Send in the clowns: A look at Birds Of Prey and the femanistic superhero movie - Written February 2020
In 2016, when 'Suicide Squad' (David Ayer) was released, despite having not so favourable reviews, the takings were high. The stand out character, that everyone remembers, was Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn. She became an icon, girls were inspired by her, they cosplayed as her for Halloween, costume parties, at every comic convention there was hundreds of Harley Quinn's.
Yet, 2020 and 'Birds of Prey' (Cathy Yan) is released. Domestically at the U.S box office it apparently took $13 million on its opening day a few days ago. (I should point out it made its $80 million budget back in a weekend, which is pretty impressive.) Apparently, however, it's the lowest opening for a DC film. This is despite good reviews and heavy promotion, the last few weeks all I've seen is posters for it and television adverts. Harley Quinn was so popular a few years ago, people really wanted to see her again. So where have the fans disappeared too, the girls who dressed as Harley Quinn, saw her as a icon (which she is), why are they not seeing the movie?
I have a theory on this. Suicide Squad was a film that portrayed Harley Quinn through the male gaze. There was a shot of her getting changed in the film, which slowly pans up Margot Robbie as she gets changed. The scene is played for laughs, as she says "what?" with a blank expression. However, the male members of the squad also get changed in this scene, but we only see them take off their tops, the camera does not linger on them, the focus of this scene is Harley, even though everyone else is getting changed too, so Harley is not in the wrong for getting changed besides everyone else but the way the characters and camera (therefore audience) stare at her it's like she's changing for their entertainment. Harley Quinn was often talked down to, and seen as an object of desire, entertainment for men, she's even dancing like a stripper earlier in the film. Men speak to her and look at her like she was there for their use, and the film was fairly male dominated, so there was no counteraction to this behaviour. Therefore, it was seen as being acceptable, okay for men in the audience to see her as this sex symbol. Female audiences saw her through the male gaze as a result. They also saw her in an abusive relationship with ultimate bad boy the Joker. They saw what she did for him, but also the fact that he broke her out of prison, (which he did not have to do, therefore the things she goes through to prove her love for the Joker are rewarded). Girls are often attracted to the popular bad boy, often rich as a result of their crime. Birds of Prey however shows that the male gaze is not okay by being a girl squad and even just the looks from each other.
This was exaggerated by her outfits. She wore skimpy clothes, showing part of her bum and a top with holes in it, not the most practical outfit for fighting in, despite the original Harley Quinn character from the Batman animation dressing completely covered and despite that outfit being available to her. The Birds Of Prey Harley is dressed much more practically for fighting in, and when she is in shorts, the kind girls my age wear not hot pants which I suspect are quite unconfutable.
Girls copied Harley Quinns outfits, they saw her as a sex symbol, an object of desire for men. That's what a lot of these girls wanted to be, due to the underlying misogyny in society, they want to be the object of the bad boys' desires, sexy, wanted by men. Because growing up, that's what women are taught. We watch 'Grease' (Randal Kleisner, 1978), we want to be Sandy. The good girl, who the bad boy fancies. She then turnd herself into a bad girl, an object of male desire, one of the boys, swapping her floaty skirts and cardigans for an off the shoulder top and tight leggings. She becomes a female version of Danny.
