Of national importance?

I have a confession to make, yet one I’m extremely comfortable with if I‘m honest - I loathe the TV show Big Brother with a passion. I can think of few ways I’d less rather spend any of my (rare) free time than to watch a group of largely mindless individuals whiling away hour after hour doing nothing of any use, interspersed with inane “entertaining tasks” set by the show’s producers, and garnished with a never-ending stream of verbal diarrhoea from said inhabitants. I would be disappointed if, in the general course of events, I genuinely couldn’t find a better way to entertain myself for an hour or so. But, hey, each to their own.

However, I surprised myself this weekend - for once, Big Brother started to fascinate me. Taking a keen interest in the media as I do, I found it incredibly interesting to see the whole charade pan out as it did across the newspapers and TV, as in fact it still is. I noticed on the front page of one of the tabloids today the call from the paper for Channel 4 “chiefs” (good tabloid word, that!) to resign, presumably because of the apparent sin they have committed in allowing Jade Goody not only to reappear on our screens, but to be allowed to behave deplorably in the process.

Absolutely priceless!

For me, there is a delicious irony in the media rounding so fiercely on Ms Goody as it is presently doing. She is an entity that was entirely created by the media in the first place - somebody who is on telly simply (no pun intended) because she was once on telly - a remarkable feat in itself. Moreover, however, Jade has served the creator of her Frankenstein’s monster of a celebrity very well, providing it with a wealth of absurdly hilarious moments over the years - not to mention some distinctly less-savoury ones - contributing to thousands of column inches that, in dubious honour to her, have practically written themselves, plus soaring viewing figures, most notably for the show that propelled her into the nation’s psyche in the first place. A journalist’s dream, that Jade lass.

But in the twisted media circus we must unfortunately suffer in these fair isles, there is no room for sentiment. Jade has served her purpose - and is now serving it again, albeit for different reasons. From the tabloid press to the broadsheets to the internet to television, Jade is once again headline news in a nation where sensationalist attitudes are both fed and encouraged by the media, and the journey from hero to zero can be over as quickly as the time it takes to pop to the newsagents to buy a copy of the Sun.

In my opinion, the issue isn’t racism here, though I feel that Jade’s bullying of a woman who dared not to conform to an existence she can comprehend saw her use totally inappropriate phraseology - referring to someone as “Poppadum” is as pig-ignorant as the French referring to the British as “Johnny Roast Beef“, and us calling them “Frogs“ in return. No, the worrying thing is that Jade Goody is far from a lone agent - she is merely the most famous, not to mention most visible example (thanks to the media) of a despicable one-eyed attitude that pervades large swathes of our society.

Ours is a society that is often far too ready to take an insular view of the world around us, and the different peoples that inhabit this small planet. We are scared by what we don’t know, or find unfamiliar, and instead of trying to educate ourselves, we often simply close our minds and condemn people and cultures as “bad” or “not right”. Rarely, however, is introspection a talent that we master; rather than reviewing our own behaviours and gaps in our understanding, often we instead try to delegate our own ignorance by offensively casting misinformed judgements about issues that, in reality, we're not really qualified to mouth off about. This is failing which is ultimately our personal moral duty to put right, or at least try to. Does travel broaden the mind? You betcha.

How can we be proud of our nation when we tolerate such attitudes? Jade’s ill-informed views and, frankly, total inability to embrace somebody else’s culture if it doesn’t fit in with the rules of life in Basildon is a sad indictment on modern life, especially in a day and age when ignorance of other cultures, nationalities and religions is pushing the world closer and closer towards self-destruction as each day passes. But she is clearly not alone in living in an ignorance-is-bliss, “not in my back yard”, “send them all back” state of mind. Far from it.

This will continue to be an issue for as long as I’m alive, I’m sure, though perhaps we’ll be spared having to suffer it again with Channel 4 acting as facilitator/mouthpiece for the diatribe of a stunningly under-educated loudmouth and her cronies. Indeed, if the nation, having just successfully voted in what effectively proved to be an impromptu referendum on the nation’s tolerance of racist attitudes, chooses to cease to watch the televisual garbage that is Big Brother altogether, then there would be no show, and therefore zilch media interest, and we could all get back to reading about something more meaningful in the papers.

The time saved, might I suggest, could perhaps be re-invested in educating ourselves about the world around us; if we do, and do it at every opportunity, then perhaps one day this beautiful planet of ours will become a far more peaceful place upon which to live.