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A combination of Double Standard and Stuffed Into The Fridge. Female characters, for some reason, tend to be the most common throwaway victims. This may be a carryover from the Distressed Damsel days into the Dark Age; a Darker And Edgier form of sexism, if you will.

Isn't this just Disposable Woman, you ask? Well, that's partially true. The Disposable Woman is disposable in the first place because, you see, they just aren't important. They're generic and easily replaceable, right? According to the writing staff, anyway.

Women In Refrigerators, however, could have been important — and in many cases, they were. Some even carried their own series, although usually these cases were of the Distaff Counterpart type. But they finally ended up falling because... female characters aren't marketable enough if they're strong, and make for good drama when they suddenly become weak - and it helps reinforce the personal politics of many of the middle aged suits that actually run most media companies, a misogynistic Aesop that women should have just Stayed In The Kitchen and it wouldn't have happened. Compared to the sordid fates of these women, the Faux Action Girl has gotten off lucky.

Named for the website of the same title.

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Examples

Comic Books

• DC Comics luuurves this trope and uses it whenever they need some Drama to happen. Some of the more egregious examples:
  • Named after Kyle Rayner's first girlfriend, found literally Stuffed Into The Fridge, murdered in sickening fashion by minor villain Major Force.
  • First Batgirl, Barbara Gordon. The Joker shot her in the spine (leaving her paraplegic), took naked pictures of her and sent them to her father, Commissioner Gordon, in an attempt to give Gordon his "one bad day" in the Batman story, "The Killing Joke." Nowadays she makes an excellent name for herself as super-hacker Oracle.
    • Fun Fact: Oracle gained much of her current popularity to authors Chuck Dixon and then Gail Smone, who in turn wrote the Oracle-led team Birds of Prey. Gail Simone was also website founder of "Women in Refrigerators".
  • Sue Dibny, wife of the Elongated Man, stamped in the brain and then burned with a flamethrower by suddenly-gone-completely-bonkers Jean Loring, ex-girlfriend of the Atom. And, of course, Sue Dibny was pregnant. Also, after her death, it is reveal that she had been raped years before and had her memory wiped.
    • Sue Dibny's fate is particularly egregious because of the Executive Meddling behind it. According to former DC assistant editor Valerie D'Orazio, the entire Identity Crisis miniseries grew out of DC's desire to depict a rape.
  • Matrix Supergirl's tale is one of mind-controlling, depowering, repowering, retconning, and finally losing her husband and child before vanishing from the comics forever.
  • Donna Troy's actual backstory is that she has to live hundreds of lives and suffer great horrors in all of them.
    • It may be worth noting that the Donna Troy character never actually had a coherent backstory for the first couple decades of her existence. Rather, DC gave her a new 'origin story' every few years, with each new 'origin' containing a number of details that contradicted various aspects of one or more of the past 'origins'. Writer/artist John Byrne, attempting to make sense out of this intractable morass of Gordian continuity knot, came up with the tortured-and-raped-thru-various-lifetimes schtick as an attempt to (a) "make a silk purse out of a sow's ear", while also (b) not just throwing yet another 'origin' onto the pile. While said schtick does have the benefit of accepting all the past 'origins' as valid continuity, the 'squick factor' suggests that perhaps Mr. Byrne might have been better advised to leave well enough alone.
  • Power Girl gave parthenogenical birth to a boy that aged super-fast, then romanced her. Seriously.
    • Marvel Comics upped the ante by doing this story (first) with the added feature having Avengers member Ms. Marvel be "subtly influenced" by her son/lover's machines, yet still running off with him to another dimension after learning the truth. Thankfully, another writer realized how idiotic this was and, upon her return, had her deliver a rather justified speech against what boneheads the Avengers were for not attempting to stop an incestuous rapist with Mind Control from running off with her.
  • Stephanie Brown: so quickly disposed of after becoming Robin that there is no memorial to her in the Batcave, and Bats and Tim Drake barely take the time to mourn her passing after the first plot arc.
    • Not so forgotten. Check out the last half-a dozen issues (each) of Robin and Gotham Underground.
    • Spoiler version for those who haven't the time: She was off recovering. She's back. The lack of memorial was because Batman suspected this, though, not knew - so he's still a dick.
  • Big Barda's death wasn't quite this — after all, it was part of Death Of The New Gods, she was going to die some time — but it set off enough red flags to leave a bitter taste in some fans' mouths (let's see, dead in a kitchen? Check. No signs of struggle, despite the fact that she's a goddess of war? Check. Husband finds her, and her death serves to motivate him? Check).
  • The female Dr. Light was beaten and depowered by the villainous male Dr. Light in Green Arrow's book, so that GA and Black Lightning could play the heroes. It's made abundantly clear that the writer Did Not Do The Research, as he downplays her intelligence (she is a physicist and a medical doctor, and knows her powers), and her status as a hero (she came out of retirement in a solo story, and appeared in an issue of Wonder Woman during the period of inactivity he claims), all for the sole purpose of painting her as inferior. And, as mentioned in this discussion, after Arrow and Lightning find her and are properly motivated, she is left sprawled on the hospital floor◊, her situation never to be addressed again in the story. Also, this being the same villain who raped Sue Dibny in the previous example, he later compares this depowering to rape. AND, if ALL THAT weren't bad enough, the villain gets away scot-free at the end of the story. Did I mention that the female Dr. Light is Japanese, and the writer has said that he's concerned about the lack of powerful Asian females in comics?? You better believe this is a case of actions speaking louder than words. It's all spelled out in this blog.
  • The mostly stupid Ambush Bug: Year None has at least one good joke in it - it deals with the murder and fridge-stuffing of a little cartoon girl with the DC Comics logo for a body who used to appear on DC covers. In the beginning, Ambush Bug is shopping for refrigerators, and each model's selling point is how many female supporting characters it can hold.
• Marvel Comics is quite fond of the trope as well.
  • Two words: Gwen Stacy.
  • Spider Man's aunt May Parker is pretty much the punching bag of the comic. She's been killed, discovered not to be dead, implanted with a bomb, sniped, attacked, everything but made pregnant, probably only because she's way past menopause by this point. And if they hadn't chosen to Ret Con Trouble out of the timeline, she would have had that covered, too.
  • This troper notes that not only was Trouble never canon, it could never have been canon — the May of that series has a teenage pregnancy, and Spidey's Aunt May is canonically more than fifty years his senior.
  • In a recent comic, a young superheroine named Gadget, who had an interesting premise — she found herself inspired by Tony Stark and built a suit of Powered Armor in her garage — was on her very first adventure, encountered a bad guy with gravity powers, and was crushed into a ball the size of a melon (this was not shown, but was described as the result by another character) — but not fast enough to stop her from shrieking "Noooooo!" off-panel.
  • Psylocke is the X-Men whipping girl. She's had her eyes removed, been brainwashed, died, brought back to life, brainwashed again, severely injured, died again, and then resurrected. Her powers have gone through so many variations that some comic book fans don't know what the hell she can do anymore. (Though psychically powered Action Girl sums it up pretty nicely.)
    • Just Psylocke? You speak as if the X-Men has non whipping girls.

