Birds of Prey with Emily Yoshida

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the cast. The questions asked if movies have women
in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in best
start changing it with the bel cast. Hello, and welcome
to the Bectel cast. My name is Caitlin Durante and
my name is Jamie Loftus. So what I should have

(00:22):
said is hello, welcome to the birds of No. No,
there's nothing better write the first time birdle cast. Birds
are there. This is maybe okay, maybe maybe I'm getting
ahead of myself in terms of brilliant discourse. But is
there a single bird in this movie? Do you see

(00:43):
a bird? Isn't black canary a bird? But do you
like see a physical bird? Oh? I don't think you
actually see a real bird. No pigeons, not even a
p I feel like in most movies that don't have
birds in the tattle, you get a pig gin. I'm
already coming out with some really brilliant takes that I

(01:06):
guess i'd have to like go back and rewatch Birdman,
a thing I never want to do. So maybe there's
definitely birds and Birdman. Unfortunately, I just I was for
some reason I was watching this movie as if I
was my dad, and I was like, I didn't see
a single bird. No, pretty good could have done with

(01:27):
more birds. They could have thrown in a bird, is
what I'm saying. Anyways, this is The Birds of Paste. Yes,
So if you're not familiar with the show, we are
a movie podcast that examines the treatment and representation of
women in film, and we used the Bechtel test as

(01:48):
a jumping off point. Jamie, what on earth is the
Bechdel test? Well, I can tell you what it is.
It's a media matric invented by cartoonist Alison Buckdel, sometimes
called the Bechdel Wallace test, that we choirs for our
purposes that there be two female identified characters in a
piece of media with names who talk to each other

(02:10):
about something other than a man. Most movies don't pass it.
I think movies are starting to pass it more, but
not because people regard women better, but because they don't
want to get canceled. That's true. Yeah, So that's where
we start from. Well, first we start with birds, and
then are there any birds in the movie? Then we

(02:30):
use the Backdl test to start the discussion. Right, But
if it's failed, the bird test, then it's kind of
really not worth going into the beck Del test. Affright,
the movie is probably trash. I'd like to see that
ven diagram of how many movies passed the bird test,
which is a test that requires a movie have a
bird versus I got more movies past the bird test

(02:51):
than the back doll test. Oh, that's an interesting I'll
keep my eye out for that. Someone right there. Does
the bird have to be in focus? Does the bird
have to be in the foreground? For the purposes of
the bird test, we need to feel that the bird
is being represented. Right. There's different caveats for the bird test.

(03:12):
Sometimes you have to see the bird in focus. Sometimes
it can be in the background, you know, just like
how there's different caveats of the Bechdel test. Yeah, for
some people, a bird in the distance is enough. For others,
they're a little there. Our standards are a little we're
going to meet the bird to be in focus. Well,

(03:32):
you've you've heard her voice already, but let's properly introduce
our guests. No, don't apologize at all. We love your contributions.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Of course, she is
a writer of filmmaker and co host of Nightcall podcast.
It's Emily Yoshida. Hi, Hello, thanks for having me. Oh

(03:53):
it's our pleasure. Welcome to the Birdcast. Hey. Yeah, no,
I actually I was trying to save this for after
I got introduced, because I did see a pigeon that
really really struck me just a few days ago when
I had to get in my car and drive somewhere
and I was on the one oh one and I
saw a pigeon just straight chilling in a lane on

(04:14):
the freeway and it was empty enough that you know,
he could do that. And I was, you know, I
was going pretty you know, it wasn't sixty miles an
hour or something like that, and I was like, oh,
that's a pigeon. That pigeon is going to fly away,
and it kind of did it until the very last minute.
I was like, am I gonna just run over a
pigeon on the one? That feels very weird? Um it was.

(04:35):
It was one of many end times things I feel
like has happened to me. The animals are for sure
reclaiming the land, yeah, and the freeways. The way the
cats have been acting in my neighborhood, it's like it's
borderline inspiring of just like, oh, I don't live here.
You're right, You're right, you were here first. Maybe I
don't know your streets. It's just like the end of

(04:56):
that one Jurassic World movie that wasn't good, which one
both anyway? Swish um, Emily, what's your relationship with the
film Birds of Pray, the character of Harley Quinn anything.
Are you familiar with any comic books or any other
like series that she's in, anything like that comics? Um.

(05:20):
The most exposure I probably ever had to Harley Quinn
was um in the cartoon, which is like, isn't that
where she was originated? The Batman animated series. So I
didn't watch that, you know, passionately whenever that was I mean,
it was on when I was a kid, and I
remember seeing it a little bit. I was kind of
more into x Men as far as like cartoon versions

(05:40):
of comic books. I never I never read any comic
books growing up, but I did watch the TV versions.
But yeah, I was always kind of intrigued by her.
I think, like, in general, like her and Poison Ivy,
even though I know like very little of either character.
But just because you know, I saw like Batman and
Robin where Uma Thurman place her when I was like

(06:02):
junior high. But I just thought it was kind of
funny that there were two female Batman villains who were
like cool but also like came from a science background, proggressive.
They're both like lab coat ladies who turned bad, and
I thought that was very fun. Like I I like

(06:23):
that kind of trope in general. Like my version of
that that I really embraced was like like and so
instead of comic books and all that, I was really
into Sailor Moon and like anime and stuff when I
was a kid, And Sailor Moon in particular has one
season where the villains are like an evil lab of
witches and they all just like wear lab coats and
get into trouble, and that was like a plus in

(06:45):
my book. I love I love a bad lady in
a lab coat. So yeah, hell yeah. But yeah, I'm
not like a I'm not like super up on this
universe or anything. But when I heard that they were
doing Harley Quinn movie, I was like, Okay, that will
be for me, like more so than Wonder Woman or
any or like Black Widow or any of these things

(07:06):
were supposed to be anticipating as women the Harley Quinn movie.
I was like, that'll be fun. Like I I, it
doesn't need to be that great to me, but I
feel like more on Board was something about her than
a lot of these other these other films. So nice.
That's sort of where I came into this. Jamie, what
about you? What's your relationship? Um? I think it's kind

(07:28):
of similar to Emily's. I mean, if if you listen
to the Battle cast, you know, I'm not a huge
superhero movies person. They're just I like it. Every time
I'm like sat down in front of them, usually I'm like,
this is fun. But I just I don't really seek
them out. Um, but I was excited to see I
don't know, I just thought that, like, it looks like

(07:49):
a fun movie. I really liked the cast. I really like,
I'm gonna say his name wrong. I get you and
you and you and you and you and you, and
I said it wrong for the entire Mulin Rouge episode,
and I was and so I and I still get
Oh that's so funny. Added for it. It was two

(08:10):
years ago. Okay, I really I'm a big fan of
his I really like Mary Elizabeth Winstead I like the
whole cast is just it's a really fun cast. Rosie
Perette like, it was just I was just excited to
see it. Um. I hadn't seen and have not seen
Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad. I did not
subject myself to that. It's just like, now is not

(08:32):
the time for me to see Suicide Squad. It's just
not going to be. Um, I'm assuming that this movie
is quite different. But I saw it in the theaters
and I like, it's a fun movie. It's a fun movie.
Rewatching it was interesting because I was watching it completely
uncritically the first time. I was just like, I'm just
letting fun things happen. But yeah, I liked it. What

(08:53):
about you, Caitlin. I saw it in the theater as well.
I really really enjoyed it. This will be like a
movie that I think go like continue to revisit. And
I did watch Suicide Squad to like prepare for this
episode because I was like, I do want to be
able to like kind of compare and contrast and like
like have that context. Um. So I did make this

(09:15):
great sacrifice for the show. Thank you so much. I
appreciate it. And I do I have like a bit
to say when we get to the discussion about how
either movie treats Harley Quinn, because it is, believe it
or not, pretty vastly different. So um, yeah, I'm excited
to talk about that. But yeah, I mean, I freaking
love this movie. I give it a ten out of

(09:36):
ten on the Caitlin Rompo meter. But um, I too
don't have Like I I haven't really read any comic books.
I did not watch the Batman animated series, so um,
I didn't get like that introduction to the Harley Quinn
character then. But it's kind of interesting where I think
that my main familiarity with Harley Quinn. I knew who

(09:58):
she was, and I knew it her basic story was
just I think through like cultural osmosis. But I think
where I saw her most were on like guys wearing
naughty peer T shirts of like Harley Quinn like posed
all sexy on a T shirt Like I saw her
a lot in middle school on horny boy's shirts. So

(10:21):
I think she's had a real come up. Indeed, well,
she always like she just as easily can just turn
into a really bad trope of like craziest girlfriend like
that crazy bitch that you've met before, like that, which
is just like and I feel like that's what that's
what I imagine. The Suicide Squad film uses her as

(10:44):
and just sort of vocals her, but it's like, but
she's crazy. So I feel like people said similar things
about the Justice League movie and Wonder Woman, where it's
just like she is treated in a very markedly different way,
and it's not a way can immediately verbalize. It's kind
of just all cinematic, less than what's necessarily on the page,
Just like how the camera looks at her, you know,

(11:07):
how we're meant to empathize with her or not. That
feels very active in this movie, as I think it
did in Wonder Woman too. I just think this is
a more fun character. So yeah, for sure, Well should
we get into the recap and go from there? Do it? So?
We open on some backstory for Harley Quinn played by
Margot Robbie. Of course, she had a rough childhood but

