A2 Weekly News Update 12

My story this week comes from the Daily Mail and it highlights the late George Best and his son Calum Best. Calum was evicted on Tuesday at 9pm and at 10pm on Channel 5 'In Therapy with Calum Best' was shown. It has been widely publicised for years that George Best, Calum's father struggled with his alcohol addiction, which strained his relationship with his son and subsequently ended up in the boy moving to LA with his mother, Angie Best and the decision made by his mother was so that he would not end up being involved in what was happening with his father. George Best was never able to shake the nasty addiction and as a result of this, died in 2005. 

Calum Best talking to therapist Mandy Saligari

Calum spoke to therapist Mandy Saligari on the show and the 35 year old began to make connections between his tough past and his 'ruthless and selfish' behavior that he displayed as a young adult. Mandy suggested that perhaps the reason he behaved in this way to reach out to his Dad, and when this was said Calum didn't say anything.  Another shocking point that was raised was that Calum only has one friend that he see's once a year, and the rest are just 'fleeting acquaintances'

Calum with his father, George

This then led me to start thinking about the representations presented within this article and the obvious ones would be gender, age and class. But also representation of issues is highlighted, with alcoholism being an issue and parent sibling relationships being an issue aswell. Calum Best got into a swing of drinking a lot, doing multiple drugs and partying hard, as well as his widely publicised period of 'sleeping around'. If this was a women in the media, the criticism and lash back would be extremely heavier than it has been for Calum Best, but yet he then came under fire because of how young he was because when he went through this 'reckless' stage, because his father was older it became socially acceptable for him to behave in the way he did.

Why does this article interest me so much?

The thing that stood out so much for me was when I saw Calum had said he only has one true friend. For a popular, good looking and successful young man like Calum it is hard to believe that he isn't surrounded by a room of people wanting to be his friend, yet it displays that a person may be famous and have all this attention surrounding them, but if they are not humbling and trustworthy, a friendship can't be formed. So perhaps this is the case with Calum?