Uncanny X-Men Writer Gail Simone Boasts About Feminist Term "Fridging" Being Added To The Dictionary

Much of Gail Simone’s popularity comes from the 1990s, when she attacked male comic writers for putting superhero girlfriends in harm’s way, coining the term “fridging.” Now she’s bragging about the term being added to the dictionary on BlueSky in a retrospective on feminism after the comic industry collapse.

Comic books have been in a dismal state of sales for the last decade or more, largely because the storylines stopped being fun and mattering. Marvel and DC Comics set up a duopoly in the United States after decades of flooding the shelves to squeeze out competitors, leaving the big-2 as the only ones left standing that drew readers to a decreasing market of specialty shops.

Most fans wanted to see their beloved superheroes continue their adventures, but in the mid-2010s, readers saw them replaced with a black, female Iron Man, female Thor, black-hispanic Spider-Man, gay Superman, and more as a new crop of writers took over, forming a whisper network of those who bowed to identity politics first before storytelling. The industry collapsed as a result and hasn’t recovered, even though some gimmicks such as the Absolute DC Universe and Ultimate Marvel Universe are keeping the companies afloat in the short term.

How did the industry get to this point? It began in the 1990s when feminists started questioning superheroes, traditionally books aimed at teenage boys, and trying to rewrite the industry to find a new, modern audience. While the 1990s went to their excesses in edginess and violence as well as over-the-top sexuality, it was geared at a teenage boy market competing with ever-increasing movies and video games in the same vein.

Gail Simone rose to prominence in the comics industry through her incisive feminist critique during this time, most notably with the 1999 launch of the website Women in Refrigerators, which she co-founded. The site, named after a controversial scene in Green Lantern #54 where Kyle Rayner’s girlfriend is murdered and stuffed in a refrigerator, cataloged instances of female characters being killed, maimed, or depowered to advance male-driven narratives. This concept, dubbed “fridging,” became a rallying point for discussions on female representation in comics, which then pressured editors into hiring more female writers to try to manipulate the state of comics.

As more women became influential in the industry, comics began to change and diminish as a result as a traditionally male hobby was invaded for a female space. Many of the readers tuned out over the period of years, arguably leading the comic industry to the state it is now, where there’s very little discussion of story or characters anymore.

On BlueSky, Gail Simone noted that the fridging term was added to the dictionary, bragging about it in a link saying, “So Mirriam Webster has announced that 'FRIDGE' is an official word in their dictionary now, and sited me as the concept's creator in the definition. Very cool, and weird at the same time. I got death threats over this, cool for it it to be recognized.”

She clarified once a reader mentioned that they lamented the storyline in Green Lantern that started it all, saying, “That's important. I don't blame Ron Marz for any of this, I LIKED the way he wrote Alex and Kyle is still my favorite. It was the TREND that was the issue. @ronmarz.bsky.socialhas always been incredibly gracious and understanding about this.”

Ron Marz, in recent years, has been known to deftly navigate this comic industry field by making over-the-top political posts on leftist identity politics. Comic insiders have told Fandom Pulse that Marz is often disingenuous in this and simply posts that way to appease members of the whisper network to keep getting writing jobs in the industry, which, unfortunately, is how someone has to maintain their clout given the rampant blacklisting going on of political opponents of this extreme leftist tribe.

Even though Simone may have gotten in the dictionary, the “Women in Fridges” situation shows a clear line between declining comic book sales and interest, to where the industry needs to wake up and change if they’re going to get back to the male-centric action fun that brought readers to comic books in the first place.

What do you think of Gail Simone cheering on fridging in the dictionary? Leave a comment and let us know.

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