Maybe, we as females are trained, partly down to our media exposure as we grow up, and even as adults, to follow the male gaze, as so many films we watch are directed by men, that view is what we are used to. Therefore, many women prefer this view as thats what we are used to, to be the love interest, to need a man just look at Disney movies, 'Sleeping Beauty' (Clyde Geronimi,1952), awoken by a prince, a man. A film in which the titular character, supposively the heroine, only gets 18 minutes of screen time. Interestingly, 'Maleficent' (2014) attempts to change this. Its a bit like Disney has taken a long hard look at itself and thought, "well that was a mistake, we shall re-write the Sleeping Beauty plot (and make more money)". While Princes Aurora still is not the main protagonist, at least the titular, female character is. Additionally, in Sleeping Beauty Aruroas conversations are mostly about wanting to marry a man she just met, whereas Maleficent is about much more. Sadly it was directed by a man, Robert Stromberg. But the fact that Disney has realised, hopefully, the error of its ways, maybe other film companies will do the same, especially those that create children's films, as they will influence childrens views for the rest of their lives. I'm hopeful Birds of Prey has marked a turning point, and that we will have more female directors of big films, and that this will go across the whole industry. I hope one day, women will want to be seen as independant, that they will want to see Harley Quinn with her girl squad, not her joke(r) of an abusive boyfriend.
Harley Quinn is not the only popular superhero who is portrayed like this. Black Widow, aka Natasha Romanoff suffered the same treatment, in fact, in a similar scene in her Marvel Cinematic Universe debut. She joins the universe in 'Iron Man 2' (Jon Favreau, 2010). In this film, Iron Man is attracted to her, especially after he sees online that she (as Natalie Rushmen) had been a underwear model. Later in the film, she gets changed in the back of a car, where she has to tell Colson to keep his eyes on the road and stop looking at her changing. Her superhero costume is low cut, and in fact Scarlett Johannson's body was photoshopped on the poster for 'The Winter Soldier'(Joe Russo, Anthony Russo, 2014), for no apparent reason. It has taken many years and movies for Natasha to not be sexualised. Except these changes seemed good, until Endgame (Joe Russo, Anthony Russo, 2019), where she was sacrificed for the male characters.
Girls also saw Harley as being "crazy" (therefore unique and different). Even though what she does is equal to the men in the film, so she is not crazy at all, its just because shes the same as the boys, she just seems to be crazy because shes mirroring masculine behaviour even though she's a girl. However, in Birds of Prey, she does not have the Joker. You see her sensitive and vulnerable side, she is completely different, but they are all characteristics Harley has always had, but her blind sidedness for the Joker masked not only the audience from other parts of her personality, but herself too. She talks in BOP about how being the Jokers girl gave her protection. But not only did it give her protection from characters who were out to get her, but it gave herself protection from her own emotions. Without the Joker around, we see a more rounded character.
The Birds of Prey and Cassandra Cane are a brilliant girl squad, support each other. They choose to work together against the enemy. Unlike 'Captain America Civil War' (Anthony Russo, Joe Russo, 2016) where the men, decide to fight each other. Harley even gives Canary her hairband. The female Avengers do not want to fight in Civil War. Wanda initially does not want to join in, she only forced to take a side because she's provoked by Tony locking her up in the house because he does not trust her to not make a mistake, because of one mistake she makes. When there are heaps of incidences in the MCU where the men mess up and do not face such punishments. Natasha never really picks a side, helping both, because she believes the team is more important than the fight. The women in Civil War are the ones who do not want to fight each other who believe the team is better together to fight the common enemy, but the men do not listen. The Birds of Prey however, know they are better working together, creating a girl squad who do not need men to help them, the opposite of Harley in Suicide Squad, who is reliant on knowing her Puddin' is out there and ultimately rescues her.
One scene that stuck in my mind after leaving the cinema was the scene where Harley is carried out the club by the gangsta, who has been plying/ spiking her drinks, so she cannot fight back, and we can guess what his plans were. We hear Harley say quitely "I don't want to" when he says that shes coming home with him. Luckily a woman, Black Canary, is nearby, and helps Harley and saves her. That scene was powerful, women looking out for other women. Usually in super hero films, the danger comes from an alien force, or from some disallusioned maniac mastermind or other super heros even. Most of the threats in superhero movies for the superheros are usually the distruction of the Earth. This threat however, is a very realistic one that people, (more likely women but not always of course) are at risk from each day.