(11:31):
made her way through college. She got a PhD. She
became a psychiatrist, and that is how she met Joker,
who she fell in love with, kind of lost her
sense of herself and then eventually she and a Joker
break up, which is sort of the catalyst that gets
this movie going. And the way that they are able

(11:54):
to avoid showing you Jared Letto in this movie is
an art all its own, Like there are I was,
I was like, I don't because I didn't see Suicide Squad,
but I just knew I didn't want to look at
Jared Letto Joker and that's not how I wanted to
use my time watching this. And they don't make you
look at Jared Letto Joker. It made me happy. That's

(12:15):
very nice to them, and it's also it's also just fun,
even if it was a way to get around showing
Jared Lettter Joker. I love the animation at the beginning
of it because it feels it feels like it really
sets the tone, like it's it's very much like you're
about to watch a cartoon, Like even if the whole
thing won't be technically animated, is going to feel like this.
So after this breakup, Harley Quinn resets her life, she

(12:37):
gets her own place, she gets a pet, hyena. She's
supposed to name him after Batman, right, yeah, yeah, yeah,
she named him Bruce Wayne Bruce. I felt like a
genius when I was like bruise. We also see her
skating around because she plays like roller Derby now and
it's like, who are you a Tania? Anyway, she had

(12:58):
to use those skills and they come back later and payoff. Baby,
love to see you. Oh wait, I want to. I
want to bring up one more thing about the intro,
which I just noticed on this watch through before, when
she's talking about kind of striking out in love before
she met the Joker. It's like a slots type machine
where it's like we're spinning through through people and like
it lands on like two guys, then it lands on

(13:20):
a lady queer representation in Harley Quinn. And they didn't
even make an article about it where they're like, this
is the first fully bisexual DC character or whatever they
would say. Um. She also says that she voted for
which is a real treat. It was a real treat. Yeah. Well,

(13:41):
from my understanding, the Harley Quinn character is canonically bisexual.
I mean, slide straight into my mentions if I'm wrong
about this, because again I have not read material as well,
and I was also seeing that even Renee is canonically bisexual,
even though that is not referenced really that much in

(14:02):
this movie. Well, she it's mentioned that she and Ali
Wong's character are like ex girlfriends, So we get a
little bit there's I don't I canonically I guess that
she and we'll get into this later, but like I
guess that she was like kicked out of the police
force for reasons having to do with her sexuality. Yeah,

(14:23):
because but I don't know. I kind of appreciate that
they go they reference it and then also keep it
a cartoon. Anyways, So then we meet Romans Sionists that's
played by and sorry, Jamie, how do you say his
name again? It's you? And yes it is good job
you and McGregor. He's all like, hey, Harley Quinn, give

(14:43):
joker my best because she has not told people about
her breakup. So to get closure and to prove to
the world that they're broken up and she's over him
and all that stuff, she blows up a toxic industrial
processing plant where their relationship bloomed. Then we cut to
Renee Montoya, that's Rosie Perez's character. She is a detective

(15:06):
who is examining a crime scene where four men were murdered,
and then we get a flashback that shows a mysterious
crossbow killer character played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead murdering these men.
So Renee Montoya is examining this crime scene nearby when
the plant gets blown up and she's like, whoa, that

(15:28):
must have been Harley Quinn, Like the j necklace she
left behind, this was her and joker spot. So she
goes and tries to find and arrest Harley Quinn the
following morning, and she is one of many people who
are unhappy with Harley Quinn, so there's a lot of
people chasing her and then she gets captured by Roman

(15:50):
Zionis as people. Meanwhile, Renee Montoya is working on a
case against this Roman guy and she's heard that this
diamond ship mint is coming in and she thinks it's
the burton Elly Diamond, which belonged to the burton Elly
crime family, and Roman Czionist is trying to get his
hands on it because there's a reminded me of National Treasure.

(16:13):
They're like, there's a map inside the diamond. It's I
think we just watched National Treasure too recently, but I'm like,
there's always a map inside of something important. There's a
map inside of everything. There's a mcguffin inside a mcguffin.
So Roman is trying to get his hands on this

(16:34):
diamond because it's going to give him access to all
these funds and connections that will allow him to control
all of Gotham. So then Renee gets a call from
her informant, Dinah Lance a k A. Black Canary played
by Journey Smollett Bell, saying that this diamond is in

(16:54):
the possession of this pickpocket kid, Cassandra Caine. Then we
flash back to earlier when Harley and Black Canary meet
or I don't know if this is them meeting for
the first time, but we see an interaction they have.
Black Canary ends up saving Harley Quinn from some bad
guys Romans Zionists sees how good Black Canary is it

(17:16):
fighting and promotes her to being his driver. She had
previously had like a singing gig in his club, which
I feel like it doesn't I wish that she got
to talk more about how how much that job change
sucks for her. Yeah, that's a terrible unless it pays
considerably better, Like she says that at first, she's like, oh,

(17:36):
I'd rather continue being a singer and then he's like, well,
you're a valet now, and she's like, uh okay. It's
like can carve your own career path at the Underworld Club.
I'm sure there's other club. I'm assuming the pay bump
was sweet enough that it made it worth. Maybe it

(17:58):
was just sort of like a pay ad for exposure
type thing with the singing. Yeah, that could be it.
She's just all there's industry in the club all the
time at the back of the room. It's probably the
idea that like, if she's his driver, she gets closer
into his inner circle and like is more protected or

(18:19):
has more connections. I don't know, that's what I imagine,
Like at least he thinks he's offering her, but she's like,
I actually don't want to really be closer to you
because you're scary anyway. Yeah, he skipped the part where
he peels some people's faces. I did skip that part.
That does happen. Um, he peels some people's faces off
because they didn't want to go into business with him,

(18:39):
and he's like, oh really, then your face is gone.
It's another like it's there's a few scenes in this
movie where it's like perfect live action cartoon and the
face peeling scene is one of them, like they could
have so easily gone like dark broody other Batman worlds
that exist on it, and it's just it's so fun. See.

(19:00):
I think the face peeling thing is one of there
are two scenes in this movie that like are suddenly
a little too real, and one of them I think
works and I'm sure you guys know what when I'm
talking about. And the other one is this one where
I'm just I think it's so early in the film
where I'm just like, one, who are these people too?

(19:21):
Like we're going straight into a face Like I have
no context for this scene, so which just like grillly
grizzly and you see like the limp piece of face
being towed it off and um, but it's not even
done in a really over the top way because it's
really like face peeling at the end of the day.
Isn't like you know, Harley Quinn doing or jumped down
on the guy's leg and breaking it like that's like

(19:42):
looty tunes cartoon violence. Like the face peeling is just
like I don't know why I like it. I like
at the end he goes whoa at the end of
the you're like, oh, I guess it's okay. There's a
few separate moments in the movie where he could just goes, WHOA,
You're just like I guess, I guess. That's his catchphrase

(20:04):
in the movie. He says will a lot because once
he goes Harley Quinn, whoa, I'm like, that's how I
feel right now. Yeah, the same. So after Black Canary
gets promoted to being Roman Sionists driver, a few days later,
he sends her on an errand to pick up the

(20:24):
Burton Elly diamond Um. The trouble is though, that it
gets stolen by that pickpocket, Cassandra Kane. She is played
by Ella j. Basco. Then Cassandra gets picked up by
the cops right away, so she swallows the diamonds so
she won't have to turn it over. So we're now
back to the present. Harley has been captured and brought

(20:46):
to Roman Szionists so that he can kill her because
there's all these grievances. One of them is that she
voted for Bernie Um and he also just hates women.
One of my favorite ones was that she spoils a
lot of movies. UM. So he has all these grievances
against her. He's generally villainous. Indeed, he's villainous in a

(21:07):
very general sense in a way that I'm just like,
I don't know how I feel like that that. Yeah,
it's supposed to be like his thing is that he's
a narcissist. Yeah, but like that doesn't really come across.
Like he does feel rather vague to me. Like the
only and I was tweeting about this when I watched it,
Like the only reference point for me for like what
this kind of character is supposed to be is like, um,

(21:30):
did you guys ever watched The Hills. Yes, he's a
really like Brent bolt House character I feel like, but
like dialed up to eleven, just like a slimy kind
of club in Presario. And properly he's a landlord. He's
like a property owner, um developer. So that I also

(21:51):
added to that, I was like, okay, okay, I get
I get this sort of villain, but it's sort of
hard to read it first. Maybe that's why he has
to yell woo so much to puncture wait his violent acts. Also,
he's a super villain named Black Mask, which is also
a very nondescript super villain name so vague. Yeah, it's

(22:12):
very and you never see it except like there's a
little cutaway to him putting on said black mask. Then
we don't see it again until the very end of
the movie. So I just like, and is that like
a is that like a canonical character in the DC universe, like,
because that really feels like they were scraping the bottom
of the barrel as far as concepts, he is canon, Okay,

(22:34):
I guess he's just I mean, there's so many like
Batman villains that I've never heard of, Like I know
the ones that have been in Batman movies, but those
are the only ones I know of, So that makes sense. Okay.
So anyway, um, Roman is like, I'm going to kill
you Harley, but she makes a bargain with him and
says that she will find this diamond and like uses

(22:57):
it as like a bargaining chip, like, don't kill me
and I'll find this diamond for you. And he's like, Okay,
you have until midnight to find it. And then Harley
Quinn goes to the police precinct where Cassandra Caine is
being held, breaks her out, and then when Harley discovers
the Cassandra swallowed the diamond. They go to a store,
they buy a bunch of laxatives, and they go back

(23:19):
to Harley Quinn's apartment to wait it out, and then hey,
remember the Crossbow Killer She shows up again. Her name
is actually Huntress, also Helena Burton Elly, because she's the
daughter of the Burton Elly crime family who are all murdered.
And she does not like that Roman is after her

(23:39):
family's diamond. Or that's what I thought when I was
watching this, And then it turns out she's just trying
to find she's trying to kill his like assistance. She's
got like a kill bill narrative going where she has
like a list of, however many people involved in a
traumatic event that she needs to kill. Yeah, it's his,
It's it's Christmas Tina that she wants to kill. She
she I don't think she actually cares about Roman because

(24:02):
he was one of the goons who came and killed
her family Victor Zayz, which it didn't fully occur. I
think that. I mean, the movie does tell you that,
but it didn't occur to me until the end where
I'm like, oh, I guess she didn't care about Black
Mask not really, because she shows up, she kills Christmas
Ina and then it's like, okay, I'm done. And then

(24:25):
Rosie Perez is like, um, who do you think funded
this whole operation? It was because Roman, it is trying
to do this thing like it all like plot, plot,
plot plot. There there are a few times in the
third act where they have to like stand in her
room and be like, so, this is what's going on,
and this is our relationship to the plot right now.

