Fridging Ms. Shayla (a Mr. Robot story)

          

"The intertitle of the TV show." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 5 Jun. 2015.

           At the end of this past week’s Mr. Robot, hacker extraordinaire Elliot opens the trunk of a car and discovers the dead body of his girlfriend and former morphine hookup Shayla. This is supposed to be a devastating moment for Elliot and for the audience—Shayla has been in the series since the premiere and she and Elliot only just recently made their relationship official. We barely knew her, but, perhaps more importantly still as far as this particular episode is concerned, Elliot endangered himself, Darlene, and countless others to release Shayla’s violent supplier (who Elliot put away for drugging and raping Shayla) from prison. He was promised Shayla’s safe return in exchange for his assistance, and, of course, anyone who has ever watched a movie or TV series in the thriller genre knew from the get-go that the effort was doomed. Situations like these never turn out well, especially for the women.

            Elliot finds Shayla’s corpse in a car, but she might as well have been in a refrigerator. If that statement sounds nonsensical, then this post is for you. The “women in refrigerators” trope (verb—“fridging” a female character) was given its name by comics writer Gail Simone in “honor” of a story from DC’s Green Lantern series in which the hero returns home to find his girlfriend murdered and literally stuffed into a refrigerator to cause him as much harm as possible. TV Tropes summarizes the specific story briefly and offers the following description of the trope: “[A]ny [usually female] character who is targeted by an antagonist who has them killed off, abused, raped, incapacitated, de-powered, or brainwashed for the sole purpose of affecting another character, motivating them to take action.”[1] This is essentially a cheap tactic designed to elicit an emotional response from readers. It often represents lazy writing and also devalues the life of the character killed, reducing them to little more than a motivating factor for someone else’s story.[2] Does that mean that every female character death is an example of fridging? No. Is it always easy to distinguish a cheap fridging from a meaningful death? Definitely not—though Simone offers some thoughts on the difference on the blog where she documents fridged characters in comics.

            Simone notes the obvious counter-argument to the problem of “women in refrigerators”—that “male superheroes ALSO get beat up, cut up, and killed up”—however, she goes on to say that the percentages are off (fewer major female characters of note means that each death essentially “counts” for more), but also that “male characters tend to die differently than female ones.”[3] While the men tend to die heroically and nobly on their own terms, the women are often first abducted, tortured, or violated as “shock value seems to be a major motivator in the [female] deaths more often than not.”[4] Because these women were already often fixtures in the lives of male characters (the girlfriend, the wife, the sister, the mother, etc.), their deaths often do less to characterize them or serve as a dramatic ending to their own lives and instead serve to motivate or characterize the men around them in the story. From an audience perspective, there’s just something especially horrid about the deaths of women and children, and I suspect that it’s primarily a result of gendered expectations and a thoroughly masculinist society. “Women and children first,” after all. They’re the weak ones, and when we see them butchered or even just endangered, we instantly get upset. Men are often the action heroes and the ones who instigate and fight back; therefore, we have less of an instinctual desire to see them protected or unharmed.

            As far as I know, there is no codified method for figuring out what constitutes a fridging. In terms of Mr. Robot, specifically, I offer the following evidence that suggests Shayla’s death was an example of the “women in refrigerators” trope. First and foremost, as a character, Shayla has only ever been understood as a part of Elliot’s life. Her own interiority is a complete mystery, and we’ve only ever encountered her by way of Elliot, whereas characters like Darlene and especially Angela have segments apart from Elliot where we see them do their own thing without having the experience colored by Elliot’s presence, his narration, or his subjective point of view. We know very little about Shayla as a person, and what we do know comes about because Elliot specifically asks her to tell him about herself when he asks her out. Although we’re over halfway through the first season, Shayla remains a non-entity. Admittedly, there are other characters we know very little about as well, but when we’re talking about Shayla and her involvement in the story, which has presumably ended, the possibility of further development down the road is no longer an excuse of sorts. Granted, we could see her developed further through flashbacks (a la Abigail Hobbs on NBC’s Hannibal), but as of right now her development is finished. She died the way she lived—a supporting character in another person’s story. 

