ABSTRACT
The Missing White Woman Syndrome refers to the disproportionate coverage given to missing person cases that feature young, middle (to upper) class, attractive white women or girls. Most research on the Missing White Woman Syndrome focuses on print and televisual news. In this chapter, I look at how weekly gossip and entertainment magazines contribute to the Missing White Woman Syndrome through celebrification. These magazines provide a unique way to understand the Missing White Woman Syndrome as a mediated effect of the celebrity gossip industry. After laying the conceptual groundwork, I present a close reading of a People magazine issue featuring Erin Corwin, a nineteen-year-old woman who was murdered in her first trimester in June 2014. At the time of People's cover story, Corwin had been missing for six weeks. I focus on People's coverage of Corwin's disappearance to highlight how missing pregnant white women are revered as vulnerable and innocent people in urgent need of rescue, which is a representation rooted in gendered whiteness because it is largely unavailable to missing pregnant women of colour.
