On air: Are Jade Goody’s fame and success worth celebrating?

There’s little debate that Jade Goody had a hugely positive impact on cervical cancer screening rates in the UK (up in the region of 25 per cent), but on whether hers was a life and a success to aspire to and to celebrate, there’s strong disagreement. Her untimely death has brought that debate to the front of many of your minds.

Talking Points: 23 March

I was doing a blog search this morning about Jade Goody losing her battle to cancer . What I found interesting was that news of her death still came under entertainment. Jade came from an underpriviledged background – and according to this writer she wasn’t “meant to be famous”.

“despite the supposed democratisation of television, the truly uneducated, those marked by true poverty and deprivation, rarely appear in our light entertainment schedules. ”

Is the fact that she didn’t quite fit the bill of a conventional celebrity the reason why she has elicited such strong reaction?