Jordan: Jungle fever

The nation has a new sweetheart. Before our eyes, deep in the reality-show rainforest, an unfeasibly proportioned glamour model called Jordan has been transformed into a down-to-earth smart cookie called Katie. Way to go, girl

Appearing on I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here has certainly proved to be a shrewd move for Jordan. People keen to remain in the public eye go on the show because they believe that the public will get to know and love the "real" them.

In the glamour model's case, it has not taken long for the nation (or 10 million avid viewers anyway) to decide that under the sticky slap and the cartoon silicon, Jordan's a lovely girl and a natural beauty, imbued with empathy, humour, maturity, brains and charisma. Suddenly, in an astounding coup de foudre, the nation has a new and surprising sweetheart.

Suddenly stuff that has been in the public domain for ages makes Jordan worthy of sympathy and admiration, instead of contempt and pity. Her son Harvey, who was born with various health problems, including blindness, has featured in the Jordan story for ages. Only now though is the penny dropping. This girl, in her early 20s, was dumped publicly by Dwight Yorke, the man whose child she was bearing, had the baby anyway, then was herself diagnosed with cancer, and carried on working, and smiling, throughout.

The stories of seductions of vulnerable and stammering teenagers (Gareth Gates), of partying and attention-seeking instead of attending ante-natal classes, and the lurid pictures of the lass in nothing less shocking than inappropriate maternity wear, have become the evil propaganda of a wicked gutter media. Even if they're true, they're entirely forgiven.

Jordan has charmed her fellow jungle dwellers, not least by insisting that they call her by her real name, Katie. This has charmed the viewers as well, who now, surely, tend to wince collectively when Ant and Dec encounter Ms Price and commit the out-of-the-loop solecism of addressing her by her pissed-in-night-club-falling-over-with-nipples-on-display name. Which, suddenly everyone realises, is similarly cringeworthy to meeting Ricky Gervais and insisting on calling him Dave.

And there's so much more there in the steamy swamp to tell us that Katie is a real person, and one to be reckoned with, while Jordan is a working title, exploited by in-control Katie to make her millions. The girl, at 26, is a born leader, entirely in control of her merry band of jungle bunnies (although she cleverly leaves the formal responsibility to John Lydon). While managing to look like a long-suffering object of unwanted male attention, she has dopey Peter Andre eating out of her hand. Though she's seemingly more comfortable with her female teammates, that's really because she's assessed - correctly - that none of them is the tiniest threat to her supremacy.

All of them, incidentally, are so pleased to be in the orbit of this unlikely Amazon that they appear to have failed entirely to notice that Katie, for all her down-to-earth qualities, never actually does anything that isn't likely to attract attention. Making skimpy fancy-dress costumes and plucking chickens in the dark attract the cameras. Boiling water, tidying up the camp and cooking the food are far too humdrum for Katie, who doesn't lift a finger unless there's a manicurist ready to take hold of it. This, of course, one has to admire as well.

As for her amazing, cosmetically enhanced physique, well, it's there with her, but the message is that it should be treated as an entertaining guest, accompanying Katie, but not representative of her own private corporeality. Anyone is free to palpate her bosoms, because, somehow, they're not hers at all but instead a living, breathing public service, designed to delight, rather than arouse.

She was first, along with hard-man Neil Ruddock, to undergo a bushtucker trial. She barely flinched as hundreds of jungle insects and larvae, plus one snake, were poured into a perspex globe round her head. And, dammit, in the newspaper pictures of her ordeal, she'd never looked more beautiful. Suddenly the idiotic freak from the gutter press is looking like a clever, independent, operator - rich, successful, talented, and sorely misunderstood by a public which just hadn't been allowed to get past the grotesque chest and party lifestyle.

Suddenly, stories abound of Katie, the real woman behind the gross but lucrative character that is Jordan. Jordan is attractive to men - in a jokey, nudge, nudge sort of way, which by her own poignant admission has never led to a respectful and loving relationship. But Katie, by contrast, is a big hit with women. Kathryn Knight, in the Daily Mail, suggests that she has "more brains than bosom". Victoria Coren, in The Sun, is less tentative. "If I have ever had so much as a single snide thought about the entire package that is Katie Jordan Price, I retract it utterly and completely. I didn't see her for what she was: a 21st-century goddess."

Vanessa Feltz, in the Daily Star, though, is suspicious of Katie's new friends. "Hear that gulping, chomping noise? It's the sound of bitchy female newspaper columnists eating their words. These are the harpies who queued to diss Jordan. Too thick to see through the cleavage to the bright businesswoman inside, too jealous to give the girl her due, they fired spiteful pot shots at her on a daily basis."

Now that Jordan's guts, determination and, of course, cleavage have charmed the entire country, those two-faced hags are desperate to scramble aboard the pro-Jordan bandwagon. Suddenly, the "brainless bimbo" they loved to hate is a national hero and they're hypocritical enough to want to be a part of it.

Ms Feltz, of course, has got a point. The media's reaction to Jordan may be novel. But it is novel only because the celebrity formula has been turned on its head. Usually the routine is to build 'em up and knock 'em down. Weary of this formula, Fleet Street's finest are enjoying instead the opportunity to subvert the process a little, by doing the same thing, only backwards. Fiendishly clever.

And what a build-up Jordan is getting. Liking nothing more than to snuggle up with her son at home on her Sussex estate, Katie loves children and animals. She was a pony-crazy girl, and now she has three animals in her stable.

Her background was tough. Her father walked out on her mother when she was tiny, and a relative of her stepfather abused her when she was seven. But this adversity has just made her stronger. Jordan and Katie are quite different people, and Katie is a powerful enough personality to be able to keep them apart.

Except, of course, that Katie "personality" is nonsense, just as much as Jordan is. If this young woman really does manage to maintain two discrete personalities, one for work and one for real life, then she has a serious mental disorder. If, as seems more likely, she has a highly complex and contradictory single personality, then it's likely that she's just a little bit messed up, like so many of the rest of us.

At some point the nation is going to have to come to terms with the fact that their heroine can be a silly, crass bitch one day, and a home-loving darling the next. Which is actually the sum total of the attraction of this timeless package. We've always liked women who strive to combine the qualities of virgin and whore, largely because the contradictions inherent in the attempt tend to destroy them. If Katie Price really can keep one step ahead in this game, then she's welcome to the affection her balancing act inspires. If people want to show they're rooting for her in this endeavour, they don't have to make do with voting on I'm a Celebrity...; they can buy her records in the very near future.