The Refrigerator Theory

[kimc]

I wasn't sold on this when I first heard about it. However, the link below has me thinking about it again. I'm curious what folks in the Voyager forum think about the "Women in the Refrigerator" theory as it relates to Janeway.

I'm hoping we can get some good discussion here.

http://www.jceternal.com/kjif.htm

 

[Adm_Hawthorne]

I've heard it, and, if I was to allow the books to be cannon to me, then it would make perfect sense in Janeway's case.

However, since we don't see a lot of what they're saying on screen, it doesn't really apply.

 

[AuntKate]

Interesting little snippet there, KimC. I’m just trying to figure out what the refrigerator has to do with it! Thank God the novels aren't canon!

I haven’t read many comic books since I got over my Superman crush in the 60s (and I am still mad at Mom for throwing those comic books away), so I can’t address the frequency of this Refrigerator Theory from personal experience. I can say that the male of the species is the presumed demographic for all of Star Trek and probably even more so for the books/comics. I would expect to see plots that appeal to men, especially those that make men the heroes who swoop in to save distressed females or that undermine powerful women who might “usurp” power commonly attributed to the male. The Refrigerator Theory seems to fit right in.

What is odd is that most of the people I’ve talked to personally (including the men) are actually Janeway fans. They like her, admire her, and liken her to Kirk. On this board, however, there is a strong dislike of Janeway (and Voyager) for reasons I hesitate to speculate about. They dislike her “maternalistic” actions while they seem to ignore the fact that most of the male captains are pretty “paternalistic.” They label her maverick solutions as “out of control” while they admire the same sort of characteristic in male characters. If someone claims that she is a great role model for young girls, they tend to label the comment with the “f” word—feminism. Worst of all—they despise the fact that she was promoted to admiral and is seen bossing The Great Picard around in “Nemesis”! I don’t want to say that there is misogyny at work, but if the shoe fits . . . .

I think it is odd that Janeway is written so poorly in the novels. Most of the time, she is completely different from the person I saw on the screen—making me wonder if the writers have actually watched the series. The writers seem incapable of simply “forgetting” that she is female and writing her first and foremost as a Starfleet captain. But don’t think for a minute that “Before Dishonor” was the first instance of this. Janeway is written poorly in most PB novels, and it would be interesting to study the females in all the novels to see if this theory applies elsewhere.

In the last two or three “Strange New Worlds,” the majority of the Voyager stories had to do with an injured or struggling female, usually either Seven or Naomi. It got to be rather humorous, to tell the truth. There had to be stories submitted that were not in that particular “theme,” and yet time and again, it was that sort of story that the editors liked best.

Let’s hope that the editors/writers break the mold here and thaw out Janeway soon. Then they need to find writers that can write her well and not think that “her story has been told.” IMHO, her story was just beginning.

 

[Adm_Hawthorne]

Given how the screwed her over, it might be better to leave her on ice for a while.

 

[Ensign Johnson]

Janeway gets killed all the time on Voyager. But I don't want to read the book where she dies for real and doesn't come back or doesn't have a duplicate (I might have to cry if I did read it).

At least getting put in the fridge is better than never being empowered in the first place. There are so many awful female characters that do nothing but get rescued by some annoying man (Disney films being especially bad).

Even though Voyager does well for women there are still loads more men on the show. I guess men are the target audience, like how video games rarely have female playable characters.

 

[Adm_Hawthorne]

If there was a video game where I could play Janeway, I'd be all over that. Oh yeah, you heard me, I'd totally play Janeway.



I had to do it...

That being said, I believe the Ensign is only partly correct. I'm not satisfied with any empowered woman having her power taken away just because.

For example, Olivia Benson is an empowered woman (L&O: SVU). To have something happen to her like to have her... raped, beaten, demoted, etc just to further the storyline only serves to degrade the show as a whole. Can you imagine if she was pushed back into uniform?

Look, I want my cake and to eat it, too.

 

[Ensign Johnson]

They should have made a game where you get to be Janeway. Though I did still enjoy Voyager Elite Force and getting the choice of a male or female Alex Munroe to play as.

You're right we shouldn't have to watch empowered female characters getting degraded just as a plot tool to give a male character something to be pissed off about. There need to be more shows like Voyager or Buffy with strong female leads.

