Spoilers Marvel Cinematic Universe spoiler-heavy speculation thread
- Thread starter bbjeg
- Start date
I mean that we barely get any character interaction whatsoever before the ending when she's revealed.
Which is a symptom of the problem, not an excuse for it. The filmmakers were able to give the other characters plenty of terrific interaction that let the actors show off what they could do. They could have chosen to write Natasha's part in a way that let ScarJo show off more than her looks, but they chose not to.
It's backward to use what happened in the story as an excuse for the storytellers' choices. What happens in the story is the result of their choices, and could have been done differently if they'd wanted.
In regard to female characters, the MCU hasn't been that hot with its female characters since "Captain America: Civil War", with the exceptions of "Black Panther", "Wandavision", and "Captain Marvel". I would include "Wakanda Forever", but . . . after what happened to Queen Ramonda, I'm not so sure.
Eh, it's still better than how terrible they were with them before.
To be fair, I thought her death is more Obi-Wan than fridging.
Strange I just watched Iron Man 2 today too.
The end battle is so weird, Whiplash appears and doesn’t even say anything. They fight for about 15 seconds and then they just defeat him with one blast. And that’s it.
And the final scene with them and Garry Shandling on the podium is so anti-climactic too. You’re just left like “oh I guess that’s the end of the movie then”
The finale sequences for the Iron Man movies have never been great. My least favorite finale is 2008's Iron Man.
Angela Bassett hated it and thought the Queen's death was unnecessary. I agree with her.
I don't think that's a valid dichotomy. Fridging is the overall tendency of fiction to kill female characters as motivation for male protagonists, which is a symptom of the larger problem of women in fiction being marginalized, objectified, and treated as devices in male characters' arcs rather than given arcs of their own. The concept is specifically about gender inequality, not other storytelling considerations (because any individual instance of fridging can be valid in story terms, but it's the pervasive unequal treatment of male and female characters that's the problem). Obi-Wan was killed as motivation for Luke, and indeed his whole purpose in the story was to be the mentor figure in Luke's Hero's Journey. So the only thing that keeps it from being fridging is that Obi-Wan was male.
So if Ramonda wasn't fridged, it's only because her sacrifice was in service to female characters -- saving Riri and driving Shuri to seek revenge.
I believe Queen Ramonda was fridged, even if it were for the sake of other female characters. I had looked up the definition of the term. If a character is killed off for the sake of another character's arc, he or she was fridged. Although this happens to female characters a lot more, I get the feeling that gender doesn't really matter.
Indiana Jones was fridged, literally.
Actually, I believe his son was. But that's a topic for another thread.
To be fair, I give them a pass on this because it is an actor's misbehavior that necessitated the character being written out.
Fridging is a weird term to adopt universally for character deaths.
If you are constructing a fiction every character serves to further the story of other characters and provide either an obstacle or support or motivation to them. Those are the only three basic functions any fictional characters perform in relation to their fellow fictional characters.
It's how it's done that matters.
Queen Ramona was serving the function of teacher and mentor. And those folks die all the time. It's necessary in those sorts of narratives in order for the protagonist to emerge whole and capable independently, where before they weren't.
If you are constructing a fiction every character serves to further the story of other characters and provide either an obstacle or support or motivation to them. Those are the only three basic functions any fictional characters perform in relation to their fellow fictional characters.
It's how it's done that matters.
Queen Ramona was serving the function of teacher and mentor. And those folks die all the time. It's necessary in those sorts of narratives in order for the protagonist to emerge whole and capable independently, where before they weren't.
I refuse to give the movie a pass for that. The actor in question didn't have to be in the movie. But his character didn't have to be killed off screen either.
In fact, this is one of my issues with Wakanda Forever. I still believe the MCU should have waited a bit longer before recasting the T'Challa role.
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First photo from Deadpool and Ryan Reynolds really needs a pee. Hope there's a hidden zipper in the costume.
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Nah, he's holding in an ad lib...
FWIW, here's the original Women In Refrigerators story: https://lby3.com/wir/r-gsimone.html
FWIW, here's the original Women In Refrigerators story: https://lby3.com/wir/r-gsimone.html
Yes. Adopting it universally obscures its actual meaning as a term of gender criticism. It's specifically about the pattern of female characters being killed in service to male characters' arcs.