(24:45):
Also we're all friends. Now, okay, let's start the scene.
This is why I should care about what's going on,
and this is why you should care about what's going on.
Like it's just you know, reiterating the stakes for everybody.
This is where I feel a Rosie Perez really a
shines because she can make them very expository dialogue sound
like not that like very urgent and cool. I love. Yeah,

(25:09):
she's great. So Huntress shows up. She's looking for the
bad guys basically, and then Harley Quinn's friend Doc sells
out her whereabouts and she's very disheartened and she's like, well,
if this is the way the world is, I guess
I gotta tell Roman to come and collect Cassandra. She

(25:30):
makes this arrangement to meet at amusement Mile and everyone
goes there. It's like this rundown theme park. Renee Montoya,
Black Canary, and Huntress all show up because they've all
got business with either Harley Quinn, Roman or one of
his associates. But they all decide to band together and

(25:50):
take down Roman and his goons. And there's the big
fight and it seems like they won, but then Cassandra
gets kidnapped, so Harley Quinn goes after her. There's a
big chain. Then Cassandra plants a grenade on Roman and
then Harley Quinn flings him over the railing and he
blows into bits and it's a great moment of Catharsis.

(26:14):
Then uh and then Huntress gets the diamond back and
gets her family fortune back. Um. Then Renee, Black Canary,
and Huntress all decide to band together as the Birds
of Prey to fight crime throughout Gotham. And then Harley
Quinn goes off with Cassandra. She's made Cassandra her like apprentice,

(26:35):
and then she drives off into the sunset or whatever
time of day. It is. The end, the end, So
let's take a quick break and then we'll come right
back to discuss. So where where do we want to
start with with this movie? I've got I've got some pros,

(26:55):
I've got some causa we want to start? Well, maybe
would it make most sense to start by kind of
how the Harley Quinn character was depicted previously in Suicide
Squad and note those differences. Yeah, and then I've got
some notes on comic book cannon for the other nine
Birds of Prey. So if do you want to kick

(27:16):
it off with? Yeah, So the Harley Quinn character evolved
and is treated differently as a character between Suicide Squad,
which came on was written and directed by men, versus
Birds of Prey, which was written and directed by women.
Imagine that. So in Suicide Squad, I would say that

(27:40):
the Harley Quinn character is largely characterized by her relationship
with a man, the Joker, who she is obsessed with.
She wears a jacket that says property of the Joker.
You know, things like that. Um. She is surrounded by
mostly men. The story is populated by mostly male characters.
We don't really know that much about her, and what

(28:02):
we do learn a lot of what we learn is
what other characters say about her, and that's mostly that
she is quote crazy and her character is hyper sexualized.
In terms of cinematography, wardrobe choices fight choreography, like we
see the you know, she wraps her legs around a
man's face and pussy slams him into the ground. Move happens.

(28:26):
It's like female in an action movie three kicks in
a pussy slam and then get her off screen. Yep.
So all of that versus some just sort of basic
things and then we'll go into far more detail about everything.
But in Birds of Prey, as the title of the
movie suggests, which is the fantabulous emancipation of one Harley Quinn,

(28:48):
the story is about her being free of a toxic
relationship with Joker, and her kind of like you know,
emotional goal of the movie is wanting a fresh start.
She wants to be her own woman. She's no longer
defined by her relationship to a man. She is surrounded
by mostly women, and she is no longer the object

(29:09):
of the male gaze. I would say, like the closest
thing we get to any type of gaze is Harley
Quinn getting borderline horny as she watches her bacon egg
and cheese sandwich being made, which is also one of
my favorite jokes in the entire movie. And then similarly,
her fight choreography is not sexualized, like now she's punching people,

(29:30):
bashing them with baseball bats, throwing them on the ground,
things like that. I liked her use of a mallet. Yeah,
I like a good mallet related engine a mallet swinging.
I mean, it's just fun. It's a great principal weapon
to have. I think that's a lot of value, especially
if you're Margot Robbie and you have the biggest smile
in the entire world that you can just like spread

(29:52):
across your face as you swing a mallet around. It's
just fun, Like it looks great. So those are the
main kind of just initial differences. So I mean that
just goes to show like when a story is being
handled by men who really only care about a woman
being present in the story to like be hot, and

(30:16):
that's basically it. The characters treated very differently versus when
you have the story in the hands of like women
with an agenda, like the director, the writer. I watched
a few interviews with each of them saying and like,
I mean, producer Margot Robbie. They were all like, we
want this to be like a feminist like smashing of

(30:37):
the patriarchy. So just goes to show who's behind the
camera can largely influence, you know, the movie that gets made. Yeah,
I think the things that really, aside from just the
general framing of the character, which again haven't seen suicide
squads that don't have an exact I have an idea
just from if you'd see trailers of it and stuff

(30:58):
from clips um, but I think like, aside from just
how it views her, I think also the way that
it can build a sense of danger out of these
various scenarios she finds herself in, particularly with men, Like
there's a lot of subtlety and like and stuff that
I felt like I genuinely hadn't seen before and this
kind of film, Like there's a part where she gets

(31:21):
hit with like a tranquilizer dart or just like a
paralyzing dart or something, so she's like conscious, but she
can't move her body, and then you know the second
that somebody starts to kind of creep on her in
that scenario, it's like, really like your hackles go up
as a viewer and you're just like, oh, this is
the worst, this would suck um. And you know, it's
still kind of done in this sort of whack of

(31:44):
dude sort of tone, but it's able to kind of
flip the perspective a little bit with you know, stuff
like tranquilizer darts and stuff where where it's just you
kind of have a new sort of palette to play
with when you're looking at it from that perspective as
opposed to what we usually see in these films. Yeah,
I like, I mean there I I did a little
bit of research on just like, what is the basic

(32:05):
canon of a lot of the women we see in
this movie, just to because I had a sneaking suspicion
that maybe some of it had change. And I like,
I like the choices, um that they make to alter
some of the backstory too, because I think that, you know,
because the comic book world for so long was so
male dominated, that all of their canonical stories are somehow

(32:26):
tied to a man, and so like, I mean, Harley Quinn,
we've we've already talked through. Dina Lance was originally a
detective's daughter who wants to be like she's someone's daughter
and that's why she's involved in the story. Um. Huntresses
story is pretty much the same, where she's she's an

(32:46):
arnist who witnesses the murder of her family. UM. Cassandra
Caine has a very different backstory where she's kind of
I mean in this she is like they make vague
references to like she is in the foster care system
and she is not being serviced by it very well,
which I kind of wish we had like a little

(33:06):
more to go off of them, like two vague yelling
adults in the background. Um, And that stands to get
very depressing. But it was like interesting because that is
not canonically what who she is at all. Um. She's
originally discovered in a martial arts tournament. She becomes someone's bodyguard,
and then she becomes an assassin. UM. So she was

(33:28):
very different, and she had two living parents. She was
like the daughter of like these famous married assassins in
in the books. So I don't know why she also,
I mean, I'm look, you know right now, she's also
bad girl. At one point, she becomes bad girl because
she's like actually a wayne, like she was put into
the foster system. But it's like like related to Bruce Wayne.

(33:51):
There's a few different versions of her too, which makes
it more confusing. But and that was like one of
the characters that they strayed really far from I think
more for plot reasons than for other reasons. But I
mean most of the changes were fun and like sir,
I feel like gives the character more room to do stuff.
I will say that she's probably my favorite of all

(34:14):
of what I think are the birds of prey in
this movie, just because I one, I think she's developed
with the most clarity of all the characters. And also
I just like feel I feel very represented and very
seen when I see like an awkward, kind of grumpy
teenage Asian girl who like with a permanent like frown.