 

[Mary Ann]

One of the first reasons given by the Pocket Books editor Margaret Clark for her decision to kill Kathryn Janeway was that there were no more stories for the Admiral.　 In other words she had been promoted beyond her author’s abilities to write stories for the character.　 One would think that all these guys cannot deal with a strong woman in charge character.　 That is a writing and editing problem not a character problem.

This is the part of the article that jumped out at me. I'm not a writer, but I think blaming the character is a cop-out, especially with so many authors writing the ST series. I'd give my eyeteeth to read a ST novel where Admiral Janeway tells Picard to get that damned smug look off his face and drop the superior attitude.

Admiral, I'm sure you'd love to play Janeway , but is there really no video game where you can, well, play Janeway? That's just wrong.

 

[Adm_Hawthorne]

Sadly, there is not.

 

[froot]

I have not read "Before Dishonor." I have, however, read "Full Circle." I thought that "Full Circle" was very accurate to Janeway, as well as most of the short stories found in the "Distant Shores" book.

But, yes, if we leave the PB books out, I think this theory doesn't really apply to the show. I think that's what drew me to watch Voyager in the first place. It was an action/adventure series with a middle-aged lady running the show and blowing stuff up. Le gasp. I was hooked on VOY from the very night of the premiere because of Janeway. Usually, if a female gets the lead on shows/video games/movies like this, she's stuck being a young piece of scantily-clad eye candy because they think that's the only way the viewers will "respect" her. Can't a lady kick ass and not be in a catsuit and barely legal? I was almost hurt when they placed Seven into the show - heaven forbid VOY appealed to people like me outside their precious demographic! At least Seven was a strong character in the end, though.

The theory would seem to apply to the books, though. I think that's fair to say.

AuntKate, get out of my head! I absolutely agree with you, word-for-word, although, as I said before, I think Janeway wasn't as bad in a couple of the PB books. Honestly, I'm not sure why she's given the short shrift on the Internet when the other captains (and their firsts) have some of the exact same traits. Hell, I think she's less impulsive than Kirk by far.

My husband thinks Janeway's cool, while my mother cannot stand her, lol (she's still mad at Janeway for blowing up the Array.) But, even my mother noted once that Janeway might get held to a different standard because of her gender.

PS: You can play as Janeway in Elite Force if you play multiplayer and choose her as your avatar. Oh, the many countless hours I sunk into that game... ALSO! If you play Star Trek: Online, you can make a very convincing Janeway-esque avatar. You can even name her Kathryn Janeway, since there are no naming restrictions. AND you can have an Interpid-class ship. Just saying.

 

[Ensign Johnson]

You can play Sisko in ds9 the fallen but who would really want to? You also get the choice of playing as Worf or Kira.

 

[exodus]

I'm not sure where the person is getting there info but I used to read allot of comics and the X-Men especially, even without their powers the X-Women are some of the most head strong and fomittable women in comics. I don't anybody would put DC's Catwoman or Black Canery in that catagory either.

Besides, if we agreed here that books aren't canon. Then Janeway isn't really dead either.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Oh Gail.

Her most recent work on Secret Six has some rich guy trying to revive global slavery so that he has the manpower available to build a country sized prison you can see from the moon whereafter every nation on the world can deposit their human garbage... So what metahumans does the American Government decide to hand over to theses poeple first?

Amazon POWs.

(They tried to conquer a America a couple years ago. Had a good go of it. Stupid story.)

They're all chained up and not as servile as the blokes with the whips are thinking they should be and there's a (near) rape scene, and they're all saying that death is preferrable as they're stopped from comitting mass suiside by the "heroes" of this comic book at the last possible second.

Gail is just as bad at this as any male writer, and probably more so since she prefers to write about women (Her work on Birds of prey has been Stellar.), that there are hardly any men in her comics to be victims or victimized.

This is all because the Green Lantern from 1999, Kyle "Poochie" Rayner returned home from a hard day at work saving the world one night to find that his Girlfriend Alex (11 years later and I can still remember her name.) was folded up and inserted into a beerfridge. It's a gimmick for this character, that anytime he gets close to a woman she gets murdered most grissley. Which means that he usually spends a while in a funk warning the gals off because he's "cursed" and no woman can survive dating him, before he finaly submits to love and then quickly thereafter has to arrange for funeral duties.

