Speaker 1: On the cast. The questions asked if movies have women
Speaker 1: in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in best
Speaker 1: start changing it with the bel cast. Hello, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the Bectel cast. My name is Caitlin Durante and
Speaker 1: my name is Jamie Loftus. So what I should have
Speaker 1: said is hello, welcome to the birds of No. No,
Speaker 1: there's nothing better write the first time birdle cast. Birds
Speaker 1: are there. This is maybe okay, maybe maybe I'm getting
Speaker 1: ahead of myself in terms of brilliant discourse. But is
Speaker 1: there a single bird in this movie? Do you see
Speaker 1: a bird? Isn't black canary a bird? But do you
Speaker 1: like see a physical bird? Oh? I don't think you
Speaker 1: actually see a real bird. No pigeons, not even a
Speaker 1: p I feel like in most movies that don't have
Speaker 1: birds in the tattle, you get a pig gin. I'm
Speaker 1: already coming out with some really brilliant takes that I
Speaker 1: guess i'd have to like go back and rewatch Birdman,
Speaker 1: a thing I never want to do. So maybe there's
Speaker 1: definitely birds and Birdman. Unfortunately, I just I was for
Speaker 1: some reason I was watching this movie as if I
Speaker 1: was my dad, and I was like, I didn't see
Speaker 1: a single bird. No, pretty good could have done with
Speaker 1: more birds. They could have thrown in a bird, is
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Anyways, this is The Birds of Paste. Yes,
Speaker 1: So if you're not familiar with the show, we are
Speaker 1: a movie podcast that examines the treatment and representation of
Speaker 1: women in film, and we used the Bechtel test as
Speaker 1: a jumping off point. Jamie, what on earth is the
Speaker 1: Bechdel test? Well, I can tell you what it is.
Speaker 1: It's a media matric invented by cartoonist Alison Buckdel, sometimes
Speaker 1: called the Bechdel Wallace test, that we choirs for our
Speaker 1: purposes that there be two female identified characters in a
Speaker 1: piece of media with names who talk to each other
Speaker 1: about something other than a man. Most movies don't pass it.
Speaker 1: I think movies are starting to pass it more, but
Speaker 1: not because people regard women better, but because they don't
Speaker 1: want to get canceled. That's true. Yeah, So that's where
Speaker 1: we start from. Well, first we start with birds, and
Speaker 1: then are there any birds in the movie? Then we
Speaker 1: use the Backdl test to start the discussion. Right, But
Speaker 1: if it's failed, the bird test, then it's kind of
Speaker 1: really not worth going into the beck Del test. Affright,
Speaker 1: the movie is probably trash. I'd like to see that
Speaker 1: ven diagram of how many movies passed the bird test,
Speaker 1: which is a test that requires a movie have a
Speaker 1: bird versus I got more movies past the bird test
Speaker 1: than the back doll test. Oh, that's an interesting I'll
Speaker 1: keep my eye out for that. Someone right there. Does
Speaker 1: the bird have to be in focus? Does the bird
Speaker 1: have to be in the foreground? For the purposes of
Speaker 1: the bird test, we need to feel that the bird
Speaker 1: is being represented. Right. There's different caveats for the bird test.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you have to see the bird in focus. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it can be in the background, you know, just like
Speaker 1: how there's different caveats of the Bechdel test. Yeah, for
Speaker 1: some people, a bird in the distance is enough. For others,
Speaker 1: they're a little there. Our standards are a little we're
Speaker 1: going to meet the bird to be in focus. Well,
Speaker 1: you've you've heard her voice already, but let's properly introduce
Speaker 1: our guests. No, don't apologize at all. We love your contributions.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Of course, she is
Speaker 1: a writer of filmmaker and co host of Nightcall podcast.
