shetty affair. Whiney though it may be (and don’t we all continentals like a bit of whine), I'm yearning for the day the tabloids act all repulsed -and rightly so- at their own pisstake of "frogs", "krauts", and annexed mocking of their accent…

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