The old girl, Mrs Muclusky, from Desperate Housewives who used to be on the West Wing kept her husband in the freezer for 10 years to collect his social security chequeues, but my favourite was Picket fences "Freezers kill people in Rome." they lost at least 5 characters to freezers because of a serial killer and a copy cat who just despised her husband.

 

[SiorX]

I'm not sure where the person is getting there info but I used to read allot of comics and the X-Men especially, even without their powers the X-Women are some of the most head strong and fomittable women in comics. I don't anybody would put DC's Catwoman or Black Canery in that catagory either.

For clarification's sake, the "Women in Refrigerators" list was started by Gail Simone, mostly I believe to make a rhetorical point about how much more frequently women in comics were killed or de-powered and remained that way than their male counterparts. In that regard, the force of its point is cumulative. It's not about whether a given character is headstrong or formidable. Its about gender as a statistical contributing factor to a favourite character getting perma-wrecked.

(Simone's initial list and letter were not meant to be scientifically rigorous, but she felt it was a point worth making because quote:

"When I realized that it was actually harder to list major female heroes who HADN'T been sliced up somehow, I felt that I might be on to something a bit ... well, creepy.")

The idea gathered steam, and since its first appearance (Simone made the list in 1999) others have given more attention to something Simone only touched upon in her letter - the way in which female characters die/are depowered is often also qualitatively different from the deaths of male characters. (Again, generally speaking.)

First, it's more likely to be sexualised - a comparison of the deaths of two Robins, Jason and Stephanie, is an interesting example there. Secondly, a higher proportion of female characters will be killed or hurt for the primary purpose of advancing the plot/character arc of a male character. (Dead girlfriend as motivation trope). From this we get the verb 'fridging', as in "I loved STXI, but I wish they hadn't fridged Nero's wife and Amanda".

Sorry - I don't want to drag the thread off topic here. I just wanted to gloss a bit for the Google-weary. The point being that the Refrigerator syndrome needs to be understood as part of a wider pattern. One that takes into account trends in the percentage of female characters removed from the hero pool, and the undignified way in which it's often done.

So you can argue on a case by case basis that a death like Janeway's is "the best story to tell"*, but the other charge to answer is why that same story is told over and over about women who are heroes.

 

[T'Girl]

Kes -- first "died" in the Voyager episode "The Gift", brought back to die again a victim in "Fury"

It been a while, but did not Kes "ascend" rather that actual die in Fury?

The true origin of the "Women in Refrigerators"effect has got to be Lois Lane, talk about your professional victims. The lead female character on Star Trek aren't the ones in serious danger, it the heroes family members who drop like flies.

 

[Adm_Hawthorne]

She ascended in "The Gift", and she simply left the ship in "Fury".

 

[JanewayRulz!]

Olivia Benson is an empowered woman (L&O: SVU). To have something happen to her like to have her... raped, beaten, demoted, etc just to further the storyline only

I actually think they did that in one ep. Wasn't there an ep where she was "undercover" in prison, and the prison guard "nearly" raped her?

As for Kes, it would probably be more accurate to say she "ascended" to a higher plane (was empowered but removed) and then returned "evil" or to their way of thinking the heroine was disempowered. That, in fact, was what most people complain about in their antiFury comments. The fact that the heroic Kes was damaged and replaced with this broken/disempowered character.

From a Voyager P.O.V., looking at the TV show only, one is struck by the death of Seven (a woman) pushing the protagonist (this time, another woman) to do extraordinary things to change history. One could argue that Janeway was also doing it to save 2 men... Chakotay from years of heartbreak and Tuvok from senility, but that would screw the theory.

So, from a purely TV p.o.v. I would say that there aren't any "refrigerated women". As I said when I first joined this board last year, I do not consider those "post Endgame" books to be canon. As for what someone could do with an ADMIRAL Kathryn Janeway, I would simply point towards my fav fan fic, "Counting in Time". Hmmm, seems some people are put in fridges in that story, but I don't think anyone returns "depowered".

