Goody and husband Jack Tweed before their wedding — which will be televised — last week. 

When reality TV becomes too real

Jade Goody’s impending death is being served as a commodity. Has unscripted TV gone too far?

A U.K. reality star is dying of cancer while cameras follow her life.

Jade Goody, 27, first appeared on the British version of “Big Brother” in 2002, and learned she had cervical cancer while living in the Indian “Big Brother” house last August. The cancer has since spread, and it seems Goody intends the remaining time in her short life be televised.

She was married last Sunday, her wedding filmed for broadcast later this spring on Living TV, which is currently producing episodes of “Jade,” a docudrama following her life and battle with cancer. (She reportedly received nearly £1 million for the media rights to the wedding, money she intends to provide for her two young sons after she passes.)

But death is not an entirely foreign topic for reality TV, says Mark Andrejevic, the author of “Reality TV: The Work of Being Watched.”

Lance Loud, who starred in the first U.S. reality series, 1973’s PBS documentary “An American Family,” asked the show’s filmmakers to follow him during the final months of his life, and the result aired on PBS in 2003.

Besides that, Andrejevic says, MTV famously documented Pedro Zamora’s battle with HIV.
“Reality TV’s stock in trade is documenting people dealing with the more dramatic aspects of life,” he says, “and facing down a terminal illness falls into that category.”

Fame is relatively short-lived for most reality TV celebrities, and Andrejevic, who is an assistant professor at the University of Iowa, notes “the arc of Goody’s unfortunate disease turned out to be short enough to coincide with that of her fame. Whether or not a TV show is made of her last moments, they will be covered in detail by the media, which, in this instance, embraces and extends the logic of reality programming,” he adds.

Andrejevic expects the public to react in two ways regarding Goody’s very visible death, the first being outrage over such a real exhibit of the fragility of life treated as prime time fodder, or as Andrejevic calls it, “measured disapproval toward the fact that our culture serves characters like Goody as entertainment.” 

On the other hand, Goody’s story might be viewed as a tale of redemption, leading to a “sense of solidarity with someone who, in facing down the mortality that stalks us all, is doing what it takes to take care of her own.”

In any case, ratings and profits are to be had.
“Reality TV will capitalize on the second story; much of the media coverage will capitalize on the first,” Andrejevic says. “Either way, it’s money in the bank.” 

Andy Dehnart is a TV critic and editor of RealityBlurred.com.