Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, Current News, DC Comics, Marvel Comics | Tagged: gail simone, women in refrigerators

Gail Simone Definition Of "Fridge" Now In Merriam-Webster Dictionary

The Gail Simone definition of "fridge" is now in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary

The slang definition of "fridge" in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, as of this week, reads;

"to kill/harm a character (in a movie, show, etc.) to motivate another" and "To fridge a (usually female) character in a movie, television show, comic book, etc., is to kill them off or seriously harm/abuse/violate them in some way (as a writer) for the purposes of motivating or furthering the development of another (usually male) character. Fridging is considered, and widely criticized as, a storytelling cliché."

And it cites "This use of fridge is attributed to comics/television/novel writer Gail Simone, who in 1999 published a list of over 100 comic book characters, all women, who were killed, injured, tortured, etc., on a website called "Women in Refrigerators." The website's name comes from an issue of a Green Lantern comic in which the superhero finds that his girlfriend has been murdered by a villain and stuffed into a refrigerator."

Gail Simone posted to social media, "So, @MerriamWebster has announced that 'Fridging' is officially a dictionary word, and they announced it on social media and credited me as the creator of the concept on their website. That is surprising and cool. Thank you, MW!" And the official Merriam-Webster account replied "Thank YOU!" with a Psycho-style shower knife image.

Gail Simone wrote the Women in Refrigerators list in 1999 listing examples of the superhero comic-book trope whereby female characters are affected by injury, raped, killed, or depowered, sometimes to stimulate "protective" traits, and often as a plot device intended to move a male character's story arc forward, and seeks to analyze why these plot devices are used disproportionately on female characters. The name specifically refers to an incident in Green Lantern #54 in 1994 by Ron Marz andDarryl Banks, in which Green Lantern Kyle Rayner comes home to his apartment to find that his girlfriend, Alexandra DeWitt, had been killed by the villain Major Force and stuffed into a refrigerator, and the term "fridging" was born.  Simone and her collaborators published a list of fictional female characters who had been "fridged". Several comic book creators indicated that the list caused them to pause and think about the stories they were creating. But just as the Bechdel Test did, it's influence was felt far and wide beyond the medium that spawned it. I've heard it used in all manner of fashions by people who have no idea of the word's origins. It's just what people say, it has become part of the language. It even spawned the novel The Refrigerator Monologues by Catherynne M. Valente, in which five women meet in the afterlife who discover their deaths were just to inspire their superhero boyfriends. And now it is even used by characters in Marvel and DC Comics…

I will also always remember Mark Millar's quoted response to the list, saying "this is something people should probably watch out for, but rape is a rare thing in comics and is seldom done in an exploitative way." He just forget to add the word "yet". Wanted, Kick-Ass, Kingsmen, Nemeis, Ultimates, Wolverine, Old Man Logan, etc etc…

And of course the original inciting moment from Green Lantern could have been worse and was censored from the original artwork…

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