Speaker 1: It's Emily Yoshida. Hi, Hello, thanks for having me. Oh
Speaker 1: it's our pleasure. Welcome to the Birdcast. Hey. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I actually I was trying to save this for after
Speaker 1: I got introduced, because I did see a pigeon that
Speaker 1: really really struck me just a few days ago when
Speaker 1: I had to get in my car and drive somewhere
Speaker 1: and I was on the one oh one and I
Speaker 1: saw a pigeon just straight chilling in a lane on
Speaker 1: the freeway and it was empty enough that you know,
Speaker 1: he could do that. And I was, you know, I
Speaker 1: was going pretty you know, it wasn't sixty miles an
Speaker 1: hour or something like that, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's a pigeon. That pigeon is going to fly away,
Speaker 1: and it kind of did it until the very last minute.
Speaker 1: I was like, am I gonna just run over a
Speaker 1: pigeon on the one? That feels very weird? Um it was.
Speaker 1: It was one of many end times things I feel
Speaker 1: like has happened to me. The animals are for sure
Speaker 1: reclaiming the land, yeah, and the freeways. The way the
Speaker 1: cats have been acting in my neighborhood, it's like it's
Speaker 1: borderline inspiring of just like, oh, I don't live here.
Speaker 1: You're right, You're right, you were here first. Maybe I
Speaker 1: don't know your streets. It's just like the end of
Speaker 1: that one Jurassic World movie that wasn't good, which one
Speaker 1: both anyway? Swish um, Emily, what's your relationship with the
Speaker 1: film Birds of Pray, the character of Harley Quinn anything.
Speaker 1: Are you familiar with any comic books or any other
Speaker 1: like series that she's in, anything like that comics? Um.
Speaker 1: The most exposure I probably ever had to Harley Quinn
Speaker 1: was um in the cartoon, which is like, isn't that
Speaker 1: where she was originated? The Batman animated series. So I
Speaker 1: didn't watch that, you know, passionately whenever that was I mean,
Speaker 1: it was on when I was a kid, and I
Speaker 1: remember seeing it a little bit. I was kind of
Speaker 1: more into x Men as far as like cartoon versions
Speaker 1: of comic books. I never I never read any comic
Speaker 1: books growing up, but I did watch the TV versions.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I was always kind of intrigued by her.
Speaker 1: I think, like, in general, like her and Poison Ivy,
Speaker 1: even though I know like very little of either character.
Speaker 1: But just because you know, I saw like Batman and
Speaker 1: Robin where Uma Thurman place her when I was like
Speaker 1: junior high. But I just thought it was kind of
Speaker 1: funny that there were two female Batman villains who were
Speaker 1: like cool but also like came from a science background, proggressive.
Speaker 1: They're both like lab coat ladies who turned bad, and
Speaker 1: I thought that was very fun. Like I I like
Speaker 1: that kind of trope in general. Like my version of
Speaker 1: that that I really embraced was like like and so
Speaker 1: instead of comic books and all that, I was really
Speaker 1: into Sailor Moon and like anime and stuff when I
Speaker 1: was a kid, And Sailor Moon in particular has one
Speaker 1: season where the villains are like an evil lab of
Speaker 1: witches and they all just like wear lab coats and
Speaker 1: get into trouble, and that was like a plus in
Speaker 1: my book. I love I love a bad lady in
Speaker 1: a lab coat. So yeah, hell yeah. But yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: not like a I'm not like super up on this
Speaker 1: universe or anything. But when I heard that they were
Speaker 1: doing Harley Quinn movie, I was like, Okay, that will
Speaker 1: be for me, like more so than Wonder Woman or
Speaker 1: any or like Black Widow or any of these things
Speaker 1: were supposed to be anticipating as women the Harley Quinn movie.
Speaker 1: I was like, that'll be fun. Like I I, it
Speaker 1: doesn't need to be that great to me, but I
Speaker 1: feel like more on Board was something about her than
Speaker 1: a lot of these other these other films. So nice.
