On the trend of beautiful dead girls

http://trac-changes.blogspot.com/2011/10/cover-trends-in-ya-fiction-why.html

This is a really interesting piece about the disturbing trend of having beautiful dead women (or women who might be dead) on the covers of YA novels which is something we've prolly all known but never articulated.

I'd add another theory to this (as I've blogged a lot about the "women must contain their appetites" thing in my eating disorder posts), which is a dead girl's corpse is perfect. It's not going to get old, or get fat, or eat too much, or sleep with too many people, or the wrong people, or cheat, or be gossipy, or sinful, or talk back, or the million other things society demonizes about women and our passions, desires and appetites. We're just beautiful and nothing more, just like a woman should be. To be the perfect woman, you have to be dead.

Also, adding that women's corpses (or defeated bodies) are sexualized a lot in comics, and I'll put a few examples here from my tumblr:

http://eschergirls.tumblr.com/post/11135164305/there-are-an-infinite-number-of-things-that-are

http://eschergirls.tumblr.com/post/11361114483/in-death-they-are-even-creepier-than-in-life

http://eschergirls.tumblr.com/post/11372903631/woman-unconscious-woman-orgasming-in-porn

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_luo3wsPJxe1r34y4ho1_500.jpg (that post hasn't been made yet)

I think there's kinda 2 things at play here... one being, as articulated in the piece about girls themselves wanting to leave pretty corpses and thinking about it, that is internal, and one that is external, which is more clearly illustrated in the comics examples b/c they are by hetero men and presumed to be for hetero male consumption.

Any other thoughts on this? :3 (note to our mods and any hovering trolls: "BUT MEN..." stuff isn't on topic... this is specifically about this trend re: women :3 )

To elaborate on what I said at the beginning, even tho I haven't been suicidal since transition, sometimes, during an esp bad ED day or week (this was esp true 2 years ago when I was running 4 hours every day and eating almost nothing), I'd think that it'd just be easier to leave a pretty corpse, because otherwise, it'll never end... my body will always require food, my body will always gain weight if I eat too much, or indulge in too much tasty food, or stop exercising, my metabolism will slow down as I age, the whole reality of an ALIVE BODY will never go away... and that means my exercising and restricting and denying myself any happiness when it comes to food will never end... it'll go on forever... (keep in mind this is my ED thoughts... I'm just articulating the mindset)... there's no end goal... there's no "finish line" where I can say "I did it! I kept up my exercise compulsion and not eating all this time and now it's over!"... a premature death would at least mean that I reached some sort of finish line having kept this up the whole time... that there'd be a point to it....

This sexy dead body trope isn't new, at least in US media, "Killing Us Softly" (an old feminist film about media images of women) discusses it, though if I recall correctly, it links it more with encouraging and apologizing for men's violence than with encouraging suicide. I find the suicide theory interesting though.

darksidecat: It may be a both/and thing rather than either/or. For YA books aimed at young girls, it's more likely to be self-directed. For the same images in comic books (the 'girls in fridge' trope) it is about male violence towards women (in that context though, often used as a prop to give a 'motivation' to the hero... things that happen to women in comics are important only in how they impact the men around them).

There is also the whole "dead wives" thing in movies, which is like the girls-in-fridge trope in that it gives the main character a chance to act like an asshole and still have the sympathy of the audience. Inception, Memento (same director) and Shutter Island are just the three I can think of off the top of my head. It also seems to me like an excuse to write fewer female characters and still have a story that has sexy elements to it. It's a way to erase women's voices and points of view from the plot.

The movie Brick has a sexy dead girl in it similar to the novels you mention. There is at least one long scene with the corpse of the character. She was by far the only sympathetic female character in the movie, at least to me.

I've never thought of it in context with suicide but that's interesting. I can see how it ties in with having an eating disorder too.

I posted this in my LJ and my friend replied that the fear of aging in women thing ("you're old at 30!", etc messages) is also something that may tie in b/c it's apparently the very reason Bella wants to be vamped in Twilight (I've never read it) o_o

posted this in my LJ and my friend replied that the fear of aging in women thing ("you're old at 30!", etc messages) is also something that may tie in b/c it's apparently the very reason Bella wants to be vamped in Twilight (I've never read it) o_o

I read the book though its been awhile but I'm pretty sure she didn't vamped up because of the age thing. She vamped up because she wanted to be with her "twu wuv" jesus stalker boyfriend edward forever. She did constantly mention that she felt "old" when she became 18 but it wasn't her main motivation for vamping up. XD

Oh ok :3

Part of your theory (the getting old part, and possibly the getting fat part, since she's worried about getting ugly)is explicitly why Bella wants to be vamped in the Twilight saga.

That's what zie said in my LJ, but maybe zie is wrong, or referring to something else? xD

If dead men's bodies were glorified as much as dead women's there would be shit storm on Reddit. Hundreds of MRAs' heads would explode simultaneously.