(34:38):
That's just like just like, oh, they made they made
a superhero movie where like teenage me got to be
like Harley Quinn's apprentice. That's cool. And like her eternal
Pink cast too, I love so much. Like yeah, I
like and and um, what's her name? Ella Ella J Basco. Yeah,

(34:58):
she's awesome, She's I can't wait to see her and
more stuff. Yeah, she's super super funny, really really fun. Yeah.
But yeah, those are those are the canon changes. That
are made to the main characters. Yeah, it's I mean
the relationships that they end up having with each other
on screen in this movie, Like I really enjoyed, like
how all those unfolded they pretty much all have like

(35:21):
an arc where they all start out kind of antagonistic
because at first, like Harley and Renee have like the
like criminal versus cop dynamics, so they're like kind of
natural enemies. We've got Black Canary being super annoyed by
Harley all the time. You've got like Harley kind of
joining forces with Cassandra and like saving her at first,

(35:44):
but then like being willing to sell her out to
save her own skin, but then like feeling really bad
and guilty about that and apologizing and eventually like getting forgiveness,
and then like when they converge at the end and
they're like, well, all these people are probably gonna kill us,
and we have a better chance if we band together
and like fight as a group, and everyone's just like, well,

(36:06):
I guess okay, fine, then yeah. I I mean I
think a lot of that stuff is great. I think
probably if I had to boil down my one gripe
with this film, which is like not to take away
from any of these individual performances. But I do think
that it feels like a little bit of a disservice
to trying to do a standalone Harley Quinn movie, to try,

(36:30):
like instantly try to make it a girl gang movie,
just because I don't think they have enough time. And
I think that some characters, I think get really kind
of thrown by the wayside. Like I think that you
could lift out the entire Huntress story from this film
and not really lose anything. She doesn't know anybody in
the story until the end, and she's pursuing a different

(36:51):
villain than everyone else. Yeah, And I think like kind
of similarly you could. It would be less clean, but
you could also take out a Black Canary part entirely
and then just have more Like I think you have
a really great movie between Cassandra Harley and Renee, Like
you've got the cop who's looking for the villain, trying

(37:13):
to reform herself villain, and the girl she has to
take under her wing. Like that's like a that's like
a fun little movie. Um, and you have much more
time with all those characters. You would get more time
for Renee and like really build out you know her
stuff that's just gestured out about her conditions in in
at her workplace and like her history and that she's

(37:33):
sort of like, you know, it's very rare we get
to see a kind of grizzled, not so virtuous cop
that's a woman, and I wish we kind of have
more time with that because and also I just love
Rosie Perez, So I just wanted more of that as
a kind of foil to Harley because they kind of
have a lot of crossover, Like there's a lot that
they have in common. Yeah, that's like my biggest like blanket,

(37:55):
like what I would change about this film because I
just I was so happy to get a chance to
spend time with this character and then it's like, oh,
but we have to like build a squad. Then it
just feels really busy in the second half. Yeah, I
see that. I still I don't mind that they're there though,
like the Huntress and the Black Canary character, Um well,
it does it might like take away real estate that

(38:16):
could be used to like further develop some of the
other characters. I'm just like, but they're so fun to
look at when they're fighting and stuff. I think. I
I don't mean this as I mean, this is just
something that I've been thinking about over the last couple
of days of just like prepping for this episode. I
feel like because now there have been I think this

(38:36):
is the third whatever in the past five years, female
driven superhero movie, and there's always like a bunch of
to do about like, will women succeed at the box office? Well,
they finally proved that they deserve to be blah blah blah,
And this was one of those movies. This is the
only of those three movies that did not so ex

(39:00):
expectations that I mean, it's just it. It's frustrating because, um,
this movie didn't do badly. It just didn't make a
billion dollars, and so I think a lot of people
regarded it as a failure and most likely a setback
for further um female driven superhero movies, which is equally frustrating. Um,

(39:20):
but I do I I just watching the setup of
this movie, I feel like there is a possibility that whatever,
ten twenty years from now, you can sort of look
at the way this movie is and it's kind of ore.
This year's or this era is like girl power formula
is very much at play in this movie, and I
like it for the most part, but I do feel

(39:42):
like there's like I wish that there was a little
more freedom to do. I mean, like, this movie came
out a few months after Joker came out, a movie
that I did not like, but a movie where clearly
the people the creatively were given free rein to do
whatever the funk they wanted. Um. And in this I
feel like you see a few things that when women

(40:03):
are appearing on screen together right now, you kind of
see a lot where they all band together at the end,
even though they don't all know each other, and like
they all band together kind of just because that's what
women are supposed to the all women, and they realize
they have this in common, right, right, right, and so

(40:24):
those like it's I really like this movie. And I
also was trying to like keep reminding myself, it's a
fucking cartoon, Jamie, Like everyone bands together at the end
of the cartoon. But because there were all these like
expectations put on on top of it, and maybe having
like less main characters would be able to contextualize this.

(40:45):
But I do kind of get like a little like
annoyed when it's like, oh, well, of course they're all
going to fight together. They're all women, and all women
are friends with all women, and that's how women work.
Enjoy the fight, and I do enjoy the fight, but
there are moments like that that sometimes kind of bug me. Yeah,
I think the strongest stuff and it has nothing to

(41:05):
do with like I'm I'm gonna do this even though
I'm a woman, And it's all like about somebody trying
to reform themselves from being a ship head, which is
a universal experience that many people can relate to whether
they are what, no matter what gender they are. Um,
and so I think that's where like, I think you

(41:26):
have a really clean especially for a cartoon, which I
feel like should be broad and should be like easily
painted in in in in very bold strokes. Like I
think that you have a very clean movie if it's
just about that, if you have a bit to be
between Harley and Renee, and yeah, I think then. But
but when it becomes a thing of like getting over
a breakup and finding yourself through girlfriends, and that's like

(41:51):
another thing on top of that, which is like I
don't in this one. I just don't feel like it's
set up as much as the other half, which is
just like maybe this guy was a bad influence on
me and I could be like a better person without him.
I don't know. Again, yes, it's all cartoon. I feel
like like it's just like you can't you can't take
it too and and that's that's the fun of the

(42:11):
fight scenes too. I think like it's just that it
doesn't feel like it's taking itself that seriously while at
the same time doing really really good fight scenes. So
that's like a virtuo al on its own. But yeah,
I don't know. I mean, yes, the motivation for all
of them to band together at the end is perhaps
flimsy at best for each character. Like you literally have

(42:35):
like Huntress being like sure, you know, like I guess
I'm not doing anything else tonight. Yeah, I mean they
kind of wink at it. Yeah, So I guess narratively,
there could be stronger motivation for all of these characters
to have a reason to band together, and if we
maybe knew a little bit more about them, we would
understand them wanting to come together to fight together better.

(42:58):
But at the same time, like I don't know, I'm
just like, oh, this is like the I think this
is the first ever all female superhero ensemble movie, because
like the other superhero ensembles have been you know, your Avengers,
your Guardians with the Galaxies, your Justice Leagues like your
X Men's and things that, and there are reasons for
banding together are always fairly flimsy as well. Often sure,

(43:22):
and you know those are movies where men largely outnumber women.
So for this to be like a all female ensemble
superhero movie, I don't know. I just I was like
very excited by that, and shorts a little flimsy why
they all band together and stuff. But I'm just like, oh,
but I don't know, I don't know. I think I
maybe I will cut this movie a little too much

(43:43):
slack because I just enjoy watching it. But no, it's fun.
I mean, like this is the thing I'm talking about
the top of the show. Like I love like the
genres called magical girl, like the anime about like girl
gangs of superheroes or whatever who all do transformation sequences
and have powers and stuff like that, which is always
like that's my comic book ship like that I kind

(44:04):
of uncritically I'm just into and no too way too
much about um yeah, and that's like never it's not
that it's that much more like well defined why these
people end up working together in that genre. It's just like, well,
I guess we all have powers and we have to
do stuff together. I guess at the end of the day,
it would work if I felt like I knew all
those characters better, Like then it's fine, like you can

(44:26):
you can introduce your central character and then build a
squat around them. And I feel like that stuff was
done with less care than the Harley stuff. And like
you're saying, Emily, it's like they all are like ship heads,
which is part of what I like about them, Like
we've all seen a scene where they're being assholes, and
so for them to just like drop that, I don't Yeah,

(44:46):
it felt like two different things were happening at once,
like that scene has less to do with their characterization
than the fact that this scene hasn't existed before on
this scale, which is fine. I mean both both can't exist,
but it just it feels like a very round about
limitation where it's just I don't know, if that room

(45:07):
were full of guys, I don't think that there would
be that pressure to do that, you know, right, yeah,
or feel like you have to stock it that heavily,
like like Joker is a pretty sparse film character wise,
like there's not that many people on. It's like there
there's confidence that Joker on his own is enough for
a movie. I think that's the thing where it just

(45:29):
felt a little bit like guilding a lily here and
it's like, no, you got a great you got a
great lead, You've got a great actress playing her, You've
got a really fun kinetic director working on it. Like
just be confident in these elements, like you got it.
It's it's ready to be a fun film that just
had a little too much in the salad. I think,
and if if the superhero genre were a little more

(45:49):
willing to have female standalone movies, this movie could be
three movies, three good movies. Yeah, totally. Yeah, that's the
thing is like, yeah, that's that's like the other like
in Meta or like Inside Baseball thing where it's just
like you get the feeling that they're doing this because
like they're not sure that they're going to get the
second Harley Quinn movie, where you could actually just have
that be the Birds of Prey movie, like tease it

(46:11):
at the end of Harley Quinn and then be like, oh,
and she's going to have this whole squad. You can't
wait to meet them. It's going to be so much
fun now that we've met this person. And I don't know, yeah,
which would be great. I mean I hope they get
another one. But you know, we'll see how well this does.
Like how many people turn to this in in quarantine times.
I feel like a lot of people will, but I
hope so it's it put me in a great mood

(46:34):
and maybe yeah, I the same. I was so stoked
to watch it and like eight Boston watched Harley Harley
Quinn and I've been eating so many like egg and
cheese on toasts, like sandwiches since watching this movie. She
have bacon on that she does I don't have any bacon.
She I like that we see them. I mean, this

(46:54):
is like another granular thing that we talked about all
the time. But like, women eat in this movie. It's scene,
it's known, it's even a plot point that women eat.
She just wants that sandwich just like so satisfying. I
love it. And they're eating like tacos and burritos at
the end, like yeah, so they look like they still

(47:15):
have to go to the gym fives a week. Yes,
it's a movie, but I always appreciate that in a movie,
like an action movie, where people are doing a lot
of like essentially cardiol they need protein. Um, we got
to take another quick break, but we'll come right back.

