h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

One of today's news headlines:

"Property developer 'shot dead his blonde wife after she housed her lover on their farm estate'"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2167741/Businessman-shot-dead-blonde-wife-housed-lover-farm-estate.html

So, why is the adjective 'blonde' in the title? I'm interested to know how it's influencing our opinion of the story.

I would argue that the phrase 'Daily Mail' does far more to influence our opinion of the story.

B

If the property developer had a second wife whose hair was not blonde, then the headline would be helpful in describing which wife was shot.

Well, clearly it is all her own fault.

Probably she dyes her hair. The tart!

Or, if she is a natural blonde... well, the tart!

Asking for it.

Yup, I dyed my hair brown once, to make me more intelligent and trustworthy. Also to stop me from never being taken seriously.

Is the fact he is a property developer relevant?

Property developer... blonde wife...

Sounds like a stereotype to me. Others call it branding.
The Daily Mail seems to think it's just typical.


~jwf~

Is the Daily Mail as lame as some researchers seem to think it is?

Maybe the reporter was relating to their youthful, Cluedo playing days. Forgot in their excitement to report that it happened in the library and she was only shot as a result of him being unable to find his candlestick

I think she was shot for playing around with someone else's candlestick.

Perhaps the headline is just an attempt at a bit of variety. After all wrting "Man shoots wife" is rather uninteresting after a while.

The blonde stereotype is terribly old-fashioned these days, because it's fashionable for more and more women to dye their hair black. However, I suspect that attitudes are now sufficiently different to prevent these raven-haired from suffering equivalent prejudice.

everyone must stop looking at that rag.

On the one hand it's all full of WAGs and their bikini figures, or some poor sap who has fallen out of favour showing their curves (ie she's "fat") or they are slender (Victoria Beckham) or tiny frame (Miley Cyrus - they're wobbling about her, they love thinness but they know they have to make a comment about how anorexia is dangerous)

if the Blonde had been a mother, it would have said that instead. Mothers have no place around shootings. Unless they are feckless (another mail rant: no matter how much you despise her, the mother of Shannon Matthews has been given a new identity, somewhere else to live and has a minimum wage cleaning job. So the Mail splashed photos of her saying all this... thus wasting taxpayers money by outing her. I wonder when they will blame themselves for that?)

The reason I asked is that I really don't know what I'm being expected to think. Did the wife's blondeness somehow make the crime more despicable, or does it lessen it? Is it adding anything to help me understand the circumstances as reported?

Or is it subliminal advertising? If we see nothing else when we scan the newsstands, we may just register the word 'blonde' and pick up that issue, hoping that this was an unusual crime, motivated by hair colour.

My reaction to the headline you quoted was that the Mail was using her blondeness to incur some sort of blame to the wife, implying that she deserved to be shot.

Interesting that I had also heard that younger people no longer choose to go blonde, but prefer black or one of the other fabulous colours instead. Is this a reaction to the stereotype that being blonde means a woman is an airhead?

"Is the Daily Mail as lame as some researchers seem to think it is?"

Just like the word 'blonde' in the title, the Daily Mail is "a cheap distraction" - and let's face it, she was asking for it: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/inxs/suicideblonde.html

"I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb... and I also know that I'm not blonde." - Dolly Parton

I remember shortly after a friend of mine had her second child (I already had The Gruesome Twosome) she pointed out that if we were ever in a fatal accident, or something, the Bild Zeitung would refer to us as (for eg) Sho, 29, mother of 2, blah blah blah...

it drives me crazy.

But yes, the Mail tend to do it to let you know exactly what they think of the person. In this case: what a slapper, she drove him to it...

"Is the Daily Mail as lame as some researchers seem to think it is?"

Let me explain it this way, Paul. The last time I checked into a hotel in London the man at the front desk asked what paper I would like delivered to my door each day. I saw a Daily Mail on the desk so I asked for that. With a sneer he asked if I had actually read a copy and suggested the Telegraph, along with commenting on my lack of local knowledge.

I once heard an interview with a reporter in which he mentioned that, back in his youth, he had submitted some copy to his editor which involved a housewife as a source, as is "...housewife Emma, neighbour of the Smith family, said...". The editor took out his pen, and despite never having met the woman, put the word 'attractive' in front of 'housewife'.

It seems that in newspapers all housewives are attractive, regardless of their actual physical appearance.


Geggs

I think this is a cultural leftover from Hitchcock's penchant. We see "blonde," we expect something out of the ordinary, and definitely not in a good way.