[garinda]

Is it voyeuristic?

Yes it is.

That's her career, being watched.

If her short and sad life had been a script it would have been rejected, for lack of realism.

Born poor of mixed race parents.
By passed by the education system.
Abandoned by her father, and dragged up by a mother who becomes a lesbian drug addict, and subsequenty loses an arm in a motorbike accident.
Came to public attention on a television programme, where she was watched twenty four hours a day for two months.
Loathed as crass, and woefully naive.
Taken under a nations wing, who know decide they like the unworldly ingenue.
Achieves great success, with no other talent than being herself.
Becomes a multi-millionairess.
Guests on a celebrity version of the programme that first launched her to stardom.
Displays brutal bullying and arrogance, and is accused of racism, which raises questions in the House of Commons.
Effigies of her are burnt on the Indian sub-continent.
Dropped by the media, and faces financial ruin, as merchandising deals are pulled.
Makes a journey of penance to India, home of her accused victim.
Fades somewhat from the public gaze.
Sometime later is asked to appear on the Indian version of the aforementioned programme.
Is told live on the programme the results of a health check, and that she has cancer.
Finds out the cancer is terminal.
Weds her boyfriend, exclusively and lucratively sponsored to ensure she leaves a legacy for her two sons from a previous relationship.
Lives out her last days in the glare of the media's gaze.
The end.

I've no problem with her wanting to appear on television and in the media whilst she dies, in the hope of securing the financial future of her children. I've not seen any of the coverage, as I don't buy the papers and magazines she's in. It is sad that someone so young is dying, but so are hundreds of other young parents at this very moment, and who don't have the luxury of being able to sell the experience, and leave their loved ones a nest egg.

It will have helped raise awarenes of this terrible and indiscriminate disease, but the whole story is more telling of the media obsessed cult of celebrity we now live in.

As a media exercise in learning more about living with and dying from cancer, I found reading Justine Picardie's account in the Observer much more enlightening, and moving.