(47:40):
And we're back and speaking of cardio and going to
the gym, and I feel that I could feel this.
I want to talk about the fight scenes. Um, So
a lot of discussion has been had about one particular
small moment in one of the scenes when Harley Quinn
gives a hair tie to Black Canary. Is just like, Oh,

(48:03):
I see that you're struggling because your long hair is
flying all around while you're kicking ass. Would you like
a hair tie? And Black Canaries like yep, thank you,
And like this was such a real moment for so
many people because never before has this really happened in
a movie where like women are participating in the action
scenes in most cases, like their hair is just like

(48:25):
flying around, like when Wonder Woman's walking through World War
One and she's just flying around, yes perfectly, not just
flying into her mouth like it was. Yeah, So, um,
I I to appreciate that a lot of people. There's
already again a lot of discussion about this tiny moment,

(48:45):
but um, I was like, oh my gosh. And I
watched an interview with the screenwriter and she explained like
the origins of that where her sister, She and her
sister would yeah, just like watch movies together and see
that like women would never pull up their hair for
any reason. And she's like, yeah, anytime I like eat
a meal, I pull up my hair so that my
hair doesn't get in my food. Or if I have

(49:06):
to like move around, I pull up my hair. And
it's like, yeah, that's what usually happens. So I just
appreciated that. No, it's great. And the action scenes, I
mean the action scenes in this movie are They're long,
They're not like the few quick like I think that
there's like three extended action sequences, like one is hardly

(49:27):
by herself and then there's the big climactic fight at
the end, but we get to see her fight a lot,
and she feels well and she fights. It's like I
feel like a good balance of action movie fighting and
like cartoony fighting. Well, it's like very martial arts movie
and it's like people get hurt too, which is why
you want to watch it, Like it's not like these

(49:49):
Marvel movies where you're just like, nobody's going to get hurt.
These people can't even get bruised, like like bones are
broken and stuff in this and you kind of and
you know that and it feels I'm sure that a
lot of it is augmented by effects and stuff like that,
but it doesn't feel overly done over. So you do
feel like you're watching people doing stunts and coming in
contact with each other's bodies. So you just want to
watch it for that, which is like I always like

(50:11):
check my phone if I'm watching a Marvel movie at
home and it goes to the action sequence, because it's like,
what is there to watch? There's nothing to watch here. Um,
I know a lot of money and time goes to that,
and I um, you know, support all the people who
work in VFX, but yeah, those sequences are so disposable
and almost every single one of those movies and this

(50:32):
did not feel like that. It was great. I mean
just I mean, even starting with Harley Quinn breaking that
guy's leg at the beginning, you're just like, oh, it's
it's it's exciting, and it's like that like sets the
tone for the way that violence is in the movie
in a way that like, I don't know, I love
that leg because then it's like, not only does she
break is like, but then he's like, you broke my

(50:54):
fucking leg. Like it's just like they like, hang on it. Yeah, yeah,
it's it's not it's not like he then hobbles off
or dies instantly. It's just like it's just a very
it's a good reaction. And she breaks his leg because
he calls her a dumb slut and she's like, oh really,
is that what you think? And then she breaks his

(51:15):
leg and then she's like, I have a PhD, bitch,
Like yeah, I love how often she reminds everybody that
she has a PhD. It's so great. Which is a
good time for me to mention something that I don't
like to bring up. But I do have a master's
degree in screen rinning from Boston University. Yeah, you should
breaks someone's leg over it. I will next time anybody

(51:37):
questions your credentials leg breaking time. Yeah. I found that
very satisfied. Like that, just all of the fighting, I mean,
it just was like really good movie fighting the evidence room.
I have two favorite I love the evidence. Actually, I
like him all whatever. I don't know what I'm saying this,
but I do the evidence Room fight is great, if
only for the part where they shoot up the giant

(51:59):
bag of cocaine and then she suddenly gets cocaine superpower.
This is also something that would never happen in a
Marvel movie. And it's like it's like, sure, it's like
edged Lordy type shit or whatever, but it's also just
like funny. It's just it's just it feels like something
from like an eighties action movie, which tends to be
a lot more coke fueled anyway, both on screen and off.

(52:22):
So do we know why Black Canary is a really
good fighter? That was like, this is again of me
questioning a cartoon, but I think I could identify why
every woman in the Birds of Prey averse was a
good fighter, except for Black Canary, who I truly don't
understand why she is. I guess she just she like

(52:45):
grew up in a rough neighborhood. That's like kind of right.
I'm like, that's like I guess that that's like cartoon.
I don't know, I don't know. She was the one
character that I wish it you just got more with
Black Canary in in general, because I like, I mean, Emily,
you were referencing this earlier that like I'm really I'm
glad she's there, and you feel like there's a lot
of good character stuff in there, but you don't really

(53:08):
get to find out that much about her. I don't
know why she's a good fighter. I don't know why
she like, I don't exactly know why she is just
accepting this new job lying down, other than that she's
scared of him, or why she's working for him in
the first place, right, Yeah, I don't know. I mean,
when Rosie Prez comes to her with like, hey, I

(53:31):
had an arrangement with the other driver, and she's like,
you know, you're you're working for this really awful guy.
She like defends Roman and says like, well, he took
me off the streets and protects me and stuff like that.
But I think like she is probably beholden to him
much more than she would like to be. He like
treats her like property, He treats her like his little pet.
It's like, really how he views her as very creepy.

(53:53):
I just wish I knew what it was like. I wish,
and I think that that also speaks to like my
I don't know, I'm know, it's a cartoon, you guys.
I just like some of my some of the vagueness
of Black Masks villainy. I feel like maybe that's the
cast off problem of that too, of like he's just
a mean guy. He just is nice to nobody. I mean,

(54:14):
And I think the one Black Mask moment that I
didn't I felt like I didn't need. I didn't mind
the face peeling. But what I didn't I don't think
that I was like totally necessary. Was that scene where
he makes a woman take her clothes off at the
club and like is really leering at her in this
way that I didn't feel it was really necessary. I

(54:35):
feel like it was like kind of hitting you over
the head with the fact that's like he's misogynist, and
it's like, yeah, we know, like we know, why do
we need to see this scene of him doing that?
And it reminded me of an equally uncomfortable and useless
scene in Bombshell that I didn't well. Okay, so director
Cathy Anne fought for this scene to stay in the

(54:56):
movie because there are cuts of it where they did
take that scene out, but she fought for it to
be there because and I have a quote here from her,
she says, quote, I think it's a huge turning point
for Roman, it's a huge turning point for Canary. In
the way that we shot it was hopefully not about
the sexual violence upon the woman. It was more about

(55:17):
Roman what he's capable of, and Canary seeing him for
who he really is for the first time now she
can fully cut herself off from him. And I thought
it was a really important scene, so we fought for it.
End quote. And in that scene you do see Canary
realizing just how awful he is, and you can like
see the gears working in her mind of like, oh

(55:41):
my god, I have to get out of this situation.
I need to distance myself from this scary, scary man.
But I see what you mean. It's her, it's her movie.
I mean I think that the scene is I think
that the scene is just technically well done. Is as
far as like making you feel uncomfortable, which I think

(56:01):
you should. And I think she's right, like it's not
about the sexualization of the woman. It's about like what
it feels like to be in the presence of this
like terrible dude. Yes, it's been very underlined at that point.
I do think the scene makes more sense in a
movie where you have more time to track Black Canary
and her relationship to Roman and get that there's something

(56:22):
that needs to be accomplished there where she is on
the fence about like, well he's a bad guy, but
he pays me or whatever, like you know that she's
sort of panking excuses for him, and this is the
moment where she realizes she can't make excuses for him,
which it sounds like that's what Cathy Anne was trying
to do with it. I think that there's just not
enough runway for that at this point. But I do

(56:43):
think like you could keep the scene exactly the same
if you built up to it more, and I think
it would be really effective. The way the way it
appears in the movie didn't feel earned to me, and
I just I don't know. I'm also just I mean
we've talked about this in past episode too. I'm just
generally like I think sensitive and like annoyed by like

(57:04):
do we really need a scene where another woman is
like humiliated in order to better characterize uh male villain.
I just like, I don't think it's always I don't
know that it's small gripe, but I did that that
didn't work for me in this one. Sure I wanted
to go back to, like the fighting scenes a little

(57:27):
bit more, to sing some more praises more or less
um much like Canary sings anyway. Okay, for reasons we
don't know, can break glass with her voice but then
passes out. Yeah, I feel like that needed to also
be set up better. Yeah, I don't know anyway that

