Fridging: Bad for business or ordinary story trope?

[Trey Strain]

They killed and maimed too many female characters, and with too much relish. The huge backlash it finally caused was richly deserved.

[Carabas]

Mostly the exercise in creating a female character to kill off as a plot device with the express purpose of motivating the male hero into action as he needed a fuel for it. More or less the same definition it always had.

It's any female character, not just ones specifically created to kill off. Those are fairly rare.

[Skedatz]

It's any female character, not just ones specifically created to kill off. Those are fairly rare.

Shoot. I worded that incorrectly. I meant to say, "Using a female character as a cheap plot device."

[Baseman]

There is a difference between the individual and the society here. For the individual hero, then yes, you are correct. But fridging is not problematic on that level; it is problematic on the society level, because it occurs more or less continously in fiction, and because how the affected men are (not) affected long-term.

You also missed the addition I had that one way that women are viewed to matter is by being status symbols for men.

As for Wonder Woman the movie, it does have one near-perfect case of fridging: the gas bombing of Veld. But here it is part of the First World War, and the destruction of Veld is just one more piece of the senseless murder and destruction that Diana has been confronted with since she first crossed that bridge at the English harbour. It also hits both men and women, and thus I'd judge it as a non-problematic use of the trope.

Only if you buy into your previous interpretation of the message its sends. Which I don't.

Its happens so much because its a good way to provide emotional depth to a story.

Men aren't affected as much because they tend to be the hero of the story and the deaths of heroes tends not to stick this is changing as more and more female hero's are receiving spotlight

[Duskman]

You've also got kids and sometimes animal companions being killed to motivate heroes. And how many stories have the heroes old (almost always male) mentor kicking the bucket in a fight against the bad guy so the hero is motivated to avenge his death. That trope is probably almost if not at least as common as love interests dying.

[ouroboros]

Correct, and you touch on something which I missed to include in my earlier post, and that is that comics (or any other culture) doesn't exist in a vacuum. It both reflects and perpetuates the society in which it is created.

The fact that fridging is much more likely done to women, and that most heroes are men, are both aspects of patriarchy. It both reflects and perpetuates the thoughts that women are replacable (and thus don't matter), and that men are unique (and thus matter and possibly are heroic). Or put another way, women matter only as status symbols for the man. The hero gets the girl is a natural conclusion if the story is a romance, but if the story isn't a romance?



Maybe it's not that common in the same movie (though I'm sure you can find examples if you dig, at least of the implication that the next girl is known), but in the next story? To take two examples, How the West Was Won and Supernatural, each which has a male (co-)lead who finds a girl every few episodes only to have her killed in a short while. While not every case might be an example of classic fridgings, it ties into the the meme that women are replacable.

Well, I guess that'll be the last time we agree. I think the term "patriarchy" can be used for specific historical cultures, but it doesn't apply across the board to everything in our culture, and it particularly doesn't apply to our fictional stories.

There aren't more male heroes in fiction because of an Evil Patriarchal Principle. There are more male heroes because sexual dimorphism gave men a greater tendency to form muscle mass and to be generally ornery. There are more cowboys than cowgirls in fiction because there were more cowboys in real life. Now, not everything in fiction has to mirror reality exactly. There are no real superheroes, so in theory one could have as many female as male heroes. But the author still has to make it convincing that his female characters have a logical reason to pursue a "guy thing," especially when there's no great rewards for doing so, unlike, say, breaking the glass ceiling.

[ouroboros]

James Bond says hi.

But this is comics, not movies. In Big Two superhero comics you generally do not get a 'the end', you only ever get a 'to be continued'. The villain kills the hero's girl, the hero takes non-lethal revenge, and then we get the next arc and the next and the next, and the hero will get a new girl, and new villains who want to kill her, and of course the original girlfriend-killing villain will be back too because nothing is permanent, except for the death of the girlfriend, usually.

Aren't most of the women who die in the Bond films the "bad girls?" In most of the films, Bond happily sails off with a current "good girl," and they implicitly break up in the interim and leave him free for another conquest in the following film.

