Graphic by Isa Renée
Content notice: mentions of mature content, sexual and physical assault, murder, dead bodies, and infuriatingly sexist comic bros
SPOILER WARNINGS FOR DC COMICS
It’s no secret that comic books and their fandoms have an exceptional history of misogyny and the depiction of violence toward women, a trend that is all too well summed up by the term “Women in Refrigerators.”
Our tale starts with Green Lantern Vol.3 #54, “Forced Entry.” If you’re a longtime fan of comics, you probably recognize this issue as a subject of major controversy in the community. Our poor hero Kyle Rayner returns home to find his girlfriend, Alex DiWitt, murdered and stuffed into his refrigerator — the work of his enemy, Major Force.
The term “Women in Refrigerators” (WiR) or “Fridging” was most notably coined by Gail Simone, best known for her work on “Birds of Prey,” “Deadpool” and “Wonder Woman.” Shocked to see Alex being used as little more than a plot point to further the story of the leading man, Simone pioneered the discussion about female characters being treated as a dispensable commodity for writers.
“Fridging” is now used to describe the trope of female characters being brutalized or killed off for literally no reason other than to further a male protagonist’s storyline. However, it is important to note that comics are not the only guilty party, as “fridging” occurs across all types of media — for instance, Asuna from “Sword Art Online,” who was assaulted and humiliated by Sugou Nobuyuki in “Alfheim Online.”
The trope has three common themes:
- A female character (not just a love interest) is brutalized beyond repair in some way: killed, physically assaulted, mind broken, de-powered or sexually assaulted.
- A villain is responsible for this brutalization and only does it to provoke the hero.
- The woman’s injury/death provides vengeful motivation for the hero to fight/kill/defeat the villain.
Fridging is a harmful trope because it dehumanizes female characters to the point where they become little more than plastic story devices, their character development only present to serve as motivation to the male protagonist. And although love interests aren’t the only ones at risk — any woman in a male hero’s life can fall victim to the WiR trope — the trope most often applies to a female love interest because it’s considered more tragic for our male hero to lose a woman he’s devoted his life to.
One argument made against the classification of this violence as a trope is the fact that real women can and do face these situations in our world. I don’t even have words for how much I dislike this fake activism. Classifying unnecessary violence toward fictional women as such does not invalidate the struggles and experiences of real women. Besides, the deaths of these women are never the focus of the story, the unjust brutalization never the theme being discussed. Fridging is lazily written brutality against women. Most of the time we have to see our poor, tormented leading man mourn his losses to further the plot, SURELY because there were no other possible plot directions that could have been explored.
The other popular counterargument to the WiR trope is that men are killed all the time in literature, and singling out the deaths of women is simply being selective. This argument led to the “Dead Men Defrosting” or “DMD” trope, created to better exemplify the stark contrast in tone between male and female deaths. Firstly, role-reversal (a superheroine’s love interest being maimed/killed off) is not half as common as those arguing against the WiR trope make it sound. Not only is the trope less common among male deaths in literature, there are also significantly more men in literature! And to really hit it home, men are not killed in the same manner as most female characters are. The murder of a female character is far more often done in a sexual, humiliating or exploitative nature than their male counterparts. Men in literature often go out in a very admirable and heroic manner, unwilling to submit to their captors or dying in the heat of battle with a sworn enemy. Their deaths are tragic, but still glorious.
In “Countdown to Infinite Crisis” #1, Theodore Kord, one of several blue beetles, is captured by his enemy Maxwell Lord and given the ultimatum to switch sides or die. The beaten and bloodied Kord defiantly tells Lord to “Rot in hell,” and is promptly shot in the head; a death shocking, clean, quick and extremely well-written. Even to hardcore Blue Beetle fans, his death didn’t become a cause for uproar; it was an honorable, well-timed death for a great hero that happened to excel the plot as opposed to that being its sole purpose.
The death of Ted Kord served to elevate his greatness and enshrine him in the universe as a great man and hero. It’s a stark contrast to the death of poor Alex Dewitt, brutalized and stuffed in a fridge.
Now, I need to set something straight: This isn’t a call for untouchable female characters. It’s one for women whose character development or lack thereof is not only there for male character development or a quick side plot.
The objectification of women in literature is a long-standing issue that needs to be far more seriously addressed. A woman is not just a love interest, not just a motive for murder. It becomes extremely boring when female comic fans have to sit and read through one-dimensional woman after one-dimensional woman. Giving your female characters a personality and abstaining from reducing them to a plot device not only makes them far more interesting, it also creates a better, more coherent plot.
So please, don’t write a woman. Write a three-dimensional character.