Shock exchange: The tabloid week
We have read about Madonna, the pointy-brassiered sex goddess. We have read about Madonna, the lover of country sports. We have read about Madonna, the frequenter of nightclubs. Occasionally, we have even browsed through a story about Madonna, the singer.
But last week she excelled herself. The Sun printed what it described as “the most amazing photograph of her career”. It showed her laying on a shabby wooden table with one leg bent behind her neck. Children, do not try this at home.
“I’m not interested in just going for a fashion shoot,” she says. “If I don’t feel like I’m creating something, I don’t want to do it. My real responsibility is to bring light to the world and make the world a better place.”
In fact, wouldn’t the world be a better place if we could all put our legs behind our heads? The Sun put this to the test, asking five women to give it a go.
A dancer, a contortionist, a secretary and a model had no problem at all. But reporter Katy Weitz seemed to have trouble even getting her knee up to her chin. “Our volunteers were all fit and supple,” she wrote. “But how would I, a not-very-flexible, hardly healthy, 20-a-day smoker, get on?” She clearly put herself at risk of a very embarrassing industrial injury, that’s how she got on.
Meanwhile, the war is raging. Our boys might be kicking their heels in the deserts of Kuwait, but there is already fierce fighting between The Sun and the Daily Mirror. The Mirror is anti-war, but The Sun is already sharpening its bayonet.
On Friday it carried two pictures on its front page: one of Saddam, the other of Jacques Chirac, the French president. “Spot the difference,” the paper urged. “One is a corrupt bully who is risking the lives of our troops. He is sneering at Britain, destroying democracy and endangering world peace. The other is Saddam Hussein.”
Them Frenchies, they just can’t abide the old cold steel.
The Mirror has been recruiting support for its “No War” campaign. Mariella Frostrup says no, which pretty much puts an end to the matter. And so does Julie Hesmondhalgh, who plays Hayley in Coronation Street. “I don’t want innocent people to die,” she says. “We need to send them (the Iraqi people) medicine, food and aid. Give them strength to have their own revolution against Saddam.”
War is wrong, it seems, but encouraging somebody else to have a war is apparently okay.