            At this point, it’s hard not to see Shayla’s death as the pay-off from the time and effort the writers put into developing a relationship between Elliot and Shayla and Elliot, Shayla, and the audience. We got to know her just well enough to care about her so that her death would matter. Not to mention the fact that she’s already been victimized once already (drugged and raped) to drive Elliot to give up his morphine hookup and put the vile Vera away. Shayla was only ever adjacent to the main plot action of the series (taking care of Elliot’s dog at times, serving as an impromptu date to Elliot’s boss’s party). I have admittedly been bothered by how Elliot has varying degrees of romantic tension/possibility with so many members of the female cast. He’s been attached to Shayla, but it’s been suggested that he wants to be with Angela. Darlene is still a bit of a wildcard; however, the way that she’s been treated as something like a grungier version of a “manic pixie dream girl” makes her seem like a male fantasy and potential partner also.[5] Like I said before, though, Angela definitely seems to be striking out on her own and acquiring more agency apart from Elliot and her ex-boyfriend. Conversely, Shayla’s role on the show has only ever been defined by her position next to Elliot, and we never really saw her in her own element, though her night on the town with Angela hinted at possibilities we’ll never see bear any fruit (and I’m not just talking about the kiss the two shared in a bathroom). What I’m saying is, “Rest in peace, Shayla. We hardly knew ye.”

            I initially wrote a largely ambivalent post about Mr. Robot. It’s since grown on me somewhat by striking a balance between visual artistry and good old fashioned thrilling that has been skewed significantly toward the former over the latter on Hannibal this year. It’s also a show with an interest in detail and being as accurate as possible with its depictions of hacking and technology. This past week’s episode of Mr. Robot has left a bad taste in my mouth, though. The fact that the show held the moment between Elliot’s opening the trunk and the ultimate reveal of Shayla’s body as long as possible despite the fact that the audience would immediately know what he found based on Rami Malek’s response feels exploitative at worst. At best, it serves to characterize Malek’s character, but we’ve already talked about what it means when a woman dies just to motivate a man. If Mr. Robot really wanted to break out into new territory, it should have exploited the audience’s expectation of what was in the trunk and then had Shayla live. Instead, it’s gone down a familiar road so well-trod, so hackneyed, and so offensively lazy that the show is going to have a hard time earning back my respect. One could argue that I shouldn’t be as pissed off about this as I am. It’s nothing new or shocking, after all, but that’s precisely why I’m sick of it. It’s not just disgusting, it’s boring.

Notes:

[1] “Stuffed into the Fridge.” TV Tropes. TV Tropes, 30 Jul. 2015. Web. Accessed 2 Aug. 2015. <http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StuffedIntoTheFridge>   

[2] Ibid.

[3] “Fan Gail Simone Responds.” Women in Refrigerators. N.p., n.d. Web. Accessed 2 Aug. , 2015. <http://lby3.com/wir/r-gsimone.html> 

[4] Ibid.

[5] The “manic pixie dream girl” is another trope that reduces a woman to little more than a fixture in a male character’s life. The “manic pixie dream girl” is a male fantasy. Often an outspoken guy’s girl, she enlivens the life of a male character through her quirky or eccentric behavior that helps him come out of his shell or break out of his funk. Again, this character exists solely for the benefit of her male counterpart. Darlene’s vulgarity (her casual remark about cum stains on her clothes, for example), her masculine assertiveness, and her penchant for just appearing in Elliot’s apartment marks her as a “manic pixie dream girl.” For more on the trope see: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ManicPixieDreamGirl

Bonsoir, Mr. Robot

         

"The intertitle of the TV show." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 5 Jun. 2015.

          USA’s new series Mr. Robot is a study in contrasts. At its worst it paints by the broadest, ugliest, crudest strokes. Characters utter drivel like comparing a computer virus to “a serial rapist” with a large penis. Several members of the principle cast have been liberally smeared with a Lisbeth Salander-esque hacker grunge. The leader of an extreme “hacktivist” Anonymous-like group called “fsociety” dresses up like the Monopoly Man to issue an ultimatum against “Evil Corp,” complete with a threat about chopping off tentacles and imagery of an octopus mixed in with a montage of clouds and cityscapes. It’s a heavy-handed use of the Anonymous shtick that comes off as almost parodic (the Monopoly Man definitely lacks the sly menace of the Guy Fawkes mask), but the show seems to take it all very seriously.

            This is a drama that sometimes soars to glorious heights—the opening sequence of the second episode mixes composition and music in ways that make it feel almost operatic—and occasionally aspires to the erudite conversational weirdness of the likes of True Detective by committing to an extended conversation between two characters like gifted hacker Elliot and his drug dealer’s supplier (also in episode two). Mr. Robot has managed to hold my attention only by catching me with a nice ’80s sci-fi flick style music track or interesting twist just as I was about to give up on it. At this point, I still do not know whether I consider it good or bad TV. All I have right now are a series of short notes and one serious thematic gripe.

