2008 Woodie Awards
Read Your Comics!
Michael Fitzgerald
Issue date: 3/26/07 Section: Arts & Entertainment
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This edition's look into the subversive art of comic books takes a deeper, more subconscious gaze into the treatment of female characters in stories that are mostly written by male creators.
Imagine a brash, young amateur superhero just getting home from a long, hard day on patrol. He calls out for his girlfriend… when he notice a note on a table, "Surprise for you in the fridge - Love, A" written in unfamiliar handwriting.
Strange notes never lie, do they? You pop open the fridge and what do you know? There's A. right there!
Shocking. Disturbing. Gross.
Green Lantern's love interest Alexandra DeWitt isn't the only female comic book character to suffer a sinister fate such as this one. She simply inspired the title of a long list of characters with gruesome or humiliating fates featured on a website called "Women in Refrigerators."
The list was compiled in 1999 by comic book fan Gail Simone, who circulated the list through various Internet forums before creating a website about these tragic heroines' fates in 2000.
Glancing at the list, it's easy to be surprised by the small size of the scroll bar. Perhaps somewhat thankfully, most characters are simply described "dead." Unfortunately, some characters' fates are detailed with longer, more painful fates that are commonly sexual or childbirth-related in nature.
Characters like Karen Page, Daredevil's girlfriend, left him after discovering his secret identity, then moved to California to pursue an acting career, then became addicted to heroine and sold his secret identity to the mob in exchange for drugs, then died.
Even Wonder Woman, often heralded as a strong feminist character ahead of her time, originally had a vulnerability where she would lose her powers when tied up-and this happened many, many times in her comic series and 1970s TV show.
Ms. Marvel, a character with a forward-thinking prefix, is sadly most commonly known as the heroine that got her powers stolen by the superpower-leeching X-Man, Rogue. But Marvel endured more than that humiliating defeat. Simone adds, "mind-controlled, impregnated by rape, powers and memories stolen, cosmic-powered then depowered, alcoholic - SHEESH!" In the early 1980s, Marvel editors had to apologize for their treatment of the character after it caused feminist Carol Strickland to blast the company in a magazine editorial.
Imagine a brash, young amateur superhero just getting home from a long, hard day on patrol. He calls out for his girlfriend… when he notice a note on a table, "Surprise for you in the fridge - Love, A" written in unfamiliar handwriting.
Strange notes never lie, do they? You pop open the fridge and what do you know? There's A. right there!
Shocking. Disturbing. Gross.
Green Lantern's love interest Alexandra DeWitt isn't the only female comic book character to suffer a sinister fate such as this one. She simply inspired the title of a long list of characters with gruesome or humiliating fates featured on a website called "Women in Refrigerators."
The list was compiled in 1999 by comic book fan Gail Simone, who circulated the list through various Internet forums before creating a website about these tragic heroines' fates in 2000.
Glancing at the list, it's easy to be surprised by the small size of the scroll bar. Perhaps somewhat thankfully, most characters are simply described "dead." Unfortunately, some characters' fates are detailed with longer, more painful fates that are commonly sexual or childbirth-related in nature.
Characters like Karen Page, Daredevil's girlfriend, left him after discovering his secret identity, then moved to California to pursue an acting career, then became addicted to heroine and sold his secret identity to the mob in exchange for drugs, then died.
Even Wonder Woman, often heralded as a strong feminist character ahead of her time, originally had a vulnerability where she would lose her powers when tied up-and this happened many, many times in her comic series and 1970s TV show.
Ms. Marvel, a character with a forward-thinking prefix, is sadly most commonly known as the heroine that got her powers stolen by the superpower-leeching X-Man, Rogue. But Marvel endured more than that humiliating defeat. Simone adds, "mind-controlled, impregnated by rape, powers and memories stolen, cosmic-powered then depowered, alcoholic - SHEESH!" In the early 1980s, Marvel editors had to apologize for their treatment of the character after it caused feminist Carol Strickland to blast the company in a magazine editorial.
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