Long time no see. Sorry this second post took so long, I got hit pretty hard by work as well as a bad case of the fuckits, but I'm back with another overly opinionated post for your reading pleasure.
As the good Dr already mentioned this little rant is about one of the more controversial topics in comic book fandom, the so called Women in Refrigerators Syndrome.
Coined by Author Gail Simone on her site of the same name the syndrome refers to the negative treatment of female characters in super hero comic books ranging from abuse to rape to murder; and is named after what its sadly still one of the defining moments of Kyle Rayner the fifth Green Lantern ; the gruesome murder of his girlfriend Alex by government psycho for hire Major Force.
Naturally once the site gained notoriety among fans and authors the treatment of women in comics became a hot button issue. How were comics supposed to grow their reader base if female readers saw female characters treated in such a way.
Of course its not like it really changed much, the original letter by Simone that lead to the site is now over a decade old and thus predates the horror that is Identity Crisis.
There are, however, two major problems with the idea of the Women in Refrigerators Syndrome that make it somewhat weaker as a rallying cry to change the industry.
The first is the double standard intrinsic in its very nature. Yes, terrible things happen to female characters in comic books and its often done for shock value. But it happens just as frequently to males, if not more frequently
considering the higher percentage of male characters.Take for example Jason Todd, the second Robin and one of the most famous deaths in comics. Lured to a foreign country by the mother that abandoned him, beaten to near to death by a cackling Joker and then exploded the rest of the way all to get at Batman.
Another example is Terry Berg, another character from Kyle Rayner's time as the only Green Lantern. Terry was Kyles assistant, he was also gay. One night some homophobes found Terry coming out of a club and beat him so brutally that it drove Kyle to leave the planet in disgust at humanity.
Or perhaps we should look at Kyle himself, since this all started with him. In the past few years alone Kyle has been relegated to a supporting role (one of the things that can land someone on Simone's list) in favor of Hal ¨Captain Cardboard¨ Jordan, possessed by the same entity that (retroactively) possessed Jordan to make Hal look better by comparison, and then killed. He got better from the last part, but so do most comic book deaths so it still counts.
But, some may say, these events are terrible to be sure, but at least the male characters don't have to deal with the worst bit of thing to come out of modern comics; rape as character development. And to that I say, WROOONG!
Just look at the Bat Family once again. In the past few years both Dick Grayson, the first Robin/Nightwing/now Batman, and Bruce ¨The God Damn Batman¨ Wayne himself were drugged and raped by female villains and Bruces rape even produced a child (they retconned that during the night Bruce spent with Talia Al´Ghul she drugged him before the hit the sack together).
Terrible things happen to comic book characters, male or female, but there is no out cry when it happens to the men. Oh sure fans of the character may bitch or call ¨shitty retcon¨ but there is no website for it, no one is accused of sexism for it. Hell, Judd Winick, the creator of Terry Berg, won awards for having a gay guy beaten to a pulp in his comic! Yeah it was from GLAAD for his treatment of the subject... but the point still stands.
Alright this post is getting long enough as it is, so I think it´s time to end it. I´ll be back to confront the second major problem with Women in Refrigerators next week, Same Dork Time, Same Dork Channel.
