The Boogie Man Will Get You

Did you see that artist's impression of the 'mysterious man' wanted in connection with the disappearance of Madelaine McCann? Where did they get that artist - Weird Tales? You couldn't have come up with a more stereotyped 'evil child snatcher' if you'd tried! This guy's got every 'weird' characteristic there is - the dodgy moustache, for instance. Not just any slightly suspect 'tache mind you, but a full-fledged droopy job. Always the sign of a shady character. Or a Mexican bandit. Then there's that straggly hair coming down over his collar, the slight stoop and the thin face. Most of all, he has a swarthy, foreign-looking complexion. In fact, one might even say that he looks a bit like the popular image of a gypsy. Child-snatching gypsies, surely every middle class parent's nightmare?

Whilst in no way wishing to denigrate the seriousness of Madelaine McCann's disappearance or the trauma it has undoubtedly caused her family, I really have to ask, does this kind of 'development' actually help? As far as I can see, this 'suspect' is designed solely to prey upon the fears and prejudices of Daily Mail readers. Not only did the newspapers carry a general artist's impression of this fantasy paedophile, but they also included another drawing of him carrying off a child, much as Frankenstein's Monster or the Mummy would have done in 1940s horror films. Such an image is quite apt, as the media persist in reducing this story and, indeed, the whole issue of paedophilia, to the level of some B-movie melodrama. Everything is reduced to simplistic black and white stereotypes. The perpetrators must, literally, be monsters, the victims angels. If some of the dramatis personae don't conform to certain strict codes of behaviour, (like the McCanns) they suddenly become, again literally, suspect and cast in the role of potentially duplicitous supporting characters, or as femmes fatales. That's why the media just love cases where the victims are young children - they can always be cast as being totally innocent and without blame, they can never be complicit in their own tragedies. But enough ranting - I've just heard that Portuguese police have arrested the Wolfman in connection with the McCann case...