Nolan and Fridging

Women in Refrigerators is a narrative trope found mostly in comic books and movies.

It was coined by Gail Simone after noticing the death of Kyle Rayner (Green Lantern)'s girlfriend Alexandra DeWitt at the hands of the villain, Major Force in a DC comic series volume. She was not only killed, but her corpse was stuffed into a refrigerator.

The writer of this comic confirmed that it had nothing to do with gender; the supporting characters may die to serve as a plot device, and are often women. The main characters live on, and are often men.

Gail Simone observed this phenomenon and realised that the women of lesser roles are very often killed, maimed, or assaulted, suffering permanent damage, as plot devices to motivate their male counterparts. This phenomenon is also called Fridging.

And then there's Nolan.

Sir Christopher Edward Nolan CBE is a British and American filmmaker. (I didn't know he was knighted, thanks, Wikipedia!) Known for his Hollywood blockbusters with complex storytelling, he is considered a leading filmmaker of the 21st century.

Don't get me wrong, I love his work! A lot.

Interstellar has been my favorite movie for years! But many things I see often leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Most notably, Memento revolves around a mentally ill man distraught over his wife's death. (Desi viewers, remember Ghajini?)

She is given no name, and is credited as "Leonard's Wife".

In The Dark Knight, there isn't all that much character to Rachel, Bruce Wayne's girlfriend (ex?). She's a kind and beautiful woman with good values, thrown into a love triangle. That's it.

Best fridged woman (7/10). Nolan isn't good with characters, he's more PLOT!

But even then, she is merely a tool to dig depths into our understanding of Bruce and a motivating cause for him to come back into his game after years of trauma-induced hermit-crabbing. Because Rachel was a plot device to be frosted, like a hammer to the head.

In Tenet, there is so much assault and abuse inflicted upon Kat (the antagonist's wife), and she has no personality besides that of a coy victim. It's so sad.

Despite occasionally getting ahold of a gun, we just know she's there to be abused. She's no person, she's a pretty flower to be plucked.

In Interstellar, the already dead wife does not even get a name. After doing some Wiki reading, you'll find that her name is Erin. Murphy's hair is red, so maybe Erin's is, too. She had a cyst in her brain that killed her. She was the calmer one. Such small mentions we could piece together. That's all she- no, it, even is. That's no person, that's barely a figment of one.

And then, of course, Inception.

Like Memento, Inception too revolves around the protagonist missing his wife. He mourns. A lot. He meets her in layered dreams while she taunts her. Here too, she's no more than a device, but she has a more functional purpose, I think. It's more than just wife go man sad man do.

She actually pushes him too confuse the audience on whether or not the ending was real. (Spoilers, it was not a dream.)

Even then, she's got that purpose and nothing more, right? She's not as fleshed out nor does she have motivations.

And in The Prestige, three women are played like chess pieces by the men in the movie. Two of them die. Because of the men.

Bad actions such as misogyny can happen in art, without tainting the image of the artist. It could be that the fictional universes of Nolan carry forward patriarchal norms (as does the real world), it's that the repetition of these tropes is.. confusing. Murky. It's hard to tell what Nolan means, or why do this at all with such repetition. Is he sexist?

Many have joked that his wife and producer, Emma Thomas, should run away as he'll do away with her, too.

But I heard someone say something with far more substance [paraphrased]:

They've been married for so long, of course his biggest fear would be to lose Emma.

This interpretation puts things together. This might not be intended misogyny. This might be intended worship.

See: Interstellar

No, seriously, watch it. The whole L.O.V.E. gimmick thrown into a vastly technical space travel movie about saving the world seemed corny to me until recently.

Nolan values love. A lot. Throughout his movies, we see repeatedly, how loss of our love could shatter us. Cooper lost his wife and couldn't be with her children, who he loves, but want them to live on. He wants what's best for them, and like Amelia said,

"I'm drawn across the universe to someone I haven't seen in a decade, who I know is probably dead. Love is the one thing we're capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space. Maybe we should trust that, even if we can't understand it."

It does mean something. After all the towers we've built and food we've eaten, love is what we need. Wherever and whatever we are. There's value to that, and I see why Nolan might have (had?) an obsession with this trope. Fridging isn't necessarily misogyny, but it could be. And I don't think it was misogyny with Christopher Nolan.