As long as it is actually addressed and not just a stage prop that moves the villain and hero closer into conflict, then I agree. And I think that is true of a villain that murders (and, say, stuffs his victim into a fridge), steals, or what have you. If it is a mere plot point, then it is poor writing, and perhaps even at the expense of including women into the story meaningfully.
Comic Book News
- Thread starter ThatNickGuy
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The reason was that they were referencing Bond movies. Pretend I was able to find a clip of that cringeworthy "Christmas does come twice a year" line.
When people talk about "fridging" a female character, what they mean is that they use the female character as a prop to motivate the male protagonist. There is not character development, no depth, and no consequences beyond providing motivation (anger) for a male central character.
So it's not that raping or murdering a female character shouldn't be done; rather, it's that having a female raped and/or murdered in a story should be handled with nuance and value instead of gleefully using the female as a prop.
So it's not that raping or murdering a female character shouldn't be done; rather, it's that having a female raped and/or murdered in a story should be handled with nuance and value instead of gleefully using the female as a prop.
Two things:
1) If a male character was handled as cheaply and carelessly, objectified or exploited to the point of having no real value, then yes.
2) This doesn't happen to male characters, because authors are very good about providing them depth and development. This is due to the rampant sexism that pervades the comic book industry. Being in the position of power (male gender, in this case) makes it hard to be exploited or objectified.
figmentPez
Staff member
One of the problems is that rape is depicted almost exclusively as this ultimate evil. It's done by villains as this proof of their evil, or by characters whose only identity is rapist. In reality, rape isn't always as stark as that, and therein lies the problem. We see all sorts of levels and motives for murder. Characters who are killing for fun, who are killing with an evil purpose, who are killing with an ambiguous goal, etc. Same for torture, plus we see all the forms of psychological torture that aren't done by evil masterminds, we see abusive parents, asshole teachers, corrupt authorities, etc. Torture and mistreatment covers the range from Saw down to Roald Dahl adults. And society at large generally recognizes and confronts all these different forms of killing and abuse. We've got blind spots, and problem areas, but not nearly as much as rape.
Rape isn't treated the same way in depiction in most fiction, and more importantly isn't treated the same way by our culture. As a culture we teach "rape is bad, don't rape", but we also promote the idea that rape is some unknown guy jumping out of the bushes at some woman walking alone at night. Our culture is pretty damn terrible at recognizing all the other forms of non-consensual sexual activity that should immediately be recognized as rape. Hell, just the fact that, until recently, rape was legally something that only a male could do to a female victim makes it a very polarized crime.* We, as a culture, are just barely beginning to start discussing what consent is, what it means, and how to deal with rape when it's not an extreme and easily defined case. Until we reach a point where our cultural discussion of rape, and it's depiction in media, starts to reflect more fully the issue as a whole, it's a huge problem to continue to depict rape in it's most extreme, simply to show off how evil a character is. That only serves to reinforce the notion that rape is only the extremes.
*And that's a second big problem. The fact that rape is, by and large in our cultural understanding, a crime that is committed by men against women, gives it huge connotations well beyond just the evil of the act itself. Murder is done by anyone, to anyone. Rape is done by a man, to a woman; at least as far as the average person is concerned. It's a crime that targets a minority, and in the case of The Killing Joke, is being used to violate that minority figure, in order to provide motivation for heroes who are literally in positions of power. Would you be okay with it if Perry White's adopted black son were sold into slavery in order to provide motivation for Perry and Superman? Or would you be bothered by the cultural implications of making a black character a slave in order to outrage white people?
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figmentPez
Staff member
There's a problem with this. Aside from the fact that a female super villain having non-consensual sex with a male character isn't legally rape in most, if not all, of the US (not unless she uses some object to anally penetrate him), you've also got the problem that most of your audience isn't going to have the same emotional reaction to that as they would a female victim. Because rape has been viewed as a crime against women for so long in our culture, it's a lot more difficult to sell the idea of a man being harmed by unwanted sexual activity. Since it can't be used as just a throw-away motivation, it isn't equivalent. To sell the idea of a male victim, you'd have to do a lot more set-up, and suddenly it becomes an actual part of the story, rather than just a checkbox on a list of cliches.
Invincible was raped by a female alien and the whole scene is pretty hard to read through.
