It’s been a while since anyone has brought up “Women in Refrigerators” — the Gail Simone-coined term for the superhero-comic plot device that involves the maiming, killing or depowering of female characters. But today at Topless Robot, Zach Oat reopens the Frigidaire with his list of “The 10 Worst Women in Refrigerators.”
Perhaps surprisingly the top spot doesn’t go to Alexandra DeWitt, the character whose fate spawned the phrase “women in refrigerators,” but to Sue Dibny, who met her end in Identity Crisis #1:
Right off the bat, Sue gets horribly burned to death in her home. The culprit is unknown, but based on the evidence, the League suspects it to be Dr. Light. Now Doc Light is usually a D-list villain, and he actually had his name stolen by a superhero once, but we find out through a flashback that one day, when Sue was hanging out on the Justice League satellite (by herself, in space), Dr. Light somehow managed to get aboard. Yes, a supervillain had somehow gained access to the League’s high-tech HQ (in space), and that was when he decided to rape Sue to within an inch of her life. The League showed up soon after to pull him off of her, but the damage was done, and they had to blank Sue’s memory to make her forget it. I wish they could do that to my memory—when I close my eyes, I keep seeing Dr. Light’s rolling eyeballs and wagging tongue as he violates a minor character who never hurt anybody.
June 30th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Hard to argue with some of the list, but Gwen’s death just doesn’t feel like it belongs with the others. Maybe it’s just too far back in time. Or maybe it’s of a pair with the death of her father.
And the writer is far too quick to dismiss the wonders that Ostrander and Yale, Dixon, and Simone have done with Barbara Gordon, and doesn’t note that the Joker followed his crippling of Barbara with the torture of Jim Gordon. (There seems to be a pattern here.) Say what you will about the levels of violence around the Joker, but I think his actions are a special category that isn’t affected in general by gender.
June 30th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
I’ve never really liked grouping all “damsel in distress” stuff into the women in refridgerators category. I think the main problem pointed out by women in refridgerators is how bad stuff happens to female characters way more often than it happens to men. Especially with female characters who are supposed to be competant heroes themselves.
Gwen Stacy dying isn’t all the different that Uncle Ben dying. They’re both bystanders who got swept up in the crapfest that is Spidey’s life and dyed because of it. Killing of someone that the main character cares about is a valid writing tool. If it happens more to women than to men, then I think the problem is that more powerless men (like Uncle Ben) need to be the sacrificial lamb.
June 30th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
It wasn’t just that Smith explained her “weird behavior” with the rape origin- he supplanted the previous origin. Felicia idolized her father, a famous cat burglar, and wanted to follow in his footsteps.
Now her desire to steal things came out of… the fact that the man who raped her was killed in a car accident before she could put a bullet in his brain. And it was only when Peter Parker came along that she came out of her shell and could trust men again. So the thrust of the story, to me, was building up Peter Parker at the expense of making Felicia a complete victim.
Look, I don’t know why Smith feels the need to do stuff like this, but it’s not good. It’s just not.