WIR? (Spoilers)

Well, as the TVTropes page points out, both MacGyver and Walker, Texas Ranger would stuff an "old friend" character into the fridge just about every episode. I doubt they were all women. Both Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Alias, and Nikita also apparently had men stuffed in fridges. 300 has a whole village, the Godfather had both a woman and a horse, Tombstone has a male dying this way, and Roadhouse has a couple of other dudes dying this way. Maximus's family in Gladiator. The villain in Punisher's (the movie) motivation is his son's fridging.

I'm just going up and down the page randomly picking these out. It's very clear to me that fridging is hardly exclusive to females.

Because she USED to be a hero means she should have some glorious death? They could of easily went the route of, ex hero dies after a painful fight with cancer.

She's a nameless character that happened to have had a name.

She wasn't a signature character. She was a background character.

And I feel your (apparent) predisposition to define issues along racial/ethnic/sexual lines is absolutely stifling.

The difference between your approach and mine is that -- though you may not intend any personal offense -- when you characterize someone's writing as misogynistic you've passed right past the let's-talk-like-rational-adults-about-your-work phase and gone straight into if-you-disagree-you're-morally-bankrupt territory. If you wish to discuss things with your friends in those terms, or to use those terms in your own self-reflections, then more power to you -- but when you toss the sexism label around in public you are chilling the free exchange of ideas rather than provoking it.

You seem to be very sensitive about how certain story elements can be interpreted; I'm just telling you my interpretation of the sort of criticism bandied about in this thread. Better to start with, and heavily emphasize, the idea that the story in question is poorly written, rather than painting it in terms that are emotionally charged.

But hey, we're just a couple of random dudes (or dudettes) on the intarwebz. Disagreement is nothing new; the only thing remarkable about this disagreement is the piquant interaction of self-important rhetoric with the spectacular unimportance of the conversation.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

Just look at the original Star Trek! Most of those red shirts where males!

And Kirks son died! That motivated him as well!

Boy howdy, I'm surprised that wasn't even on the TVTropes page. That was definite fridging. He was introduced just to die in a very chumpy way and motivate Kirk.

If we had to list every time one character died to motivate another, that page would be overloaded just from episodes of Murder, She Wrote. I also see notice no one bothered to list horror movies, war movies, disaster movies, murder mysteries, thrillers, or any kind of movie where the entire premise is that one or more characters get introduced specifically to die.

IMO the trope site is kind of fun. But one of my main objections to criticism-by-trope is that grouping things into tropes and genres is the equivalent of skimming. I am very skeptical of criticism that says details don't matter, context doesn't matter, stories are not individual, what matters is overarching themes, and in particular themes that can be retrofitted to semi-conscious social evils. Analysis that is unconcerned with detail is inherently problematic.

Deconstruction is a similarly fun but potentially dangerous tool. When critics become more concerned with secret social messages than with the literal content of a work there is a risk of losing the work altogether. Deconstruction can be useful, but it can also be the equivalent of self congratulatory babble, no better than a Freudian psychoanalysis that reads the current century's prevailing moral code into innocuous or at least ambiguous text. At its worst, deconstruction is pseudo-scholarship and a system of distributing labels, not far removed from in its pursuit of truth from an Internet snark site like somethingawful.com.

IMO a total disregard of truth is not helpful, especially when it is potentially destructive for the author. Personally, I am a left-leaning, pro-feminist, gay, sometime-vegetarian atheist. But I demand truth in my scholarship. If we're going to label a piece of fiction as socially destructive, I think the standard of evidence needs to be rigorous.

Since we've been in a quoting mood, I'll conclude with what Noam Chomsky had to say about some of the lead proponents of deconstruction.

It´s only natural to think that way. By far not nice but natural.

What would you rather lose: Your competition or what you´re competing for?

As far as Buffy is concerned it´s mostly Xander getting stuffed... on several occasions. And while he doesn´t get killed, he´s still the fricking Trope Namer for Butt Monkey.

I personally think there is often more to it than that. IMO in a large number of cases where the wife or girlfriend is a target it's because she is the person closest to the lead character. If you killed the best friend instead, the reaction might not be "Why are you upset" but "Men shouldn't grieve men, get over it." The alternative to the wife or girlfriend is a child or young person in the lead character's care. Kidnapping/torturing/brain washing children is also extremely common--especially if the authors can offload these scenes on a character who is now of age and show them as "flashbacks."

Anyway, playing the deconstruction game, I could say that maybe WiR really is a common phenomenon, but its actual implication is that men's conflicts and irrationality leads to violence against innocent people who are at their heart morally superior. I feel this reading is somewhat dishonest, but no less so than the alternative ones proposed as the "true" answer. The text is wide open to interpretation. The mere fact that you observe a trend (real or not) doesn't provide you a definitive interpretation of what it actually means.

I should add that I think it is really weird to talk about women in refrigerators in general fiction without talking about the most obvious genre where discarding characters is the entire point: horror. You could fill the internet listing examples and counter examples of conflict.

