Fame, Fortune and Death

By Bryan Kay

On one side of the world, a star of the media's creation slips away after a short battle with cancer. On the other, another takes her own life amid a series of lured tales involving sexual favors for media types.

Both were tragically young. And both saw much of their adult lives consumed by the media monster.

They are South Korean soap opera star Jang Ja-yeon, who starred in the KBS TV soap opera ``Boys Over Flowers,'' and Jade Goody, the celebrity-come-lately reality TV icon who made her name on U.K. Channel Four's ``Big Brother'' series.

While Jang took her own life at her apartment in Bundang, south of Seoul, earlier this month, Goody passed away at her home near London last weekend after a short battle against cervical cancer. They were just a year apart in age, Jang, 26, and Goody, 27.

Both climbed the slippery pole of fame, apparently yearning to grace the small screen and capture a section of the attention of various media outlets to maintain their public profile.

But while one appeared to thrive on it, the other presumably ― though the world will perhaps never really know ― couldn't cope with the demands placed upon her shoulders to stay in the game.

For, in Jang's case, she allegedly was being coerced into sexual activity as a means of furthering her chances.

Goody, though, seemed to milk the industry for all it could provide. During the Big Brother series ― where she was housed in a purpose-built residential compound for several weeks with a string of other housemates over which 24-hour TV cameras watched, with the British public tuned in on the other side ― she flaunted her God-given ``assets,'' a creeping trend among young celebrity superstar wannabes.

Perhaps this signifies the deep chasm between modern British culture and that of Korea. Yet the parallels between the two women existed, however inverted.

The revelations that have emerged claiming that Jang's death may have somehow been linked to alleged sexual favors that she was being pressured to give to media industry executives is yet another worrying sign ― whether they turn out to be true in this case or not ― of the level to which the spotlight can push young hopefuls to do extraordinary things in order to ``make it."

That she may not have been such a willing participant is even more worrisome. Indeed, her suicide, if linked to such lurid activities, is downright incredible, and anyone implicated in such activities should hang their head in shame.

In England, of course, Goody was a more willing participant in the media machine. In reality ― quite apt given that her roots were reality TV ― she was a product of the media machine and manipulated it to create a very handsome living. She was one of those modern creatures who are famous for, well, being famous.

While Jang dreamt of being a soap opera star, and was some way on her road to getting there, Goody starred in her own little drama unofficially known as the ``Jade Goody Show." Only, it was her life ― her real life.

As her time on Earth was coming to an end ― though she didn't know it at the time ― one of the installments saw her boyfriend sent to jail for violent assault.

Indeed, when he was set free from prison, by which time she had been diagnosed with cancer, he was forced to wear an electronic tag which prevented him from leaving home after the early hours of the night as a condition of his early release from his sentence.

In grand style, as Goody's days drew to a close, he proposed marriage, and in order for the couple to spend their wedding night together, British Justice Secretary Jack Straw made the special gesture of lifting the curfew for that one night. Of course, this was all played out for the benefit of the cameras.

Her death was the final chapter in the story, with media outlets writing of their memories of the latent star who at one time they loved to tease, and, worse, ridicule.

Despite Jang and Goody's marked cultural differences and the inverted nature of the role of the media in their deaths ― in Goody's case as a lens, charting its progress as the cancer took over her body ― their paths crossed in time, both at the beginning and the end of their lives.

It's a tragi-comedy that can be used as a brutal snapshot ― a mirror of the celebrity-obsessed times in which we live.

The apparent common denominator between the two of them, of course, despite their diametrically-opposed departures from this mortal coil, was a desire for fame and a millionaire's lifestyle.

They lived on different continents, and, some might say, in different dimensions, but their journeys and surroundings on the way bore striking similarities of the fake and the fable, and the mused and the exploited.

Both met tragic ends, so criminally young. In different ways, their lives were consumed by the media and, ultimately, the public.

In the same way, their deaths probably won't serve as a lesson of the viciousness of the pursuit of fame and fortune, of the need for a reality check and for change.

Both left behind families who probably know this, and will likely live the rest of their lives with the tragic circumstances of what their later lives meant, and how they ended as apparent circus acts, objects of extraction.

That's not something with which we should be either proud or comfortable. For we all, in some small way, can share a portion of responsibility. Because we all feed the media monster in its present guise. Indeed, the cameras are currently poised in England for Goody's funeral.

Bryan Kay was a freelance journalist in Central America for two years. He can be reached at bryan_s_kay@hotmail.com.

[출처 : 코리아타임스]