Harley Quinn as a Feminist Icon

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

She started off as the Joker's moll, not as a poster girl for domestic abuse.

In fact for the first several episodes the Joker never laid a finger on her...and when he DID start being physically violent with her, it was ironically because she was committing crimes behind his back, not because he was forcing her into anything.

The worst thing about Harley Quinn is that so many people, even in-universe, treat her as a victim in all of this, when in reality she was a willing and often gleeful participant in a ton of horrific crimes, including God knows how many murders.

She's just like the Joker in many ways; the main difference is that she has Dependant tendencies that he lacks, so she's naturally more submissive and prefers being a follower to stronger, more dynamic but almost always criminal people, and that includes Poison Ivy as much as "Mista J".

Realistically, she's less a typical victim of domestic violence and more like a member of the Manson family- but a million times worse- and every bit as capable of murdering an innocent pregnant woman (which she might have already done for all I know). In real life, any psychiatrist trying to convince her that she was an innocent victim in all of this would just be playing into her fantasies.

It's not right at all that the Joker is violent with her, but it's pretty damn rotten that she's seen as an icon for feminism or anything else just because of that. In many ways she's one of the most evil Batman villains- and yes, I just said that- considering she's so often involved in the schemes of the Joker (including his plan to murder a bunch of babies) AND Poison Ivy and who knows who else, making her a more prolific criminal than even people like the Scarecrow.

She's one of those villains we think is a much better person than she really is because of her personality and situation, or rather because of how people have misunderstood or retconned her situation. In reality, she's almost as much of a psychopathic attention freak as her boyfriend is.

Well I suppose though that you do know though that a lot of the field that generates the feminist icon distinction is not so directly basing this on a grade of the character as if irl, but in the peculiar way that she who is Harley Quinn is conveyed in media to millions of people. Her being a criminal doesn't really invalidate the assessments, because this is chiefly a character who has a degree of societal expectations to be something a bit more stereotypical while maybe feeling or coming off a bit regressive. She is, by all definitions, a villain. Feminism isn't really ignorant to that convention. It's the implications that amount from a piece of work.

[Admiral X]

She started off as the Joker's moll, not as a poster girl for domestic abuse.

In fact for the first several episodes the Joker never laid a finger on her...and when he DID start being physically violent with her, it was ironically because she was committing crimes behind his back, not because he was forcing her into anything.

The worst thing about Harley Quinn is that so many people, even in-universe, treat her as a victim in all of this, when in reality she was a willing and often gleeful participant in a ton of horrific crimes, including God knows how many murders.

She's just like the Joker in many ways; the main difference is that she has Dependant tendencies that he lacks, so she's naturally more submissive and prefers being a follower to stronger, more dynamic but almost always criminal people, and that includes Poison Ivy as much as "Mista J".

Realistically, she's less a typical victim of domestic violence and more like a member of the Manson family- but a million times worse- and every bit as capable of murdering an innocent pregnant woman (which she might have already done for all I know). In real life, any psychiatrist trying to convince her that she was an innocent victim in all of this would just be playing into her fantasies.

It's not right at all that the Joker is violent with her, but it's pretty damn rotten that she's seen as an icon for feminism or anything else just because of that. In many ways she's one of the most evil Batman villains- and yes, I just said that- considering she's so often involved in the schemes of the Joker (including his plan to murder a bunch of babies) AND Poison Ivy and who knows who else, making her a more prolific criminal than even people like the Scarecrow.

She's one of those villains we think is a much better person than she really is because of her personality and situation, or rather because of how people have misunderstood or retconned her situation. In reality, she's almost as much of a psychopathic attention freak as her boyfriend is.

This perfectly encapsulates what she was when she first started out. Honestly the only thing I was disappointed by was that her moniker was derived from her real name rather than being something she came up with as a fangirl of the Joker.

Honestly, though, it doesn't surprise me at all that some feminists have latched onto her as some kind of a positive icon and that they've somehow warped her into being a victim rather than the nut she was in her own right. So they've basically just turned her into a self-insertion character is what it comes down to.

[clearspira]

The bar for feminist icon must be pretty damn low if she is now considered one.

[CmdrKing]

Well, let's get nitpicky before we get interesting.

