Blondes: Public Enemy No 1
Since Madeleine went missing my eyes have been opened like never before as regards the media and its subtle and not so subtle messages: I watched a BBC Crimewatch special yesterday evening about Levi Bellfield the so called ‘Bus stop killer’
It was obvious from the report that Bellfield hated women, particularly blonde women and when they spurned his advances he killed them. Poor Kate Sheedy described how after getting off a bus she saw his people carrier sitting with its lights off but its engine running, so she crossed the road to avoid it. She described in graphic detail how he then revved the engine, took off at speed and hit her head on, deliberately running her over. She told us that she heard her bones cracking as he did so and as she struggled for breath, he reversed the vehicle and drove over her poor broken body again, leaving her for dead.
It takes a certain type of hatred and venom to attack a young innocent woman for no reason. That he singled out and hated blondes is peculiar to him…or is it?: I’ve commented on the current theme in the media of insisting that Shannon Matthews is being treated differently to Madeleine because of ‘class’. Many journalists have wrung their hands and berated the public for not caring about Shannon because she is poor, and blaming you and I for the lack of ink she merits in the papers. These journalists are, ironically, writing about not writing about Shannon….rather than writing about her..
But alongside the ‘class’ argument, has come the subtle blonde/attractive vs brunette/plain debate. We are told that as Kate Mccann and Madeleine are blonde and attractive, the public care more about them than Shannon and her mother as they have been deemed by the media as not blonde and not attractive. I personally find it abhorrent that any child, let alone a missing one, should have their attractiveness rated like some dog at Crufts. I also wince at the rating of their mothers who are currently living in a state of purgatory. The idea that the public pick and choose a missing mother to support based on some Miss World type attractiveness is an idea that exists solely in the head of some journalist who has either lost touch with reality, or is showing their own unpleasant prejudices. The idea that there is a Kate vs Karen; Madeleine vs Shannon; blonde vs brunette; either/or… is not reality for most normal, caring, empathic people and we need to question why this media feel it is.
Kate Mccann has perhaps attracted more comment, both in the media and on the internet, about her looks than any other mother of a missing child. And for me, psychopath Levi Bellfield holds part of the key as to why she has been torn apart and vilified because she happens to have blonde hair: The image of blondes in the media is a strange one, they are either portrayed as dumb or as sex sirens. Film, television and advertising use young, blonde attractive women as a guaranteed magnet for attracting their target audiences. They are given to us as the ‘ideal’, the standard by which all women are judged. For many women that causes unconscious feelings of inadequacy and manifests in envy and hatred.
For men like Bellfield, attractive young blondes represent both the ideal and the unobtainable -The adverts, films and pornography magazines make her look like she wants you, that she is there just for you, that if you met her in real life she would naturally be attracted to you – that’s the magic of the media. In reality though, she wouldn’t even notice you and if she did she would cross the road to avoid you. The mammoth disparity between the fantasy portrayed as reality in the media and the true stark, reality of real life, causes such a shock to the ego that homicidal rage is sometimes inevitable.
We all, it seems hate/envy/mistrust blonde women to one degree or another. That Kate is blonde, ‘attractive’ and not dumb has added to the vitriol, as has the fact that she is not poor. She seems to have everything we crave and we can find no vulnerability in her to make us like her rather than envy her….But how on earth can you envy a woman whose child is missing? How can you not empathise with a fellow human being whose daughter is lost? How can you be so blinkered as to let her hair colour and facial features erase the reality that her child is missing? Many journalists have managed to do just that, attacking Kate and her looks and in doing so have allowed an outlet for the irrational prejudices of so many. The hair colour of a missing child’s mother should have no place in serious journalism.
But the thinly disguised hate seems to go deeper than just blonde women, it seems to have spread to all women: The latest media target is Fiona Mackeown, mother of Scarlett Keeling who was raped and murdered in Goa. Fiona, another blonde, strong intelligent woman who has forced the authorities in Goa to admit that her daughter’s murder was covered up by local police. The authorities then rewarded her determination by threatening to charge her with negligence and were aided and abetted in attacking her by certain journalists in this country. Thankfully one journalist bucking the trend of attacking women whose daughters are missing or dead is Alex Crawford of Sky News. Her article here is well worth a read, Alex writes;
Yes, Fiona MacKeown may have had nine children in Britain, where that is viewed as wanton irresponsibility by some. Yes, they may have different fathers, at least four. Yes, she lives with her large family in a group of caravans on a nine-acre site in Devon. Yes, she has tattoos and a lip ring.
But where does that translate into bad, uncaring mother? Perhaps in bourgeois Clapham or in the Home Counties where most of the tabloid female writers are penning their scathing commentaries? And yes, they are mostly female, I am ashamed to say.
Having read many similar scathing commentaries on the forums about Kate Mccann these last 10 months or so, it would seem that the worst misogynists seem to be women, an idea that has left me deeply depressed. And once again we have the familiar sick theme of measuring a person’s grief by their public tears, as Alex reports,
Unlike the tabloid newspaper writer who seemed to suggest Ms MacKeown’s lack of tears made her want to ’scream at the TV’, we have watched while she bent over double with grief, her body heaving with sobs as she showed us pictures of her daughter’s battered body.
I honestly think Levi Bellfield, who may have murdered many more women and girls, has fared better at the hands of the press than, Kate Mccann, Karen Matthews and Fiona Mackeown….now how can that be right?
