The latest iteration of the DC comics universe Suicide Squad opens Friday in theaters and feminist social justice warriors already have their eye on the movie’s seminal female character, Harley Quinn, played by Margot Robbie.
But while Internet feminists can hardly be expected to approach a female comic book character with intelligence and reason, Quinn has become something of a feminist flashpoint: a character that entered the pop culture lexicon, where many of her fans have grown to love her apart from her source material.
As a result, the buxom blonde and on-again, off-again girlfriend of the Joker was plastered on T-shirts and lunch boxes and became a symbol of tough, solid female representation in DC’s universe.
So imagine how upset feminists are now that they’ve come into contact with the real Harley Quinn: a former Ph.D, survivor of physical and emotional abuse, and warrior girl, but also a psychotic woman who murders with abandon to make herself (and her absent boyfriend) happy.
One writer at Buzzfeed railed that Suicide Squad “uses and abuses Harley Quinn,” just like her Joker boyfriend, attaching her to a “Stockholm syndrome” that doesn’t allow Quinn agency to “develop” further than her “troubling relationship. She’s trapped in “mental and physical cages” all because Quinn is smart and sexy but ultimately in love.
Feminist Twitter was apoplectic that Quinn managed to fight crime (and commit crime) in a pair of hot pants and a matching couples tattoo.
harley quinn is an amazing character, she deserves more than being sexualized to please fanboys
— ❁ (@poeltry) August 2, 2016
No one knew who Harley Quinn was until they over sexualized Her & gave her less clothes for #SuicideSquad ????
— Love Jones ღ (@Ingenuous_Soul) July 20, 2016
https://twitter.com/megs_dent/status/747474611810471936
so like just a q, suicide squad directors: where does harley quinn get her weird overly sexualized outfit, in this movie,
— hugbear (@burnhounds) June 23, 2016
But Suicide Squad is a film, not a documentary about a motley crew of serial tormenters-turned-death-row inmates. And while comic book movies are made to stand alone, Suicide Squad incorporates nearly two decades of backstory for a female villain who is more than just a crush and some harlequin Spandex.
And for those keeping score, Quinn’s first costume was a Spandex unitard.
I know this because I’ve been a fan since Harley’s first appearance, in the late-1990s cartoon Batman: the Animated Series. I own her first comic book, and occasionally, dress like the killer clown herself for comic cons.
Harley has never been the “toy” of more powerful characters. She’s a villain in her own right—murdering, maiming and destroying with the best of what the Batman comics have to offer. Her position in the “Suicide Squad” is earned not by her association with the Joker, but because she’s a hell of a bad guy (or gal).
She’s also always been a character with more complex terms. Starting with her origin story—as a doctor treating the Joker in his prison cell at Arkham Asylum—she ultimately chooses her path of destruction; she’s psychotic but struggles with moments of clarity that interrupt her ability to fully integrate into a criminal persona.
Harley’s creator, Paul Dini, may have put it best. Harley is a feminist: “I think Harley’s entire character is based on the concept of choice,” he told CNN this week. “As long as she has that element of choice to either be like the Joker or to get away from him, that defines her life. She’s not a victim who just goes where she’s told to.”
Harley isn’t above using her feminine wiles to get her way, not in the comic books and certainly not with the Joker. But the feminists who complain that she is a sexualized character seem to want to take away that choice-making ability. They want filmmakers to make her into a watered-down version of herself, compatible with social justice norms, tormented by her past, hopeless for the future, mired in self-doubt and hell-bent on a Genders Studies graduate degree.
It seems like feminists would rather Harley Quinn start a support group for ex-girlfriends of Gotham’s raging lunatic villains than have any agency of her own. Thankfully, Harley probably wouldn’t go for that—unless, of course, it turned into an all-female villain collective.
