Women in Refrigerators

[trochee]

(via misbehaving)
Women in Refrigerators is a discussion of why it seems to be that so many comic-book women get killed or traumatized or de-powered.

And b) I can't quite shake the feeling that male characters tend to die differently than female ones. The male characters seem to die nobly, as heroes, most often, whereas it's not uncommon, as in Katma Tui's case, for a male character to just come home and find her butchered in the kitchen. There are exceptions for both sexes, of course, but shock value seems to be a major motivator in the superchick deaths more often than not.
Combine this trend with the bad girl comics and you have a very weird, slightly hostile environment for women down at the friendly comics shoppe. No, I'm not against cheesecake or sexual content in comics, but when that content is strictly for boys and the women are just bizarre centerfolds with fangs and big hair ... well, it starts to smell like a guy's locker room. Or worse. Let's face it ... some comics readers smell pretty bad to start with.

Comments

[solri.livejournal.com]

One reason I liked Trinity's death scene in Revolutions was that they gave her a good hero's death.