Simone's original list of over 100 affected female characters, published on the "Women in Refrigerators" website, sparked discussions on sexism in pop culture and the comic-book industry.
Notably, author Catherynne M. Valente, inspired by Gwen Stacy's portrayal in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, wrote The Refrigerator Monologues, addressing the trope's impact on female characters in superhero narratives.
[1] Simone originally developed a list of over 100 female characters who had been subject to various life-derailing tragedies, publishing it on a website called "Women in Refrigerators".
"[9] In 2000, several national newspapers ran articles that referenced the site, generating discussion on the topic of sexism in pop culture and the comic-book industry.
[13] Notable examples include writer Mark Millar, former DC Entertainment CCO Geoff Johns, and Ron Marz, the author of the incident that gave rise to the trope's name.
"[17] Discussing the site in his book Dangerous Curves: Action Heroes, Gender, Fetishism and Popular Culture, Bowling Green State University professor Jeffrey A.
Brown noted that while male comic book heroes have tended to die heroically and be magically brought back from the dead afterwards, female characters have been likelier to be casually but irreparably wounded or killed, often in a sexualized fashion.
To support his claim, he cited the Joker shattering the original Batgirl's spine just for fun, resulting in her being written as a wheelchair user for over a decade.
Her death fuels Captain America's actions during the film, though she is later seen again in the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise in 2019's Avengers: Endgame, when Captain America travels back in time to marry her;[19] Peter Quill's mother in Guardians of the Galaxy; Gamora in Avengers: Infinity War, which was also used as a motivating tragedy for Quill in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.
[24] During the 2009 DC Comics storyline "Blackest Night", Alexandra DeWitt was one of many deceased characters temporarily brought back to life as part of the Black Lantern Corps.
[27] In December 2018, Deadline Hollywood reported that Amazon Studios was developing a television series called Deadtown, an adaptation of the Catherynne M. Valente novel The Refrigerator Monologues.
The story centers upon five recently deceased women who meet in a purgatory-like location called Deadtown, where they discover that their entire lives, including their deaths, were merely in service of providing emotional backstory for male superheroes.