Of course, Birds of Prey is not the first DC picture to have a female lead in recent years, that would be 'Wonder Woman' (Patty Jenkins, 2016). I love Wonder Woman as a character. She is brave, justice seeking and practically perfect. However, something I realised about Wonder Woman when watching the BBC News Channel item on Oscar predictions, is Wonder Woman is portrayed in the context of the second world war. As Will Gomfort pointed out, all the subjects for best picture except 'Little Women' (Greta Grewig, 2019) are about typically male subjects. Wonder Woman is mostly the same, being set in the middle of a first world war battlefield, which I think was a bit of a shame, I know it was based on the comic, but there was no reason it could not have been altered, Wonder Woman did not need a war zone of men to show how powerful she was.
Birds of Prey has also had the problem of people expecting Harley to have her film as an equivalent to a female Joker, even though it was well into production when Joker released. I did not notice people wanted this until I discovered people saying on YouTube comments to the advert for the new Harleen ( Stjepan Šejic,2020) comic book series, videos basically saying things along the line of "we should have had this Harley, it would have been like the Joker movie, a psychological story that deals with real issues". But why should every DC film be the same. The Joker movie is in a different universe to the Birds of Prey one for a start so the films do not need to match. It is good they are different, if it was basically a female Joker, people would probably complain about that. As previously mentioned, Birds of Prey does touch on some real-world issues anyway, obviously they are only moments rather than the whole film, but these YouTube comments were wrong in implying Birds of Prey doesn't. Birds of Prey for the most part is meant to be escapism from the real world, it's supposed to be a fun movie, which it is. One day maybe they will make a Harleen movie and that would be cool, but it would exist alongside Birds of Prey, there is no limit to the number of films DC can make.
So, to answer the question, where have all the Harley Quinn's gone? I'm going to leave the final word to Harley herself, even though for many Harley Quinn fans including myself, it's not the case, but for many of the girls who dressed as Harley when Suicide Squad came out and the boys who wanted their own Harley Quinn. " You know what a harlequin is? A harlequin's role is to serve. It's nothin without a master, “No one gives two s—s who we are beyond that,” Harleys self deprication is not true, but it seems these girls who idolized Harley being madly in love with the Joker, and men who objectified Harley when Suicide Sqauad came out cannot appreciate her without her master, though she is so much better.
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| Where are they now ? Image from DC Comics website |
Yet, 2020 and 'Birds of Prey' (Cathy Yan) is released. Domestically at the U.S box office it apparently took $13 million on its opening day a few days ago. (I should point out it made its $80 million budget back in a weekend, which is pretty impressive.) Apparently, however, it's the lowest opening for a DC film. This is despite good reviews and heavy promotion, the last few weeks all I've seen is posters for it and television adverts. Harley Quinn was so popular a few years ago, people really wanted to see her again. So where have the fans disappeared too, the girls who dressed as Harley Quinn, saw her as a icon (which she is), why are they not seeing the movie?
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| *Camera pans up slowly* |
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| *Camera continues to pan up Margot's body* |
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| *Everyone's been staring at her getting changed* Harley: "What?" |
This was exaggerated by her outfits. She wore skimpy clothes, showing part of her bum and a top with holes in it, not the most practical outfit for fighting in, despite the original Harley Quinn character from the Batman animation dressing completely covered and despite that outfit being available to her. The Birds Of Prey Harley is dressed much more practically for fighting in, and when she is in shorts, the kind girls my age wear not hot pants which I suspect are quite unconfutable.
