The Mary Sue: David Ayer, the director of 2016’s Suicide Squad, responded to a Twitter user who claimed that the character of Harley Quinn was sexualized in his movie and was better humanized in Birds of Prey. Ayer’s response to the comment and the small interaction that came after was pretty telling.
6 comments:
There is no doubt that Harley Quinn was sexualized in Suicide Squad, and for me personally, it took away from her what her character had to offer to the film. In Birds of Prey, on the other hand, Harley's character is way more appreciable and something that can connected with.
But what the director of Suicide Squad has said about the sexualization aspect does make sense to me. Today we live in a day and age where people are more aware and know what kinds of portrayals can be borderline derogatory. That is why they actively refrain from portraying such things, which is a wonderful change.
But this sense did not exist a few years back and people were comparatively unscathed when they would create such portrayals, because of the focus that was put on the overall beauty and appeal of a film, which is clearly not the case today.
I will preface this by saying I have not seen Birds of Prey, though I have seen production photos. I think some deeper thought really needs to go into costuming female superheroes. I think there's just an assumption going into a production that the character will have a sexually charged costume, and that just doesn't make sense. Sure, I do think Harley's costume got the desired result: people were attracted to her and they sold millions of dollars worth of Halloween costumes, but it feels like there's a level of integrity that's lost due to that. The amount of research that goes into costume design is too high for it all to have to be altered just to make the outfits sexy. I actually feel pretty bad for the costume designers on superhero movies because I can only assume that it's a requirement from the producers that the costumes be altered to appeal to audiences in this way. If I were one of these costume designers I would feel so restricted.
I feel like Harley Quinn is the poster child for debates on fictional characters. She is a character who many females love to dress up as, which leads to many men challenging their knowledge on the comic book she originated from. Harley Quinn seems doomed almost to a life of consistent sexism and misunderstandings. Suicide Squad was a dupster fire of a movie for many reasons. Harley Quinn’s costume is not the most appealing, but it still made its way to being a popular Halloween costume. I do think, despite the bad phrasing, it is good that the director did recognize his mistake and apologized for it. It’s obvious there’s a long way to go when it comes to the male gaze being corrected, but it goes to show that Margot Robbie’s performance made the character stand out more than her outfit. It’s good to see the character is getting more respectful adaptations for people to respect, because Harely Quinn has been mistreated for far too long.
I saw the Suicide Squad movie when it came out in theaters and besides the fact that the plot was terrible and made no sense, I actually really enjoyed the movie, especially it’s soundtrack. Looking back, Harley Quinn’s costume is very hypersexualized, but so is her costume in the comic, as are many female comic book characters, so I guess that is the root of the problem. It is interesting looking back because at the time that the movie came out I did not really think too much about whether or not Harley Quinn’s costume was overly sexualized and as much as it is a bit embarrassing to admit I did dress up as Harley Quinn for Halloween that year with some modifications. Thinking about it now I don't know that I would dress up as her again because of what her character stands for, however I still think her costume has some cool elements like her two toned moto jacket and blue and pink hair. I'm glad that the movie’s director responded thoughtfully to the tweet regarding the costume and hopefully this gives him something to think about for the future.
I never saw the Suicide Squud movie but I did see Birds of Prey. I have to say that i generally dislike the whole neon circus aesthetic so I wasn't really into the costumes in their color scheme.I think it is a universal truth that people will sexualize female super heroes and villains, it is just part of how they think they will sell a movie. Lots of men are into comics in general, so they think that women in the films have to be sexualized in order to sell more tickets to men who want to see that. The Harley Quinn costume, however, was not the only thing contributing to the sexualization of Harley Quinn, but the way she was written, and meant to hold the bat above her head, and her relationship with the joker. I will say I am very interested that the joker and Harley Quinn franchise has been able to really stretch itself out, so that they both have a million movies about them. It really just makes me think about how much I am starving for original content.
Female characters and heroes have always been subjected to poor costuming and designs that were really geared more towards being eyecandy and less effective for storytelling. There’s no reason that many of them needed to wear HEELS while battling, or have suits that revealed so much. This isn’t to say that some characters can’t be written sexually or have those kinds of traits, but rather the unnecessary addition of it that’s so common everywhere is appalling. And like people have said, it undermines the character’s story when they’re made to just be an object. I haven’t yet seen Birds of Prey since I’m not the biggest DC fan, but from the screencaps I have seen, her character design has definitely been adjusted to better do her justice. I do like how the director responded with accepting that there are still things he needs to learn and that he’s still growing and changing - rather than trying to blindly defend every action.
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