![]() Because an awful lot of people have a truckload of grievances with Harlene Quinzel they’ve been too afraid to act on. The scrapes that follow stem directly from her escaping the Joker’s protective orbit. It’s nothing without a master, and no-one gives two shits who we are, beyond that.”Īnd so her journey of self-actualisation begins, with a grandiose and potentially suicidal declaration of independence. “You know what a Harlequin is? A Harlequin’s role is to serve. She expresses her fucked-up, emotionally dependent state to Black Canary, another woman under a man’s thumb: She’s a complete mess, living on the borrowed fear the Joker instils in the hoodlums of Gotham. Though tales of slave revolt are nothing new, this one is given a fresh comic book context, when a group of women rebel against the dominance of their various male overlords.įor the journey to begin, Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) has to sink to rock bottom, enduring post-break-up grief over splitting with her mentor and tormentor the Joker. ![]() Its celebration of breaking out from societal constraint is a subversive, radical, deviant message for our times. ![]() The original title, which has been shortened in theatres to Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey is far more accurate because at its heart, this movie is about freedom and self discovery. So, the question is, in a comic book world now burgeoning with fully-realised, powerful female characters, how does Harley Quinn claim an identity for herself away from associations with the Joker?īirds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) deals with that problem head on. She’s all too easy to view as the impish, psychotic diminutive version of Mr J. Her origin story – she was the Joker’s psychiatrist who fell for him and turned to evil – is an echo of the old stereotype that women are driven by emotions to do bad things at the behest of males – a narrative as ancient as Eve and the Serpent. Spiderwoman, She-Hulk, Batgirl and many others appeared to be created with little originality as cheap enticements to a female readership, or to titillate the boys – or both. Supergirl (actually the older cousin of Superman) was made younger than Kal-El by a freak of Einsteinian relativity. And it’s one hell of a ride all the way.įrom the Golden Age onward, with a few notable exceptions (eg Wonder Woman, Catwoman, Poison Ivy), female comic book characters have too often suffered from being less powerful copies of male originals. In Birds of Prey, Harley Quinn transforms from Joker’s love interest to self-realised Loki-style spreader of upheaval and mischief.
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