Women's HERstory Month Day 29: Women in Refrigerators

[jettakd]

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tw for mentions of sexual assault of fictional characters.

Women in Refrigerators is a trope identified by comic book fan (and now comic book writer) Gail Simone because she was sick of seeing ”superheroines who have been either depowered, assaulted, or cut up and stuck in the refrigerator.”

Source

Today I'm starting a two day docent job for

Comments

[fickery]

a two day docent job for my school's comic book art show

Wow, that sounds really fun. :)

Thanks for posting this! (and the rest of the HERstories--I'm way behind). Of course I'm aware of Gail Simone and Women in Refrigerators, but this is a really good, simple, engaging explanation of the phenomenon and why it's important to recognize it. Bookmarked the vid so I can watch the rest of the tropes series later.

[jettakd]

Hopefully, it will be cause my shift is just about to start!

[lykomancer]

Listening to someone talk about tropes is almost as addicting as clicking through tvTropes website endlessly. My god, I could watch these all day.

[executivehpfan]

I love this series, and this video in particular.

[tifa]

I absolutely LOVE Feminist Frequency! They're so good at calling people out on this shit. My favorite is probably the one about the "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" only because I'd never really learned that on my own. Thanks for all of your posts <33

[jettakd]

I LOATHE the Manic Pixie Dream Girl Trope and all it stands for. That video was great.

I'm glad you like them :D

[tifa]

Oh my god, I know right??? I knew I didn't like those kind of characters for several reasons and now I have a name for it. It dominates our culture so much. When I think mpdg, I immediately think Zooey Deschanel (who ironically calls herself a feminist). I like her style and everything and yeah, it's okay like cute/pretty/whatever things but playing down your intellect for the sake of appealing to the brooding dude in the corner or the uptight playboy (both of whom are sexist)? Yeah no, thanks for playing, bye! You wouldn't BELIEVE how many mpdg's there are in East Asian shows/books/films because a lot of their stuff is influenced by Euro-American media...or maybe you do LOL /can never know.

[jettakd]

Zooey is the mpdg poster girl and it pisses me off so much that she is so much more popular than Emily who plays strong, intelligent, capable women.

[jettakd]

There is a collected online list of these situations, and the sheer volume is just horrifying.

Let's not forget Scarlet Witch who was depowered, had her memory wiped, and her twin sons stolen/reincarnated into other children.

[jettakd]

Yeah that whole thing just left me in a constant fluctuation of O-o and rage.

How about Storm, the goddess-level powered mutant being beaten by her first husband Forge? That always pissed me off so so much.