Amen.

This is the main objection to the thesis of the OP and its defenders. Personally, I accept the "WiR (Syndrome)" as a trope, where a trope is a deconstruction of any given story to find elements in it that fit a storyline template. What I don't accept is that finding a place where that template can be applied tells us something definitive about the message given by that story, or indeed even that the prevalence of the trope itself tells us anything definitive.

Deconstructionism is reading a work in such a way as to "prove" it means something other than the author's intent; usually but not always the opposite of that intent. If you have to deconstruct a work to claim it's using a trope, you're wrong.

Actually it's a useless effort in mental masturbation. Chomsky was being polite. It's based on circular arguments and sophistry (in the pejorative sense). Fortunately, as I understand it, it's also pretty much out of vogue these days.

Actually I'm pretty sure that the decision to kill off Kirk's son came well after TWoK was made. The movies were largely written by different people, so I don't think we can say David was introduced to be killed.

Nobody's playing deconstructionist with the WIR Syndrome - nobody's quoting Derrida, applying post-structuralist philosophy, or engaging in etymological shenanigans with close readings. Nor is anyone dragging in feminist theory or gender studies into this discussion. This is just by-the-book literary criticism.

Comics writer Gail Simone put a name to the trend she observed, and her industry colleagues, including such veterans Marv Wolfman, Mark Waid, and Steve Englehart, have agreed by and large with her thesis, particularly since they'd seen it for themselves or wound up contributing to it. Clear criteria for qualification have been outlined, and numerous examples have been provided (far more than comparable lists for male characters).

The horror genre isn't germane to CoH, but if you want to explore that on your own, there's a ton of interesting criticism. The Final Girl phenomenon is a good place to start. Horror tropes don't have anything to do with Miss Liberty or the Who Will Die? arc (unless Statesman winds up stabbed to death in the shower by Lord Recluse dressed as his dead sister).

DC's top writer Grant Morrison has no problems calling sexism sexism at the company:
He also cites Brad Metzinger for fridging Sue Dibny, but without implying a misogynistic agenda to him. It's entirely possible to address sexism in literary (ok, comics) criticism without condemning writers as misogynists. The Dave Sims of comics are much fewer these days, fortunately. Brian Michael Bendis hasn't suddenly revealed himself as a covert patriarchal propaganda agent by fridging the Wasp, but it is disappointing to see him resort to this cliched plot twist after he'd created such fully realized heroines as Jessica Jones in Alias and Deena Pilgrim in Powers. Even after one egregious instance, he's a long way from Frank Miller territory.

The problem with fridging is that it's bad writing, period: Treating a female character's death worse than if she were male, the essence of WIR Syndrome, is never going to make a good story better, only poorer.

YMMV, but:

In many cases, killing off a recently-introduced loved one of the protagonist is a sign of a story that has run out of compelling ways to motivate a character. More egregiously, it's often wasted: the death of the loved one does not truly change the character and ends up maybe adding a little impetus to the eventual fist-in-the-face scene. However, all of this applies regardless of the sex of the characters involved.

In stories where the death of a female loved one is specifically treated as worse than the similar death of a male loved one, it might be bad writing. However, perhaps a specific point is being made about a characters' relationship, sexism/chivalry, or other qualities. This can make the story better by giving us more understanding of the character.

For instance, it might make more sense for Steve Rogers/Captain America to become more determined to defeat a bad guy because he is threatening a woman than it does for Wonder Woman. The fact that Rogers is holding to certain 1940s attitudes despite his time in the modern era can give depth to his character. Sure, the same can be done in other ways, but this way is equally legitimate.

What I object to when I see what I call fridging is when I am robbed of a chance to feel something for a character because the character is killed off-screen/while helpless/suddenly in a manner meant to shock you with the aftermath of the loss, rather than with a proper dramatic buildup and denouement.

Gale Simone's own point behind the entire Women In Refrigerators site is simply stated: Simone maintained that her, "... simple point (had) always been: if you demolish most of the characters girls like, then girls won't read comics. That's it!"[5]

Miss Liberty's death is a fridging, but it is not a poor death scene because it is a fridging. It is a poor death scene that happens to also be a fridging. Fridging is not a practice to be avoided at all costs, but it should be done with care, because female heroic characters are at a premium, and 'permanent' deaths of those characters are more consequential by simple demographics than the similar death of a male character.

It may be sexist, but it is also true.

Simone isn't just a writer of comics, she's a fan of comics. For those two reasons, her observations carry more weight than if she were a professional critic (who, as a class, are by vocation looking for something to criticize).

EDIT: She's not exaggerating about the pressure to kill female characters. Marv Wolfman recounts, "Kole was, in retrospect, a mistake which I did because other writers complained we weren't killing off any of my characters in Crisis, and if I wanted their characters to die I had to kill one of mine." And Mark Waid apologizes, "I'm responsible for the death of Ice. My call, my worst mistake in comics, my biggest regret. I remember hearing myself ask the editor, 'Who's the JLAer whose death would evoke the most fierce gut reaction from readers?' What a dope. Mea culpa."

