Delko: Blonde girl's missing and the National Guard turns out to help. Hispanic girl, no one gives a damn.
Calleigh: I think there are a lot of people here.
Delko: Oh, come on, Calleigh. You saw the media's response to Lana Walker. You know? Where was the yellow ribbons for Consuela Valdez? The recovery center. It's the same song, you know? You want any real attention in this world, you got to have blonde hair and blue eyes. No offense.
Calleigh: None taken. My eyes are green.
The tendency for media coverage to follow the murder, kidnapping or disappearance of only young, pretty, middle-class or higher white women, because they draw audiences where male, minority, poor and/or older victims do not. When all other factors are equal, you are far more likely to find coverage of a young white woman's disappearance than of an old black man's. Compare, for instance, coverage and name recognition for the cases of Natalee Holloway, Lori Hacking, Laci Peterson, Chandra Levy, Elizabeth Smart, and Audrey Seiler with the cases of Tamika Huston, LaToyia Figueroa, Lottie Wise, Maddie McCann and Kenji Ohmi.
The origin of the term is unclear; although Professor Sheri Parks of the University of Maryland claims to have coined it relatively recently, it apparently has been in use among journalists for years. It's also been referred to as "missing pretty girl syndrome" and "damsel in distress syndrome." Although it appears to be a primarily American phenomenon, there is some evidence that a similar coverage bias exists in the United Kingdom, and some people believe Canada has a similiar disinterest in the fate of missing Native women.
For much more information, including a detailed breakdown of the coverage cycle and links to dozens of cases, see
this article
at Wikipedia. See also
this opinion column from the
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, or
this column at CNN.com.
Examples:
- This topic was addressed in the Without A Trace episode "White Balance" in which the agents investigated two cases: that of a white teenage girl and that of a black teenage boy. They must cope with the white girl's case getting constant attention and the black boy's getting none. This episode concludes with a No Ending; we're told one lives and one dies, but not which is which.
- Spoofed in this Muertitos comic; when the media find out the lost girl isn't thin, blonde, and leggy (but is instead chubby, blue, and has no legs), they instantly lose interest.
- Comic book example: briefly referenced in the Confessor arc of Kurt Busiek's Astro City, when a series of ritualistic killings only becomes worthy of a public panic after an archetypical blonde school sweetheart type becomes one of the victims.
- Brought up in Veronica Mars when Weevil mentions that shortly after the murder of Lilly Kane, a little girl from his neighborhood named Marisol Reyes disappeared, but she didn't warrant the same amount of media coverage or therapy sessions for the students.
- Parodied in Scary Movie when Cindy Campbell sends a message to the police saying "White woman in trouble!" The next shot is of the house surrounded by police crews.
- Horatio Caine moans about it in an episode of CSI Miami and tells a reporter to cover the missing (non-white) girl they're looking for that week.
- Discussed (specifically the Natalee Holloway case) in Season Five of The Wire, when McNulty and Freamon suggest that the lack of support from their bosses in solving over twenty murders is due to the victims being poor and black, leading to the episode's epitaph: "This ain't Aruba, bitch."
- In an episode of Law And Order Criminal Intent, the disappearance of a white girl on a school trip becomes the subject of a media frenzy, and is eventually tied to the disappearance of a local black girl. The mother of the black girl excoriates a Nancy Grace knock-off for only coming to her when her daughter's disappearance was tied up with the white girl's.