Spoiler'd selections from the comic, along with him finally confessing it happened to his pregnant girlfriend (after multiple issues of hiding it):
Spoiler'd selections from the comic, along with him finally confessing it happened to his pregnant girlfriend (after multiple issues of hiding it):
GasBandit
Staff member
I remember in Raymond Feist's midkemia novels (I forget exactly which one of the dozens of them), the book's protagonist was finally confronting the evil dark mage who had kidnapped the princess/love interest and had been holding her hostage for weeks. At some point the dialog could be paraphrased as going mostly as follows:
"You fiend! What have you done to her?!"
"Nothing much, kept her locked away until it was time for her to be sacrificed for the demon gate ritual."
"You mean.. you never..."
"What? No. I mean, I thought about it of course, and with this new young male body I'm currently possessing, it did sound like an interesting idea... but... you see, that whole process is just... so... so life affirming, and really that sort of runs counter to what it is I do here. It might even undermine the ritual."
I chortled, and my opinion of Feist as an author went up a notch.
Now, granted, his serpentwar saga of midkemia books starts off with THAT protagonist getting sentenced to death for accidentally killing in a scuffle a young noble that he caught raping the girl he liked, soooo YMMV.
"You fiend! What have you done to her?!"
"Nothing much, kept her locked away until it was time for her to be sacrificed for the demon gate ritual."
"You mean.. you never..."
"What? No. I mean, I thought about it of course, and with this new young male body I'm currently possessing, it did sound like an interesting idea... but... you see, that whole process is just... so... so life affirming, and really that sort of runs counter to what it is I do here. It might even undermine the ritual."
I chortled, and my opinion of Feist as an author went up a notch.
Now, granted, his serpentwar saga of midkemia books starts off with THAT protagonist getting sentenced to death for accidentally killing in a scuffle a young noble that he caught raping the girl he liked, soooo YMMV.
Exactly. That was painful to read, but it wasn't done for the advancement of another, actually important character.Invincible was raped by a female alien and the whole scene is pretty hard to read through.
Spoiler'd selections from the comic, along with him finally confessing it happened to his pregnant girlfriend (after multiple issues of hiding it):
GasBandit
Staff member
Or change the victim to Gordon's son. Could even bring back the kid who played Joffrey.
Yeah, without the weird sexual connotations (ie Joker sending Gordon pictures of Barbara being undressed unwillingly).
fade
Staff member
Okay, but most of the arguments made here don't apply to The Killing Joke. Barbara was a well-developed character. She wasn't a prop to advance the male protagonist. Her victimization was a prop, but someone has to get victimized, or there's no need for a hero. There's not anything particularly wrong with fridging from a story point of view. That's not the issue.
The issue with fridging is its near universality. It doesn't matter if the female character is well-developed or not. It doesn't matter if she's a throwaway, or the best written female character ever. What matters is that a girl or woman reading sees the female characters in every story die, get raped, or get tortured eventually. Does this happen exclusively to the women? No, but that's not the issue. The issue is that a huge majority of female characters get brutalized or killed. That's all female readers see happen to their heroes and villains, and it's almost always done to drive some main character to the brink. Think of a female protagonist with a strong presence, and it's happened. Katma Tui (the trope namer), Barbara Gordon, Spoiler, etc.
That's not to say things haven't, uh, improved at all. Now everyone gets brutalized, raped, tortured and murdered.
The issue with fridging is its near universality. It doesn't matter if the female character is well-developed or not. It doesn't matter if she's a throwaway, or the best written female character ever. What matters is that a girl or woman reading sees the female characters in every story die, get raped, or get tortured eventually. Does this happen exclusively to the women? No, but that's not the issue. The issue is that a huge majority of female characters get brutalized or killed. That's all female readers see happen to their heroes and villains, and it's almost always done to drive some main character to the brink. Think of a female protagonist with a strong presence, and it's happened. Katma Tui (the trope namer), Barbara Gordon, Spoiler, etc.
That's not to say things haven't, uh, improved at all. Now everyone gets brutalized, raped, tortured and murdered.
For another variation in literature, see Death by Newbery Award. Seriously... so many depressing books about dogs dying.
GasBandit
Staff member
Ah yes, the Newbery award, teaching kids that life is the truest villain because it always kicks the dog.
Your new Guardians of the Galaxy:
Yes, that's Groot.