[ouroboros]

While I agree the death of a character motivating a hero isn't in itself wrong because dying SHOULD affect the hero, that's not exactly what we're talking about. We're discussing the purpose, build, and execution concerning women specifically and the tones which bring it about. In this case, introducing a woman just to kill her to motivate the man and pushing the stereotype of the frail disposable woman being used as a tool. This is why men don't die as commonly as a motivator in superhero comics even though they could (outside of the origin story). It's kind of a falsehood to say, "Well, the general idea behind the trope isn't bad so all iterations of the trope aren't bad," because that would be drowning the subject being talked about in a general sense. Think of it this way, "A totalitarian fascist government isn't inherently wrong because governments have always existed and often enough there has been legal or allowed oppression of some group or another." It's creating a false equivalency of being okay by trying to elevate a smaller concept onto the same level as the trope it descends from instead of treating it as the focus it was intended to be.

Subculture exploitation and abuse is what is bad. Not just racism in a story.

But is it "subculture exploitation" if there are a sizable quantity of male support-characters killed off for the same reason, as per my example of Aquababy?

[Carabas]

Aren't most of the women who die in the Bond films the "bad girls?" In most of the films, Bond happily sails off with a current "good girl," and they implicitly break up in the interim and leave him free for another conquest in the following film.

Most films have multiple good girls, and generally only one gets to live.

[ouroboros]

Most films have multiple good girls, and generally only one gets to live.

I don't think that's a demonstrable trend, at least not for the Bond films. I scanned the film-writeups, and the only "good girl" who gets it is Tracy in ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE. She dies at the story's end, as she does in the novel, and the film certainly does not end with Bond hooking up with anyone else. The next film does give him a new hook-up, though it's not explicitly stated that it happens right after the events of SERVICE.

[Carabas]

I don't think that's a demonstrable trend, at least not for the Bond films. I scanned the film-writeups, and the only "good girl" who gets it is Tracy in ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE. She dies at the story's end, as she does in the novel, and the film certainly does not end with Bond hooking up with anyone else. The next film does give him a new hook-up, though it's not explicitly stated that it happens right after the events of SERVICE.

Jill Masterson, Tilly Masterson, Aki, Plenty O'Toole, Lisl von Schlaf, May Day, Paris Carver, Solange Dimitrios, Strawberry Fields, Sévérine, Della Churchill, Corinne Dufour, Andrea Anders...

[Moon Ronin]

Jill Masterson, Tilly Masterson, Aki, Plenty O'Toole, Lisl von Schlaf, May Day, Paris Carver, Solange Dimitrios, Strawberry Fields, Sévérine, Della Churchill, Corinne Dufour, Andrea Anders...

Oddly though during the Pierce Brosnan years it slacked off.

[Skedatz]

But is it "subculture exploitation" if there are a sizable quantity of male support-characters killed off for the same reason, as per my example of Aquababy?

That's not the same thing nor would trying to create a hypothetical, but clearly non-existent, equivalency and elevate it to a different sort of norm to attempt and explain away the actual topic something I think is constructive.

[ouroboros]

Jill Masterson, Tilly Masterson, Aki, Plenty O'Toole, Lisl von Schlaf, May Day, Paris Carver, Solange Dimitrios, Strawberry Fields, Sévérine, Della Churchill, Corinne Dufour, Andrea Anders...

Some of these characters have romantic encounters with Bond, but are not "good girls" in any respect. Lisl is a mobster's moll who tries to hoodwink Bond with sex. May Day is the villain's henchwoman, and she isn't really Bond's girlfriend when she chooses to take his side against Christopher Walken. Plenty is just a good-time girl who wants to have sex with Bond, but she's not especially "good" nor is she a girlfriend, just a passing fancy. Paris Carver is a lot like May Day; literally in bed with the villain at the start though she does at least switch to Bond's side after real passion between them. Tilly never shows interest in Bond as she's concerned only with revenge, and any desire he has to avenge her is based in altruism, not sex. Solange isn't Bond's lover, even if he has some intentions in that direction, and Della Churchill isn't a love-interest at all, being the bride of Felix Leiter.

Bond originally comes up as an example of "fridging," but all these examples only apply if he's formed some special connection with them. Otherwise they're just collateral damage that excites Bond's ire because they're innocents. Hell, in one of the books he even avenges somebody's murdered pet birds...

[ouroboros]

That's not the same thing nor would trying to create a hypothetical, but clearly non-existent, equivalency and elevate it to a different sort of norm to attempt and explain away the actual topic something I think is constructive.

Saying that the equivalency doesn't exist is just your opinion if you don't offer argumentative proof.