It's unlikely Harley Quinn will ever be an icon to feminism as a movement. The way we treat comic book characters kinda precludes it: she will, inevitably and always, reset back to her original persona as the Joker's half-victim, half-enabler with frequency through the years, and the odds of something dislodging that perception of the character from the cultural memory are extremely slim. So an enduring movement having to explain that no, we mean what happened to Harley *later* is not a great way to have to handle their icons.

The article that was cited earlier to kick of the discussion is basically garbage, for reasons people have listed. I mean, cool if that's what the author got out of it, but they didn't make the case well at all.

However! I am also absolutely certain that Harley Quinn is inspirational and perhaps even aspirational to some individual feminists, and now we can talk about something actually interesting.

In order to fully and meaningfully address societal wrongs and advocate for philosophies and movements to correct them in media, you have to, at some level, to some degree, actually portray the evils you want to fight against. Crafting feminist themes without contrasting them against misogyny or patriarchal systems is shallow and forgettable. And that's the framework for understanding how Harley Quinn can work as an inspirational figure.

Harley's most basic backstory is an appropriately comic book exaggeration of a real sort of person: a woman who is taken in by an abuser because he does three things. Two are pretty common amongst most abusers: he puts on a charming facade, and he lavishes her with The Good Life in intermittent bursts. Harley, however, is a specific sort of victim who has a third angle: he embraces her Weird. The Weird can be lots of things, be it simple nerdiness and awkwardness, barely contained mental health issues, latent queerness, lots of stuff. But the final hook for the abuser is simultaneously encouraging the victim to embrace her Weird and shed normalcy, and convincing her he's the only one who can love her Weird.

Harley then, in her eventual character arc, is someone who comes out the other side of a controlling, abusive relationship by learning her Weird, even if it alienates her from society at large, is a strength and there are plenty of people who will love her for it. So particularly for those with repressive/conservative upbringings, a character who first escaped normalcy in the form of an abuser, and struggles still with the allure that relationship had, but who also finds meaningful relationships outside both mainstream society and the isolating influence of an abuser is going to be pretty meaningful. Her story touches on a very specific sort of story, and the specific sort of abuse associated with it, but comes out the other side scarred but thriving.

I think Robbie's Harley definitely has the seeds of that character to her, and there's a pretty good chance Bird's of Prey will find her in a similar place and any further movies with her Harley will build on that foundation. So I would definitely be unsurprised if she inspires a lot of people going forward, even if over time her particular incarnation will be subsumed by the nature of comic storytelling and the next Harley Quinn will still just be Joker's minion. But until then? Hells yeah, we love our bi-con Harley Quinn.

[Antiboyscout]

Remember when Miss Piggy was a "feminist icon"

I believe they will try, it will be stupid, and they will quietly move on.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

The article that was cited earlier to kick of the discussion is basically garbage, for reasons people have listed. I mean, cool if that's what the author got out of it, but they didn't make the case well at all.

I thought it was aight. I mean garbage on an elaborative level or something maybe, but we're not exactly looking for proof in pudding with a 2016 article written when the movie came out.

[CmdrKing]

Garbage is probably too harsh, yeah. But it's doesn't really approach its topic well and seems to have missed some basic facts about the movie, so it reads like the author came at it knowing comics material and tried to find that in the movie rather than looking at the movie on its own terms.

[LittleRaven]

But until then? Hells yeah, we love our bi-con Harley Quinn.

Magnificent post, Cmdr. 10/10, would read again.

[Yukaphile]

Probably because she is an abuse victim. And lots of Feminists have probably been either physically, financially, emotionally, or sexually abused by male or family members, so they can relate.

[ChrisTheLovableJerk]

I don't think Harley should be viewed as this paragon of feminism. In her original origin story, the Mad Love comic, it highlights that she got poor grades in college and implies she had sex with her professors in order to graduate (and even shows she initiated it).

https://static1.comicvine.com/uploads/original/11127/111272306/5432802-madlove.png

That's not even counting the fact that Harley is a violent psychopath who will kill people for random reasons or to appease Joker. Yes, she is shown on numerous occasions to have a higher moral standard than the Joker, but that's a pretty damn low bar.