 |
| "Hey Stud" - Sandys transformation in Grease |
Maybe, we as females are trained, partly down to our media exposure as we grow up, and even as adults, to follow the male gaze, as so many films we watch are directed by men, that view is what we are used to. Therefore, many women prefer this view as thats what we are used to, to be the love interest, to need a man just look at Disney movies, 'Sleeping Beauty' (Clyde Geronimi,1952), awoken by a prince, a man. A film in which the titular character, supposively the heroine, only gets 18 minutes of screen time. Interestingly, 'Maleficent' (2014) attempts to change this. Its a bit like Disney has taken a long hard look at itself and thought, "well that was a mistake, we shall re-write the Sleeping Beauty plot (and make more money)". While Princes Aurora still is not the main protagonist, at least the titular, female character is. Additionally, in Sleeping Beauty Aruroas conversations are mostly about wanting to marry a man she just met, whereas Maleficent is about much more. Sadly it was directed by a man, Robert Stromberg. But the fact that Disney has realised, hopefully, the error of its ways, maybe other film companies will do the same, especially those that create children's films, as they will influence childrens views for the rest of their lives. I'm hopeful Birds of Prey has marked a turning point, and that we will have more female directors of big films, and that this will go across the whole industry. I hope one day, women will want to be seen as independant, that they will want to see Harley Quinn with her girl squad, not her joke(r) of an abusive boyfriend.
 |
| "Eyes on the road"- Iron Man 2 |
Girls also saw Harley as being "crazy" (therefore unique and different). Even though what she does is equal to the men in the film, so she is not crazy at all, its just because shes the same as the boys, she just seems to be crazy because shes mirroring masculine behaviour even though she's a girl. However, in Birds of Prey, she does not have the Joker. You see her sensitive and vulnerable side, she is completely different, but they are all characteristics Harley has always had, but her blind sidedness for the Joker masked not only the audience from other parts of her personality, but herself too. She talks in BOP about how being the Jokers girl gave her protection. But not only did it give her protection from characters who were out to get her, but it gave herself protection from her own emotions. Without the Joker around, we see a more rounded character.
 |
| "Isn't this fun ? Its like a sleep over. We should order pizza, make cosmos or something" |
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| The Birth of Harley Frickin Quinn |
One scene that stuck in my mind after leaving the cinema was the scene where Harley is carried out the club by the gangsta, who has been plying/ spiking her drinks, so she cannot fight back, and we can guess what his plans were. We hear Harley say quitely "I don't want to" when he says that shes coming home with him. Luckily a woman, Black Canary, is nearby, and helps Harley and saves her. That scene was powerful, women looking out for other women. Usually in super hero films, the danger comes from an alien force, or from some disallusioned maniac mastermind or other super heros even. Most of the threats in superhero movies for the superheros are usually the distruction of the Earth. This threat however, is a very realistic one that people, (more likely women but not always of course) are at risk from each day.
 |
| Black Canary is there for Harley, despite Harley being a pain in the a- for 'Canary. |
Of course, Birds of Prey is not the first DC picture to have a female lead in recent years, that would be 'Wonder Woman' (Patty Jenkins, 2016). I love Wonder Woman as a character. She is brave, justice seeking and practically perfect. However, something I realised about Wonder Woman when watching the BBC News Channel item on Oscar predictions, is Wonder Woman is portrayed in the context of the second world war. As Will Gomfort pointed out, all the subjects for best picture except 'Little Women' (Greta Grewig, 2019) are about typically male subjects. Wonder Woman is mostly the same, being set in the middle of a first world war battlefield, which I think was a bit of a shame, I know it was based on the comic, but there was no reason it could not have been altered, Wonder Woman did not need a war zone of men to show how powerful she was.
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| Harleen. |
So, to answer the question, where have all the Harley Quinn's gone? I'm going to leave the final word to Harley herself, even though for many Harley Quinn fans including myself, it's not the case, but for many of the girls who dressed as Harley when Suicide Squad came out and the boys who wanted their own Harley Quinn. " You know what a harlequin is? A harlequin's role is to serve. It's nothin without a master, “No one gives two s—s who we are beyond that,” Harleys self deprication is not true, but it seems these girls who idolized Harley being madly in love with the Joker, and men who objectified Harley when Suicide Sqauad came out cannot appreciate her without her master, though she is so much better.
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