(57:48):
she has to have the fighting skills, because then otherwise
she would have one move per fight, like oh and
I'm done um um anyway. So, but things I did
like was that we see women using real weapons and
not kitchen appliances. We talk all the time about how

(58:08):
women are allowed to fight in movies, like they're usually
using frying pans and stuff. But we see crossbows, we
see guns, we see a mallet um baseball bat, things
like that. We've also talked in various episodes about like
the tendency from movies to not allow men and women
to fight each other. It's usually like the one woman

(58:32):
in the good guy gang is made to fight the
one woman in the bad guy gang, and they almost
like launched her out of the bad guy gang to
be like, Okay, we know you've only seen this character
twice before, but here's why we so that she can
fight though one of the lady exactly. Um, And like,
I don't know, maybe this is the idea of like

(58:53):
we don't want to show a man being violent toward
a woman, or probably more likely it's the idea that
we don't see women as being equal, like an equal
fighting opponent to a quote stronger man, so she can
fight the woman who is on her level. Like I
think that's what the filmmakers who have made like fight
scenes like this, that's probably what they're thinking. Which I

(59:16):
am way more insulted by the thing where you can't
show or like you don't want to see a man
in a fight with the woman, Like not so much
about her ability to win the fight, but just the
idea that like we're gonna deny that there is ever
violence done against women by men, like it just doesn't happen,

(59:38):
so you can't see it. And I think that so
much of this movie is about like, no, these men
are violent towards women all the time. That's why this
world sucks that she lives in Like it's very frank
in its cartoony way about that, which I appreciate. Yeah,
those moments are more I mean those moments where like
Black Mask like is physically violent towards Harley were more

(01:00:00):
are effective for me than the humiliation of a random
woman Like that is like it's personal. It's like you're like, oh,
even if I enjoyed the woo, I fuck this guy,
what if he said woo interface though, like I don't
know how if um, but yeah, I mean I just

(01:00:23):
I like that this movie there's a big departure from
that idea and that you see women fighting men pretty
much constantly and men not questioning themselves before like being
violent towards a woman, which is like, you know, just reflect.
I also enjoyed that women are never saved by a

(01:00:45):
man in this movie. If they are saved by someone,
like that scene where Black Canary saves Harley Quinn from
being assaulted by that guy after a long night of drinking,
women are saving each other or just like sending off
their own attackers by themselves, And I like that They're
like there with Harley's character and part of why, like

(01:01:08):
Harley is I think such like a fun character to
get her almost her own movie. I guess is that
like she is an asshole and like she betrays other
people in the story and then has to like dial
back and be like oh wait no, Like I really
like you would never get that with any marvel Like

(01:01:29):
they're just too morally superior to to ever make a
mistake and ever like wrong someone. And I like that
there are like conflicts between It works for me best
with Cassandra Harley and Renee, but like you know, there's
conflicts between the women for like the better part of
the story, and they make sense and you get to

(01:01:52):
see them kind of like have to resolve it. Um, yeah,
you don't get that a lot. And going back to
the thing about them never being saved by a man,
I mean they don't introduce a single good man in
this movie. There's nobody like there who would do it,

(01:02:13):
which is sort of I think that's one thing that
feels one of the things that you kind of aren't
even thinking about it first until maybe like you start
to get into the climactic fight scenes where you're just like, oh, yeah,
we've gotten this whole time, and there's no male hero,
which is kind of like just because you're watching this
sort of a movie, it feels like a little bit
of a vacuum. But then you're like, no, this is fine,

(01:02:33):
it works great and not even really like a guy
that gets it, which I feel like it's like character
in the back of and like yeah, exactly, like there's
no there's no male feminist T shirt guy character. Um,
which is great. There's an I mean there's more than
enough female characters to fill that role. Yeah. A couple

(01:02:56):
last things about things that they relate to fighting. Um,
I like that we do not see Cassandra Caine fight
in the big sequence at the end because she's like
a child and I think a very lazy trophy choice
that we've seen before is like the precocious twelve year
old who's really smart and good at everything, but she
still gets like a kill in at the end, and

(01:03:19):
like she's not totally excluded from the action too. It
just like I was happy about that is my least
favorite trope like currently I think is the young fighting
machine little girl like going back to the professional and
ship Like I hate it, um, I find it really
gross and it's like I feel like that I don't

(01:03:41):
know that like Fox with your kid brain too, and
you see stuff like that when you're a kid, you're like, oh,
I should fight adults, Like no, please, don't fight adults. Yeah, yeah,
it's this way too. Like I don't know, I I
found like Logan to be the most egregious one recently,
even though like I think that that that kid is cool,
Like the actress who plays here and everything is cool
and does a good job. But it's just like, you

(01:04:02):
can't have a like a woman in this story, So
you're going to have like a little girl who doesn't
talk but like just does egregious violence on people. It
just feels so weird and stunted and strange, Like yeah,
that it keeps happening. It's so annoying. Is it the
movie kick Ass where there's like a little girl to

(01:04:23):
who's like just like tearing people apart. It's srets. It
was like her entree into showbiz. Speaking of things, I'm exhausted, um,
but I totally agree with you about Cassandra, and I
like that that the story doesn't just sideline her entirely.
She gets this like big win at the end of

(01:04:45):
the fight sequence, and it's been nicely set up to
where like she uses her pickpocket skills to like plant
the thing on him and then pulls out the pin
and of the grenade. And then the scene where he
like blows into like a bazilion different bits as he
like falling into the water, I was like, he turns
into human confetti. Yeah, oh wow, what a motif confetti.

(01:05:08):
That chase is also so fun. That leads up to
that with her very very fund There also the the
outfits in this movie. I thought like they it would
it would have been so easy to funk up the
costuming of this movie. But it's still like it still

(01:05:29):
feels like it's taking place in the Harley Quinn world.
But it isn't like exploitative. It's like everyone's outfit is
very well thought out. It's not I don't know, it
would have been so easy to suck it up, and
they didn't. I mean her like caution tape, like fringe
coat that she wears towards the beginning. It's so hot topic.

(01:05:51):
It's literally, this whole movie is hot topic merch base.
And I mean that as a compliment, but this whole
movie is hot ta you know. This is this is
one movie that I know will not get a costuming nomination,
but should because every outfit that she wears it's just
like I wanted Black Canaries outfits too. Like everyone, it's

(01:06:12):
so good. Yeah. The last thing I want to say
about the like the last fighting related thing I want
to say is at the end of the movie, when
they're like having their like morning Margarita's, they're like all
bummed up. You see them with like scrapes and injuries,
and I feel like women, even in action movies, are
not allowed to sustain injuries and like have their perfect

(01:06:34):
flawless skin be all messed up, And I like, you
see them with like all these scrapes unless it's like
motivation for somebody to avenge them, right, unless she's like fridged,
like you get a cut on your face, it's like
who did this to you? Like I must go murder
totally right. But again, movie doesn't do anything like that. Yeah,

(01:06:57):
all that is like handled super well. Another thing that
I liked of the way this movie goes with it
um is the Harley breakup, where again I think like
a lesser movie would have really let that take over
the movie, and I let it take over her character.
But I feel like it's handled in a really like

(01:07:18):
it's not ignored, which and and you see she's getting
out of this like the most toxic relationship of all time,
literally literally. I like that she doesn't handle it well.
That felt like a nod to reality. Getting out of
a toxic relationship is fucking horrible. And I like that
she acts out, you know, like she gets a shitty haircut,

(01:07:41):
she gets a pet, she does like all the things
that you do when you're getting out of a and
and then you do this big cathary like I just
I liked that she went through that process that felt
like closer to reality than a lot of things that
happened in the movie. And then you kind of get
to just have her have her story and the folk
because it's not like I need to get over this guy,

(01:08:03):
which a lesser movie could have done. And I think that, like, honestly,
if you had most male screenwriters on this story, where
they would have lingered too long. But I like that
it's I like how it's handled, and I like how
you're kind of like okay, and we're moving on yea,
and all before the opening credits, like or the title
card at least, like the plant blows up, and then

(01:08:25):
you have the Birds of Prey title card, and you've
basically run through the whole breakup getting over I mean,
like obviously, like she has to figure out a purpose
in life and everything, like that's what the rest of
it is about. But it isn't about her pining after
him or you know, feeling weird about it or something
like She's never like looking back on the breakup or anything, right,
And I like that she's not looking back, like and

(01:08:46):
I like that the movie doesn't look back at her
cannon too hard because it's like her cannon is sexist.
It's like she couldn't like this woman with a PhD,
like you know, just met a guy and and abandoned
her entire life. Like it's I like that they just
take the essence of who this character is and then

(01:09:06):
they just like run with it in a completely different direction.
I will say, though, I mean women with PhDs can
can ruin their lives over men too, Like I mean,
I don't have a PhD. I'm not speaking from experience,
but it is not the domain of non PhD holding women. Well,

(01:09:29):
I mean that kind of brings me to another point
of of something I really like about this movie is
women being allowed to be anti heroes and like, so
it's like an R rated movie. We see pretty graphic violence.
We see women doing things that you know, polite society
would consider to be unladylike. But they are all these

(01:09:51):
like women who were rough around the edges. They partake
in very morally questionable activities, and I really enjoy seeing
that because so often women are held to this standard
of like you have to be perfect, you can't misbehave, like,
you can't be unladylike. But we see women swearing, stealing, fighting,

(01:10:13):
killing people, drinking, like the scene where Harlequin sort of
does cocaine, like all this stuff. I really and I'm
not necessarily condoning these activities in real life. Oh that's
like you are do cocaine, actually, please, everyone go out
and pickpocket and do cocaine and break people's legs, please

(01:10:35):
and thank you. You should chop left and smoke weeds
like it's actually like politically that's actually kind of You
should not pay back your student loans and you should
not pay your medical bills. I also love that one
offline where Harley is like, and that's why you don't
pay a federal there's so many goods, Like I like
that she's like low key and anarchist, like, but she

(01:10:57):
did go out to vote for Bernie, so you know
feeling I love the image of her like standing in
line at the bulls, Like I just want to see that. Yeah. Also,
like where so this is actually like they're always able
to kind of skirt around it a little bit, but
like where is Gotham? And then in the United States
of America if she voted in a primary for Bernie true?

