Why do they continue to call her a “beauty queen”? It’s a mystery.
DM style sheet. This is a tabloid that still boasts a FeMail section complete with celeb goss, homemaker and beauty tips, etc
- Short sentences, shorter paragraphs, readable even for the 200th person to pick it up bleary-eyed in a busy pub or station
- Beauty Queen, Stunna, Mum of X, Telly Star, Bathing Beauty, etc (note: heavily gendered descriptions apply to women only; blokes are blokes)
- Present value of properties occupied -- this one remains a mystery to me, but we Brits do like our realty programming, home is our castle, etc
- Any connection to Royalty, however remote
- Any connection to politicizaeable status
- Can they be shown in a swimsuit, preferably in Mallorca, etc?
- Can she then be photographed unflatteringly relative to Beauty Queen status of yore (see L Shivers) in a side-by-side, dramatically showing just How Far She Has Fallen?
- Can anyone involved be used to cast aspersions on the Labour Party?
- Long-range photos, often in place of actual news content
- Targeted ad for fluff product, commemorative coin, etc.
- Special reverence for Little Britain credentials of pretensions
- Bikinis!
It's a puzzling publication, with a decades-old formula, updated only occasionally in order to profess virtue and sensitivity before retreating to That Which Works.
Thus, if a female subject mentioned in the DM was Ms Peanut Queen, Miss Gladiola Entrant, or made the cheer team at age 9, she will forever be a Beauty Queen in the pages of the DM, just as anyone who ever appeared on telly in any context familiar to their readers will forever Be A Star.
My tuppence. Roll on the DM and its long-range lenses!