Drax.
Rocket. He's the leader now.
Kitty Pryde married Starlord and he's not part of the team right now, so she's taking his spot.
Yes, that's Thing.
Yes, that's Flash Thompson Venom.
I don't know what to expect out of this, but it's not a positive feeling.
Yes, that's Groot.
Drax.
Rocket. He's the leader now.
Kitty Pryde married Starlord and he's not part of the team right now, so she's taking his spot.
Yes, that's Thing.
Yes, that's Flash Thompson Venom.
I don't know what to expect out of this, but it's not a positive feeling.
Replace the white with green, and you have yourself a Ben 10 alien right there.
Groot...he's all ready there.
Groot...he's all ready there.
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No, but I'll be in Baltimore in Oct for American Society for Human Genetics meeting. I'd rather go to the comic-con.
I'm going! Selling a print.
No, but I'm probably going to DCAF this weekend! (Dartmouth comic convention).
Don't think we can embed facebook posts here, but José Luis García-López published images of DC Comics's 1982 style guide that was used by licensees and internally by artists for reference into the late 80s.
http://robot6.comicbookresources.co...982-dc-comics-style-guide-online-and-amazing/
http://robot6.comicbookresources.co...982-dc-comics-style-guide-online-and-amazing/
Wow I miss some of those heroes... what ever happened to them?
Oh my, Supergirl.
GasBandit
Staff member
Holy Bonnie Tyler hair.Oh my, Supergirl.
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2015/08...cancelled-titles-reduced-page-rates-more-ads/
So DC Comics is having some problems lately. All those big changes they promised, with new, exciting books and trying out new things? Nope! The promise of not to cancel any of these new comics before 12 issues? Allegedly gone. They're basically being told to stop "Batgirling" titles. In other words, go back to the plain old meat and potatoes of what worked before.
Which is funny because these new titles - Batgirl included - was why I considered reading DC titles again. Heck, @infamousalix lent me her Batgirl Vol. 1 (of the relaunch) and I quite enjoyed it.
Sounds like DC is kind of a sinking ship.[DOUBLEPOST=1440626584,1440626516][/DOUBLEPOST]http://www.bleedingcool.com/2015/08/25/dc-comics-down-2-million-on-projected-figures-for-20142015/
They also took a 2 million dollar hit recently.
So DC Comics is having some problems lately. All those big changes they promised, with new, exciting books and trying out new things? Nope! The promise of not to cancel any of these new comics before 12 issues? Allegedly gone. They're basically being told to stop "Batgirling" titles. In other words, go back to the plain old meat and potatoes of what worked before.
Which is funny because these new titles - Batgirl included - was why I considered reading DC titles again. Heck, @infamousalix lent me her Batgirl Vol. 1 (of the relaunch) and I quite enjoyed it.
Sounds like DC is kind of a sinking ship.[DOUBLEPOST=1440626584,1440626516][/DOUBLEPOST]http://www.bleedingcool.com/2015/08/25/dc-comics-down-2-million-on-projected-figures-for-20142015/
They also took a 2 million dollar hit recently.
Calling it a sinking ship is kind of an exaggeration. They are backed by Warner Brothers... DC isn't going anywhere as long as WB believes it needs the comics operation to write material for them. But it's likely we'll see a big pull back in the mean time... and if Batman Vs Superman isn't a monster hit, it's almost assured that the rest of the DC movies are going to get shelved almost over night.[DOUBLEPOST=1440627811,1440627618][/DOUBLEPOST]
I don't read DC outside of Batman Beyond. They've basically stopped doing anything else with characters I actually care about. We get another Static series? Blue Beetle? Captain Marvel/Shazam? I'll buy those but I don't really care about anything else they've done.
Only due to my overall distaste for DC because of Nu52 and such. But I honestly intend to buy some of the Batgirl for myself at some point.[DOUBLEPOST=1440628006,1440627872][/DOUBLEPOST]
Yeah, I guess calling it a sinking ship is going too far. But I'd say the Nu52 relaunch can be considered a failure since they pissed off old fans like myself and failed to create a large audience of new readers. Aside from a small boost early into the reboot, sales are not drastically different compared to before the reboot.
Speaking of Batman Beyond, are you still reading it now? Because it's now tied in with the rest of the DCU and Terry isn't even in the Batman role anymore.