On captain America's part, he hasn't really had THAT many years spent in the modern age. Yes, it has been that long for the reader, but for the character it's been less than 10 years. And that's going more in line with the idea that Peter Parker has aged ten years.

Remember, aging in comics worked differently. Even for characters like Cap who likely has a slower aging process.

And the problem with all that, is sexist is sexist.

Also with that line of thought, where is the proof of it all? I'm more inclined to think it's socety itself that keeps females from reading comics, the same way it is for grown men to look at comics and go "that's for kids".

It's the same with cartoons. At one point, society didn't think cartoons were just for kids, it has sense become that way.

I see this less of a mistake on Wolfman's part and more a part on all the other writers.

I mean really, "We're killing off our characters, we have to kill yours"? I would have asked how that made any sense.

Perhaps, but Booster Gold and Martin Manhunter are more popular heroes and less likely to be killed unless it's a big deal. Ice, on the other hand, went down in classic fridging fashion: While mind-controlled by the big bad Overmaster, she turns on her former JLA allies, and once she's broken free, Overmaster incinerates her to a crisp in front of them, which gives her boyfriend Guy Gardener something to angst about to deepen his character. No wonder Waid apologized.

If that's what stops a WIR from being a WIR, then I doubt most cases of WIR are WIR as most of those examples brought up, probably didn't have the creators going "Yes, I can create this character specifically to kill them off."

Miss Liberty, I highly doubt, was created to be killed off.

Booster Gold?

Really?

In any case, are you saying Ice would have been the target regardless of what the editor said? Are there any male JLA members from that era that would have been better choices?

If the situation was "I am going to write a story about the death of a superheroine, Ice, and the impact on the rest of the JLA. I am going to have the Overmaster perform the deed. Any objections?" I could respect that.

This description sounds more like, "I am going to write a story where Overmaster kills off a member of the JLA. Who should it be?"

Of course, it would have been even better if Ice had died pulling a heroic sacrifice, or a mutual destruction with Overmaster, or something rather than "I fry you with a single bolt! Wait, why didn't I try that on Batman?"

Because Batman would of dodged it, duuuh

Precisely - and that's the difference between a hero's death and getting fridged.

Since there have been so many WIR cases in this thread, here are some counter-examples:

• Supergirl: Died fighting Anti-Monitor in Crisis on Infinite Earths, sacrificing herself and forcing the supervillain to withdraw.
• Elektra: Killed by Bullseye, against whom she's evenly matched, in one of Frank Miller's old-school martial arts duels.
• Elasti-Girl: Died with her fellow Doom Patrol members in an explosion in order to save a town rather than give in to the supervillain General Zahl.
• Phoenix (Jean Grey): After beating back the Shi'ar Imperial Guard on her own, sacrifices herself rather than let her identity be consumed by the Dark Phoenix power.

Although these cases have some problematic elements (why was Elasti-Girl the last member of the original Doom Patrol to be resurrected?), they're all heroic deaths.

When I used the word "deconstruct", I did not mean it in the philosophical sense, though I see why you could have inferred otherwise in the context of the thread. I meant it in the more literal sense of decomposing a story into elements.

Tropes are nothing but story element or character type templates. Because of this, recognizing these tropes within a story involves lifting details from the story and fitting them into a category in a way that is able to ignore all details of the story not relevant to the trope. This is, by definition, a deconstruction of the story into independently recognizable, constituent parts.

In that context, I find your assertion about tropes and deconstruction to be without merit. That may be, though, because it was not clear that this was the meaning of "deconstruction" I was referring to.

I disagree. Bodies placed in food storage units for others to find is ripped straight from a horror movie. There is also a trope name for it (isn't there always): http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...PeekABooCorpse.

And no I don't think the horror genre has much to do with the WWD arc, but thats because I don't think WWD is an example of conscious or unconscious sexism.

At risk of bringing down the wrath of a certain segment of the forum population, I disagree, and maintain this is only your opinion. Perhaps there is an implied "IMO" on all things you post, but you do not state it explicitly, and therefore I disagree with it on the assumption that you are asserting it as a fact.

I have no objection to the notion that this idea of a woman's death being worse can be used poorly. Relying on it solely to engage an audience, either intentionally or subconsciously, is not the mark of a strong author. However, as someone subject to the notion, I disagree that it cannot ever be used well, or could not enhance how engaged I am in a story or a character.

Among other things, your assertion suggests that my own view on whether its worse for a woman to die is wrong, something which I don't accept. Examples of what would be wrong would be for that view to lead to other things such men treating women in patronizing ways since men have to protect them, or not letting them do certain dangerous things because they need to be protected. Viewing harm to women as worse than harm to men is necessary but not sufficient for those kinds of negative outcomes to result.