Birds of Prey: Why boys can’t stand the all-girls party
It’s an all girls party and the boys can come ... as long as they can ride with this:
“I just didn’t think Harley Quinn looked as attractive as she really should in Birds of Prey compared to Suicide Squad. And the absence of the Joker in the Birds of Prey movie left too much to the imagination. The movie would have been better with him in it.” A male movie reviewer rants. What? The year is 2020 and at long last, female led super hero and now, super villain movies are on a rise. So what’s with the discomfort from an abnormally large amount of boys?
We live in a patriarchal society where in America, kids grow up consuming movies that are often from the male perspective and even if there is a female lead, the movie is pattered in male gaze. Who else cringed during the prison scene of Suicide Squad where Harley Quinn was given her belongings and had to dress up in front of a full staring audience of prison guards, prisoners, and the movie theater audience in itself? I am 1000% for a woman showing what she wants to show and whatever empowers her. So why was that scene so uncomfortable? It wasn’t written for me. It certainly isn’t for me. Or for Margot Robbie. She executive produced Birds of Prey as her redemption of the mess that was Suicide Squad. Women have been framed, lit and shot in a very specific way in movies since the invention of cinema and that is finally changing. Many men are all for it, but for the ones who feel that sense of discomfort, that shift ... what gives?
Birds of Prey: The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn is the story of redemption. And not just any redemption, but the redemption of not just “the Joker’s girl / the Joker’s ex-girlfriend” but a woman who exists even after being someone’s object. A woman with her own demons to fight that have nothing to do with the men she was associated with. A woman who has a lot of trauma and dysfunction in her relationships and friendships with other women to unpack and she is here, doing the work. Not a boy in sight.
In Birds of Prey we are shown the colorfully kick ass story of a woman finding her footing outside an existence where her worth is defined by being associated with a man. It’s an all girls party and the boys can come ... as long as they can ride with that.