Film

• Many fans consider The Dark Knight the most spot-on depiction of Batman yet, and it certainly doesn't falter in this area.

Literature

• In the {{Star Wars}} Expanded Universe, this was done with Mara Jade Skywalker to prove just how evil her nephew Jacen Solo had become.

Live Action TV

• Both played straight and inverted in Supernatural: The deaths of Jess and Mary served to spur Sam's and John's respective revenge hunting. However, all of the Winchesters have died at least once, Gordon was vamped and killed and even Bobby (okay, a god disguised as Bobby) was shot dead. Yet the two female hunters Jo and Ellen never died.
• Arguable semi-inversion with Tara on Buffy The Vampire Slayer. She acts as a valued member of the team and a Lipstick Lesbian love interest for Willow—then Glory drives her insane and Willow goes on a Roaring Rampage Of Revenge. The following season, it happens again: Warren shoots and kills her, and Willow's Roaring Rampage Of Revenge is so severe it causes a Face Heel Turn. Unlike many Women In Refrigerators, her memory remains a palpable presence through the end of the series.
  • A straighter example in Seaon Two of Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Jenny Calendar is killed by Angelus and left in her lover Rupert Giles' bedroom, along with a number of things to make the latter initially believe that she has arrived in his home for a romantic rendezvous. It is debatable whether this is a case of schlock or effective writing in line with Whedon's usual tropes, as her planned death had been merely delayed due to fan popularity.
    • While this troper was devastated by the character's death, in this case one must give him some credit for continuing to reference her throughout the season and then obliquely in the next. The murder of Ms. Calendar is a significant point of contention between the members of the Scooby Gang, one that threatens to destroy Buffy's friendship with Xander and relationship with Giles, particularly when it is revealed that Angel is alive and back on Earth. The character's final appearance as a disguise of the First Evil in "Amends" is disappointing, however, and faintly disrespectful. It's no surprise that Robia LaMorte was unhappy with it.
  • Now, for an unambiguous example, just look at the many, many Potential Slayers killed off in season 7. Young Female? Check. Killed off by the Big Bad to show how evil they are? Check. Serves the main purpose of giving the hero something to wangst over? Oh, you better bet that's a check.
• While not a perfect example of the trope (not a main character), the show Bones had an entire episode in the first season centered around a woman stuffed into a fridge.

Video Games

• Subverted by Star Craft. Kerrigan is betrayed by Mengsk and left for dead. It initially appears that she has been stuffed into the fridge to motivate Jim Raynor, but after briefly addressing Raynor the bulk of the game (and its expansion) shift focus almost entirely to Kerrigan. And oh, is she pissed.
  • And its sequel. She is now, in fact, the Big Bad. And oh, is she still pissed.
• Both used and inverted in Baldurs Gate II: Just before the game starts, Minsc was forced to watch as Irenicus murdered Dynaheir. This kind of backfires, as his rage at the act, stoked by main character's words, allows him to escape. Meanwhile, the party discovers Khalid, who was mutilated after being killed. Jaheira, his wife, naturally gets a little...intense.
• Two party members get rather arbitrarily killed in Neverwinter Nights 2. No points for guessing their genders.
• Otacon, from the Metal Gear Solid series, is best described as a walking refrigerator. Any female character that has anything to do with him will get killed off in a cruel and horribly unnecessary way just so he can suffer beautifully.
• In one of the Coldarra quest chains in the Worldof Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King expansion, Keristrasza ends up one of these. Captured, subdued (and possibly about-to-be-raped by Malygos, then has to be mercy-killed in the Nexus instance.

Webcomics

• Subverted heavily (as well as lampshaded) in this strip from the webcomic Super Stupor.
• Jovia in Starslip Crisis, who was 'killed' when an accident involving FTL permanently sent the cast into an Alternate History where she was dead and everything else was otherwise the same. Ouch.

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