 

[Dancing Doctor]

One of the first reasons given by the Pocket Books editor Margaret Clark for her decision to kill Kathryn Janeway was that there were no more stories for the Admiral.　 In other words she had been promoted beyond her author’s abilities to write stories for the character.　 One would think that all these guys cannot deal with a strong woman in charge character.　 That is a writing and editing problem not a character problem.

This is the part of the article that jumped out at me. I'm not a writer, but I think blaming the character is a cop-out, especially with so many authors writing the ST series.

~~~~~SPOILER ALERT!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I felt the exact same way, although I wouldn't necessarily say it's a "writing problem", since we don't get very many authors actually writing about Kathryn Janeway as an Admiral. Christie Golden did the two books Homecoming and The Farther Shore, where Janeway gets promoted to Admiral and stops the head of Starfleet Covert Operations from unleashing a new Borg threat. She appears briefly in Michael Jan Friedman's Death in Winter. She appears briefly in David Mack's A Time to Kill. She is mentioned as appearing in Keith R.A. DeCandido's Articles of the Federation.

She gets more time in J.M. Dillard's Resistance, where she's pretty much used as the Admiral that Picard opposes (thereby reinforcing the "Enterprise/Starship Commander knows more than Starfleet Command" trope that pops up so much). She briefly appears in DeCandido's Q&A, but just to say that she disapproved of his action, is ordering an investigation of the Cube stopped in Resistance, and to find out more as to why Q appeared on the Enterprise.

And then we get to Peter David's Before Dishonor, which, to me, has so many more problems beyond killing Janeway off, and which don't need to be gotten into.

Suffice it to say, Janeway's portrayal in the Borg/Destiny books is pretty bad. She basically becomes "Admiral who refuses to listen to Enterprise captain". She's stubborn, pissy and pissed, and still disagrees even when the starship captain turns out to be correct. And she's depicted as being brash, all-knowing, She-who-rushes-in-where-angels-fear-to-tread. It's very strongly suggested that her overconfidence and stubbornness lead to her assimilation, and the assimilation of the U.S.S Einstein.

However, interestingly enough, in the new novel The Needs of the Many, which is based off of the Star Trek Online game, Janeway survives and is still alive during the events of said novel, something that apparently concerns DTI agents.

 

[auntieprise1701]

I wish Gene Roddenberry had been alive during the run of Voyager. I wonder what he would have thought of a strong female captain. I know he had to change the first TOS pilot for many reasons, but one in particular was the network didn't like a female first officer. (I realize it was the 60's) However later on in the series there was an episode (Enterpirise Incident?) that had a female Romulan in command of a ship, an alien race was more advanced that the Federation. Later on, in ST-The Voyage Home, the first captain we see is the female captain of the USS Saratoga played Madge Sinclair. Later on, in an episode of TNG, there was an episode (name??) that featured Susan Garrett(?), a female captain of USS Enterprise-C.

 

[Brit]

I wish Gene Roddenberry had been alive during the run of Voyager. I wonder what he would have thought of a strong female captain. I know he had to change the first TOS pilot for many reasons, but one in particular was the network didn't like a female first officer. (I realize it was the 60's) However later on in the series there was an episode (Enterpirise Incident?) that had a female Romulan in command of a ship, an alien race was more advanced that the Federation. Later on, in ST-The Voyage Home, the first captain we see is the female captain of the USS Saratoga played Madge Sinclair. Later on, in an episode of TNG, there was an episode (name??) that featured Susan Garrett(?), a female captain of USS Enterprise-C.

But the thing is the we know Rachel Garrett was supposed to be this big hero of the "Battle Narendra III" but during the NG episode we find out that she was actually killed before getting back into that battle. Interesting enough is that she was supposed to have been the only female captain of an Enterprise.

The real problem is that in general, across the board in all entertainment mediums, the plot device of using female death to motivate male heroes is very common. And it happens in Trek too. There is one site that I encountered during my google search of the subject that lists such plot devices in movies.

I have a friend who attended this year's Fedcon, and she reported to me that both Terry Ferrell and Martha Hackett were unhappy with the way their character's deaths were written. Both thought their characters should have died fighting.

Frankly it doesn't matter if Pocket Books is canon or not, the fact is there are lots of people that want to read good stories about Kathryn Janeway and that will not happen unless they bring her back.

Brit