(01:11:20):
Oh wow, yeah, they they canonically put Gotham in America
within the United States and the last five years. Yeah,
well that's another thing that I like about. And this
is the only other comparison I will I will make
of this movie to the only other two recent female
superhero movies. But I feel like strength of this movie

(01:11:42):
is um as opposed to Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman,
Harley Quinn lives in this world. She understands it. She
does not need someone to hold her hand and be
like this is this, and this is this and this
is this, which, to varying extents, happens in Wonder Woman
and Captain Marvel, where Captain Marvel is out of time,
I'm wonder Woman is out of place and they have

(01:12:03):
to be guided through this world, whereas like this is
Harley's term, like she doesn't need to be told what
anything is. Yeah, yeah, I really appreciate that. Like I think,
I don't know, there are things to like about Wonder Woman,
a couple of things, and I do think that there
is space for one of these sorts of movies where
it is just about like a radical optimist like winning Out,

(01:12:26):
which is basically what that movie is. But I also
appreciate that this movie is basically the inverse of that,
or it's just like what if a piece of ship
could be a superhero instead of like what if the
purest person in the world could be because like that's
also that's not just a woman thing, and in superhero
movies that's like all like I don't even know. I
can't think of another superhero male or female who like

(01:12:48):
gets drunk a hand cock, Oh handcock good pull? I
stand corrected, Yeah, no I have. I don't know if
I actually saw Incock, but he isn't. The whole idea
with him is like he's he's like not a good guy,
but he's also a superhero. Yeah, he's like down on
his luck or something like he's like a failed superhero,

(01:13:09):
but he still has his powers. So yeah, that's true. Okay, Well,
yeah that's Hancock eraser Emily Well, I was going to
say that the Suicide Squad, they surely some of those
you know, bad characters must get up to some sort
of morally questionable activities. Like, yeah, they're forced into a

(01:13:30):
situation where they all have to be good guys, like
fighting for a greater cause, but they're all deep down
bad guys. You mean like some kind of suicide squad.
That's all that I know about Suicide Squad that Will
Smith says, you mean like some kind of suicide squad. Indeed,
says the name of the movie in a very corny
on the nose line of dialogue in the movie. Correct.

(01:13:54):
Oh and the one other, the one I think my
last that I liked plot wise as I I as
as much as I was kind of like I really
at the team up scene right before the amazing fight sequence.
I like that they don't automatically all remain best friends
after that. They have that scene where they like give

(01:14:15):
each other their due and then you see them split
off in a way that feels more logical based on
what we know about the characters, Like it makes sense
that Cassandra is going to stay with Harley and that
they're going to be a team. And it also makes
a lot of sense that Harley doesn't want to be
a part of the Birds of Prey and that she
thinks it's kind of what she's like those fucking dorky
do gooders. I like that, Yeah, how it feels on brand. Yeah,

(01:14:39):
but there's you know, mutual respect and ship like that.
Like I thought that was like a cool They don't
have to all move into a loft together or something
exactly artisticcom Um, I have a list of just a
few kind of random things that I really enjoyed. Um
the soundtrack. I love the soundtrack, and I think mostly,

(01:15:01):
if not all female artists on the soundtrack. The pretty
diverse cast in terms of of the five main female characters,
three of them are women of color. It's a woman
of color who directed this movie, Kathy Anne. The writer

(01:15:22):
of the movie is a woman named Christina Hodson. She
is mixed. So we have, you know, the voices of
women bumblebee, yes, And I didn't know that at first,
and then I found out she had also written Bumblebee,
and I was like, oh, that's why I didn't hate Bumblebee.
Like that's why I thought it was sort of because
I went in being like, oh, this is a Transformers movie.

(01:15:43):
I'm gonna it's gonna be bad. But then I was like, oh,
wait a minute, I actually liked this, and I was like, oh,
that makes sense because like a good screenwriter's fun movies.
I really like it when Harley Quinn's psychoanalyzes people and
like uses her like psychiatrists back, just like those moments
where you know she's using her degree. Baby um Ali

(01:16:05):
Wong is in the movie. She's great love, a good comedian,
and a bit part. I know. There is a moment
in the movie where Roman is talking to Harley Quinn
and he says, if you want mercy, shut that hole
in the middle of your face, which is not I
know the crew member on the Titanics like that will

(01:16:28):
be one less on this boat if you don't shut that.
Cathy Fates is like, she said that to Cathy Bates.
I had that note as well. I've seen Titanic many
times and I did not make that pole. That's hilarious.
Anything that is even dialogue adjacent Titanic, we notice there's

(01:16:55):
another Titanic similarity with UM, like the diamond being used
as a like quas i aguffin. Yeah, it's like when
it's like, okay, so when the map is in the
diamond and the diamonds and the kids her her because
the kid put the map and the diamond and put

(01:17:16):
the diamond, then the kid just imagine Billy Zane performing that.
That's very good. Someone should let Billy Zane be in
a superhero movie again. I will say one an other
like another just general thing that I like about this movie,
which might be like controversial, but I think that especially
during this last the last fight sequence especially, I kind

(01:17:38):
of sense like, oh, this didn't have a very big
budget compared to most of these things. And it's true,
like I think it was like it was under a hundred.
I was the Wonder Woman. Budget was considered low for
a superhero movie and that was like one five I

(01:17:59):
want to say, So it is like they do low
ball these um, these first standalone female superhero movies. I
think like it in a very sexist way, like they
give them a lot less money than a similar film
featuring a male Superhero would, But I personally like the

(01:18:20):
embrace of being a lower budget film, like through like
all the action sequence stuff, like we were talking about
being a much more kind of chop sucky martial arts
Jackie Chan esque kind of film just felt very appropriate
for it. And I like that embrace of I don't
even I wouldn't even call it like an embrace of
a limitation because I think it's just like figuring out
what kind of movie can work at that level and

(01:18:41):
not trying to stretch it, like really feeling at home
at that budget level and recognizing like what is required
by the story. And I actually like that a lot.
Like next time out, I hope that she gets more
money she being Kathy Anne if she comes back to
direct it, and the character of Harley Quinn. But but
in general, I thought that's another thing that felt really

(01:19:03):
refreshing about it to me. I don't know, yeah for sure.
Does anyone have any other thoughts? I well, now now
because I didn't realize that Cassandra Kane was going to
be Bad Girl, but like, I really hope that that
happens now. I kind of like that was after I
read the canon. I'm like, I hope that this canon
becomes relevant in future, right we found out who maybe

(01:19:27):
her birth parents were, or I don't know if I mean,
if they're doing like a like a marvel esque like
phase one, phase two or whatever like and maybe ten
years down the road, we we'll see. I guess we'll
see if a female lead franchise will ever be allowed
multiple phases. Yeah, true, I don't know. We have to
have grumpy Asian back girl folk. Come on for the people.

(01:19:49):
I need it so badly, sign me up. Well. Kathy
Jan has already said in an interview that she does
want to direct a sequel. She wants to do it,
and she wants to explore Harley's relationship with Poison Ivy
in the next movie, So I guess that we would
see her and Cassandra driving on to the next adventure,

(01:20:11):
which I wonder. I kind of wonder if there is
a future for this franchise, and I hope there is, Like,
how will the Birds of Prey still be there? Will
they just get their own separate movie, which I feel
like is maybe a SMARTYR move. I don't know. Well,
I hope that we get to find If you look
on IMDb at the time of this recording for Margot
Robbie's upcoming projects as an actor, who all she produced

(01:20:36):
the movie too, afgot Yes, she produced it. She's like
as far as like stars who are also producers. I
think she's like doing a bang up job as a
producer recently. Like she uses her power very well, I think, definitely.
And this movie wouldn't have even happened if it weren't
for her going to the studio and being like, I
want a Harley Quinn movie. I want it to be

(01:20:56):
R rated, and I want it to be like a
girl group movie, like an ensemble female lead narrative. So
like it was, she was like instrumental in this movie
even existing, and then you know the writer was brought
on and then Kathy Anne was hired, so like, it's
all thanks to Margot Robbie that this movie even exists.
But here's something that might be disappointing or it might

(01:21:18):
not even be real. But at the time of this recording,
if you go onto IMDb, in her like announced projects
upcoming projects, there is an untitled Joker slash Harley Quinn project.
So if they put her back together with Joker, you know,
it's just rumored it might not be real or might
this might just be like the Harley Quinn project that

