Women in Cinema: Birds of Prey and the fantabulous emancipation of Harley Quinn from an objectifying male gaze

When it comes to cinema, the superhero genre is the last place you should look if you want to see 'real women'. It seems an obvious and redundant thing to say. Of course, a world defined by superhuman abilities and alien races is not the place to look for ‘real’ people anyway. But a closer look shows just how huge the gap is when it comes to the genre’s treatment of its male and female characters, and its men enjoy a place much closer to ‘realness’ than its women.

The superhero genre is not one that was known for its inclusion of women in the space behind the camera or in the writer’s room, although that is, fortunately, slowly changing for the better. And that did lead to a lot of films in the genre and no matter how exceptionally made they are, they find themselves guilty of depicting its female heroes in a way that could be called ‘objectification’, sometimes on purpose and sometimes not. Another way to put it is that most of the time, female superheroes were catered to the ‘male gaze’.

True, there are a host of superhero films where the female superheroes, even the ones written as supporting characters, manage to steal the spotlight from their male counterparts. But there are times when even those charismatic characters cannot shake themselves free from their objectification. A good example of this is 2016’s film, Suicide Squad.

The film, which opened to less than stellar reviews, had its saving grace in the form of Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn. More than a few agreed that Robbie’s excellent breathed life into the character in a way that made her stand out from the pack, and she was the only character from the group of ill-fated anti-heroes who managed to appear in more DCEU films. The character was, however, not free of criticisms either, but surprisingly most of the faults viewers aired were not directed at Robbie or the character, but at the director and writer, David Ayer. Many remarked how Ayer chose to depict the character through a blatantly sexualised lens, trying to make her appealing to a male audience through doing so rather than accord her any aspect of agency. Even Ayer seemed to have realised his mistake, remarking how he was ‘learning’ and trying to ‘do better’.

The power, due to Quinn, was returned over to her twice when she got her own film in the form of 2020’s Birds of Prey. Helmed by Cathy Yan and written by Christina Hodson, the differences in the way the character was represented in this film vs its predecessor, were striking.

With a woman telling a woman’s story, Quinn was truly able to indulge in her sense of whimsy in a way that was for herself, with no demeaning antics packaged as ‘playful’ to make her more appealing to a certain set of viewers. Her bashfulness does not come at the expense of her dignity; the way she beats bad guys into another dimension looked more raw, messy and more ‘Harley’ like, and not like something choreographed to show off how good she looks while doing it. The camera angles also make for a story of how the male and female gazes can differ. Birds of Prey chooses to focus on Quinn as a whole, no matter how shaky and messy, rather than some selected parts of who she is and how she looks that would make her out to be ‘attractive’.

Not only in the way she carried herself, this stark change was also reflected in how she looked, with Yan choosing to make the costume in a way that suited the chaos and quirk of her character. Ditching the tight ensemble and fishnets, Ayer had her squeezing into, her look in the 2020 film saw colours taking centre stage and the endearing disarray in her personality reflecting in her style as well.

Birds of Prey is available to stream on Netflix.