            First, I am still trying to decide how I feel about Elliot himself. The character is obviously meant to have an anxiety disorder of some kind (in addition to schizophrenia), but his struggle to understand people frequently takes a backseat to the rest of the drama going on around him. It feels less like a central part of the character’s identity than in the case of, say, The Bridge’s Sonya Cross. This can be a good thing, however. Although it is nice to see characters represent a diverse range of human experiences (including mental illness), anyone who actually has or struggles with anxiety or depression or the like is probably tired of seeing that be the defining aspect of a character. Elliot has problems socializing and interacting with other people, but thus far the show’s creators have avoided turning him into a caricature. He has other facets to his character, though anyone watching the show has probably noted the troubling connection between the way that Elliot keeps a CD for each of his “victims” the way that serial killers keep trophies. Elliot is ostensibly out for justice, but we already know two episodes in that he can be selective about administering it. He allows his friend Angela to continue dating an inconstant partner because he does not want to see what her next boyfriend will be like given her bad taste in men.

            The fact that the writers have committed to having everyone use Elliot’s pet name for E-Corp (“Evil Corp”) is a subtle touch that reinforces the fact we are experiencing events from the point of view of a subjective and unreliable narrator. There is also a nice moment in episode two when one of Elliot’s hacker allies pulls him suddenly onto a subway because, she tells us, she likes to stay on her toes. What Elliot wonders but does not outright ask is whether she saw the same suited men in black moving toward them that he did. Although it would feel like a huge cop-out and cheat to have Christian Slater and his merry band of “fsociety” folks ultimately turn out to be nothing but delusion and hallucination, I do like that the show is reminding us in little ways that Elliot is compromised. Of course, it does give in at the end of the second episode and have his therapist make explicit the fact that he is backsliding.

            Unfortunately, the more inventive look from the beginning of episode two does not stick around. I cannot go in expecting every series to deliver the visual experimentation and diversity of Hannibal, but I was hoping for a little more than the usual thriller cinematography, give or take the occasional wide shot framing a character or two standing or conversing in the midst of a busy crowd or cityscape. On one hand, I understand that the swelling soundtrack and emphasis on making the space of the E-Corp building feel enormous and airy at the start of episode two is all about establishing an atmosphere for that space—something grand, operatic, and nearly Olympian. On the other hand, I am a sucker for a show that consistently gives me something different or unexpected to look at.

            The biggest problem with Mr. Robot, however, is that its primary themes of rebellion against financial institutions and our homogenization by social media is that this is a TV series airing on a channel that costs money to see. The entire time Mr. Robot is on, the network encourages you to tweet using #MrRobot. The way that it preaches against capitalist excess sounds nice, but it is a critique invested with little real bite owing to the fact that there will one day be Mr. Robot DVDs and a Mr. Robot soundtrack, and that money all goes back into the pockets of the media conglomerates. Maybe the folks behind Mr. Robot really buy this stuff, but if they do they have fallen into the same postmodern pit as other stories with a social axe to grind. Can you really critique from within the very systems that you intend to criticize? How do we tell the difference between a genuine critique and complacency disguised as rebellion? Case in point, the first episode of Mr. Robot draws particular attention to The Hunger Games as part of the media machine that is consuming us, and that story is another one that makes a point that is much blunted by the fact that it is a film to be viewed for pleasure.

            In short, The Hunger Games calls attention to the fact that our insatiable appetite for people doing dumb things onscreen may one day reach a point where we are calling the murder of actual human beings quality entertainment. The problem with this message is that The Hunger Games is a piece of media meant to be enjoyed. In reading the books or watching the films, we automatically take part in the same voyeuristic celebration of violence and murder the story purports to critique. We root for the heroes to triumph over the villains, and that triumph requires murder. We are the Capitol audience cheering on the violence. Similarly, when we pay to watch Mr. Robot and go out and tweet (or blog…) about it and provide free advertising to the companies with a vested interest in seeing it succeed, we become part of the same “evil” ubiquitous system. We appreciate it when Tyler Durden blows up the credit card companies, but since we paid to watch Fight Club using our credit cards in a world where those company buildings still stand, where does that leave us?

            We are participants in those systems even as we cheer their downfall. They are the ones who authorize, finance, and profit from the content depicting their downfall. At worst we are passive participants in our own exploitation. At best we are watching and buying and tweeting ironically, and we all know that our mindset going in means little in the long run. As Mr. Robot would point out, what matters is that it all comes back to money. We put it down, we watch, we rebel in thought alone and those we rebel against still get paid.