(01:21:41):
will be like a direct sequel to Birds of Prey.
Hard to say, but if they do have it be
like a weird like romantic story with Joker. I'm just like.
But then there's also um Gotham City Sirens that is
been announced where she's listed as Harley Quinn in that
as well. Oh yes, yes, yes, yes, yeah. So there's

(01:22:02):
like she's got two things where she's listed as Harley
Quinn that have just been announced. Of those two, I
would much prefer Gotham City Sirens. Let's see who was
attached to it. Mostly I am excited to see um
Margot Robbie as Barbie, and that is something that I
am genuinely thrilled about because Greti Growig is going to

(01:22:25):
direct a Barbie movie. That's fine by me, all Right,
everybody thing I didn't know, I don't well, you know,
it could be something that's very easy to funk up
as well. We'll see, um okay. Gotham City Sirens is
listed as following three of gotham cities most notorious female
criminals on one of their most dangerous missions yet. Star

(01:22:48):
Margot Robbie director James Gunn, writer oh Geneva Robertson D Warrett,
who wrote Captain Marvel. Yeah, does anyone have anything else
they want to say about Birds of Prey? I don't
think so. I was. I was very happy to watch
it in Quarantine. Great great activity. Highly recommend it. It's

(01:23:11):
a great quarantine movie. Let's figure out if the movie
passes the well, first, the bird the bird old test.
I don't know why I'm bringing this bit back. As
far as I can tell, it doesn't pass the bird test.
No birds. I'm hoping that our mentions are flooded and
there's a bird we forgot. And then if it pass
I mean, what a miracle of being? What about the

(01:23:32):
egg and the sandwich that was a future bird that
never didn't get to be a bird? Okay, you know what,
it passes. It's cut our loss as it passes because
life begins before conception in the case of an egg. Okay,

(01:23:53):
we're pro life. I think the Pro life podcast it
only passes the bird test if you're pro life, right,
but like super pro life, like kind of cosmically pro life,
where every of them is a future, like purchasing a
billboard pro life. Oh my gosh, any who does it

(01:24:14):
pass the Bechdel test? Yes, a lot of two times
over many different combinations of characters as well, which is
also kind of like for something that starts off as
a breakup movie, very like it's a cool trick to
pull that, Like really it stops being like, as we
were saying, stops being about that pretty fast. It's about

(01:24:36):
her emancipation from it. So as far as our nipple
scale goes zero to five nipples based on its representation
of women, I would, honestly, maybe this is too generous,
but I would give this like a four point five
out of five. You get to see women who aren't perfect.
I feel like that's a trope that gets used too

(01:24:57):
much when people don't really know how to write female characters,
they just write them to be these perfect, flawless specimens. Um.
But you know, the characters we see in this movie,
they are flawed, like you know, real people are, which
makes them feel more realistic. Despite this movie being very cartoony,
A few characters are identifiably queer, Harley Quinn and Renee

(01:25:21):
Montoya and Ali Wong's character, but it's not the only
thing we know about those characters, especially for Harley Quinn
and Renee. In fact, maybe we could stand to learn
more about their queer identities. But either way, to me,
it felt like their queerness was pretty normalized by the
narrative rather than you know, a big to do being

(01:25:42):
made about it. So I enjoyed that aspect of their
kind of backstory and character development. Um. Also, the fact
that you have a lot of diversity on screen and
behind the camera is great. I think that this movie
it came in with an agenda to like be a
feminist text, and I think it does a really good

(01:26:04):
job in subverting a lot of tropes and just letting
us see like cool, kick ass women be awesome and
beat the ship out of and or kill a bunch
of really horrible men. So there's for me a lot
to love. So yeah, I'll give it four point five
out of five. And um, I'll kind of disperse that

(01:26:25):
evenly between the five main female characters, Harley Quinn, Cassandra Kine,
Black Canary renamed Montoya, and the Huntress. I'm gonna go
whenever I get into like fourth So you're just like,
what are you doing? I can I guess, I guess
I'm gonna give it four point to five. Maybe four,

(01:26:50):
I don't know, maybe four. It feels too I don't know. Okay,
the point is that that's what they need for to
update our Wikipedia page. But whatever. But but I I
I think that this movie, I mean, it is by far,
my I think, my favorite female driven superhero movie of
this new generation of them that I'm seeing. And I

(01:27:12):
think that, I mean, just for listeners, they're not including Catwoman,
and I know that I think that that is feminist
text Catwoman. I mean, I really really liked this movie
a lot. Um there's so much to love about it.
My gripes are very specific and little. I do think

(01:27:34):
that there is just like there are too many characters
to the point where we don't get to know characters
that we should know. And I think that that very
likely has to do with the way that people, and
by people, I mean people who fund movies regard uh,
you know, they just get insecure about just letting a
woman lead a movie, because if she does get to

(01:27:56):
lead a movie, she needs a man to hold her
hand through the world. And if she doesn't need someone
to hold her hand, then they just kind of like
overloaded it with too many characters. This would have been
three amazing movies. But it is one movie that I
really like. Um yeah, I don't know, I I just
I think it's the best. I love I love Cassandra Kine.
I want to see more of her. I want to
see more of her cast. I want to know more

(01:28:17):
about her. Give her two broken arms next time, two casts?
How she break that arm? Uh? I like, I would
love It's just like the cast is just like a
fixture of her. It's never addressed, and she just always
has a broken arm. Um. But yeah, I I like
Margot Robbie. Is I just I like Margot Robbie. I
like this take on Harley Quinn where it acknowledges her

(01:28:40):
past but it doesn't define her biot, which is such
such a common, frustrating mistake. So and and also yeah,
the fact that like women made this movie and women
made this movie happen is the best. So give it.
I give it a four point to five, and I'll
give them all to Rosie Perez do with them. What

(01:29:01):
she meant. Her whole backstory is that, like her former
partner slash current captain at her precinct keeps stealing credit
for like cases she solved, and then she's just like,
fuck you, dude, and then she goes off and becomes
a bird of prey. Yeah, she gets to quit her
job because now Mary Elizabeth Winstead is just like bankrolling

(01:29:23):
the operations and now she probably makes a six figure salary,
and it's like, yeah, Emily, what about you? Um, I know,
I was just thinking about that. I was having the
same thought process about the four versus four and a half,
because Ford does feel low, but for the same reason
that you said, Jamie, Like, I do think it eludes

(01:29:45):
getting a five just because of of its dizziness. I
think it could do better justice to fewer characters. But yeah,
I think I think because of the origins of it,
I think it and the fact that it is so
been by women's perspectives, I'll go the four point to five.

(01:30:05):
I'm copying, Yeah, which is which is great? Like that's
I mean, I I don't think that the other one,
the other female superhero movies that I've seen would come
close to that, maybe like a three at best. I
really haven't cared for any of them that have come
out so far, so I'm kind of just Caitlin. I

(01:30:26):
almost want to revisit Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel at
some later time. I think we gave them. We scored
them pretty high. But at least for wonder Woman especially,
like that was I wouldn't score a wonder Woman what
I did. Yeah, we did that quite sometimes, and I
think we would. Um, you know, maybe it's worth a revisit.
We grew up. Yeah, we got more. We did the

(01:30:48):
podcast for a few more years and we knew more stuff.
But I mean, considering that we give most most movies
that we cover on the podcast don't get higher than
like an average of two nipples. Like most movies we
of one or zero. So um, the fact that this
gets like four or above is um pretty spectacular. Yeah,

(01:31:10):
I think. I mean when I think about those other
films too, it's like it's about them becoming a part
of like a military or somewhat military organization, and that's
the victory for them. Um. Like like women can fight
in World War one two, like a horrible war that
I have very little interest in strutting is cute little

(01:31:32):
butt through that war. I didn't see the nineteen seventeen
I just I am obsessed with it. I kind of
see George McKay's but in that war, it's just just
but um. But yeah, yeah, but in general, like I
did also appreciate that this film, you know, if it

(01:31:55):
is going to be a girl power, female centric superhero movie,
it's an out about like being a part of a
military or the cops. Like it's kind of about anarchy,
which feels fun. Yeah. Well, Emily, thank you so much
for joining us and being here with us today. What
would you like to plug? How can people follow you? Etcetera? Um,

(01:32:19):
you can listen to the podcast that I co host
with Tess Lynch and Molly Lambert. It's called Nightcall. It's
on this here podcast Network and it comes out every Monday.
You can also find me on Twitter at Emily Oshita,
where I do still regretfully make tweets every now and again.
That is it right now? Yeah, yes, listen to Nightcall. Uh,

(01:32:42):
and you can follow us on social media. You can
go to our patreon a ka Matreon. If you're running
out of main feed episodes in the Quarantine and you
need some, which many are, the Matron is a great
place for you. So patreon dot com, slash packtel cast
and it gets you Tube bonus episodes a month. You'll

(01:33:04):
have access to the entire backlog, which is over sixty episodes. Yeah,
so check that out. Check out our t do we
say public t public dot com, slash the Bechtel Cast
if you want to wear Bechtel Cast stuff in quarantine
in and yeah we uh we love you so much. Yes,

(01:33:25):
thanks for listening to save out there. Stay safe and
be well, and don't do cocaine unless you want to
keep your indoors cocaine for the last time. Alright bye,

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

The Bechdel Cast News

Follow Us On

Hosts And Creators

Caitlin Durante

Jamie Loftus

Show Links

Popular Podcasts

Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club

Dateline NBC

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Birds of Prey with Emily Yoshida