Speaker 1: That's sort of where I came into this. Jamie, what
Speaker 1: about you? What's your relationship? Um? I think it's kind
Speaker 1: of similar to Emily's. I mean, if if you listen
Speaker 1: to the Battle cast, you know, I'm not a huge
Speaker 1: superhero movies person. They're just I like it. Every time
Speaker 1: I'm like sat down in front of them, usually I'm like,
Speaker 1: this is fun. But I just I don't really seek
Speaker 1: them out. Um, but I was excited to see I
Speaker 1: don't know, I just thought that, like, it looks like
Speaker 1: a fun movie. I really liked the cast. I really like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say his name wrong. I get you and
Speaker 1: you and you and you and you and you, and
Speaker 1: I said it wrong for the entire Mulin Rouge episode,
Speaker 1: and I was and so I and I still get
Speaker 1: Oh that's so funny. Added for it. It was two
Speaker 1: years ago. Okay, I really I'm a big fan of
Speaker 1: his I really like Mary Elizabeth Winstead I like the
Speaker 1: whole cast is just it's a really fun cast. Rosie
Speaker 1: Perette like, it was just I was just excited to
Speaker 1: see it. Um. I hadn't seen and have not seen
Speaker 1: Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad. I did not
Speaker 1: subject myself to that. It's just like, now is not
Speaker 1: the time for me to see Suicide Squad. It's just
Speaker 1: not going to be. Um, I'm assuming that this movie
Speaker 1: is quite different. But I saw it in the theaters
Speaker 1: and I like, it's a fun movie. It's a fun movie.
Speaker 1: Rewatching it was interesting because I was watching it completely
Speaker 1: uncritically the first time. I was just like, I'm just
Speaker 1: letting fun things happen. But yeah, I liked it. What
Speaker 1: about you, Caitlin. I saw it in the theater as well.
Speaker 1: I really really enjoyed it. This will be like a
Speaker 1: movie that I think go like continue to revisit. And
Speaker 1: I did watch Suicide Squad to like prepare for this
Speaker 1: episode because I was like, I do want to be
Speaker 1: able to like kind of compare and contrast and like
Speaker 1: like have that context. Um. So I did make this
Speaker 1: great sacrifice for the show. Thank you so much. I
Speaker 1: appreciate it. And I do I have like a bit
Speaker 1: to say when we get to the discussion about how
Speaker 1: either movie treats Harley Quinn, because it is, believe it
Speaker 1: or not, pretty vastly different. So um, yeah, I'm excited
Speaker 1: to talk about that. But yeah, I mean, I freaking
Speaker 1: love this movie. I give it a ten out of
Speaker 1: ten on the Caitlin Rompo meter. But um, I too
Speaker 1: don't have Like I I haven't really read any comic books.
Speaker 1: I did not watch the Batman animated series, so um,
Speaker 1: I didn't get like that introduction to the Harley Quinn
Speaker 1: character then. But it's kind of interesting where I think
Speaker 1: that my main familiarity with Harley Quinn. I knew who
Speaker 1: she was, and I knew it her basic story was
Speaker 1: just I think through like cultural osmosis. But I think
Speaker 1: where I saw her most were on like guys wearing
Speaker 1: naughty peer T shirts of like Harley Quinn like posed
Speaker 1: all sexy on a T shirt Like I saw her
Speaker 1: a lot in middle school on horny boy's shirts. So
Speaker 1: I think she's had a real come up. Indeed, well,
Speaker 1: she always like she just as easily can just turn
Speaker 1: into a really bad trope of like craziest girlfriend like
Speaker 1: that crazy bitch that you've met before, like that, which
Speaker 1: is just like and I feel like that's what that's
Speaker 1: what I imagine. The Suicide Squad film uses her as
Speaker 1: and just sort of vocals her, but it's like, but
Speaker 1: she's crazy. So I feel like people said similar things
Speaker 1: about the Justice League movie and Wonder Woman, where it's
Speaker 1: just like she is treated in a very markedly different way,
Speaker 1: and it's not a way can immediately verbalize. It's kind
Speaker 1: of just all cinematic, less than what's necessarily on the page,
Speaker 1: Just like how the camera looks at her, you know,
Speaker 1: how we're meant to empathize with her or not. That
Speaker 1: feels very active in this movie, as I think it
Speaker 1: did in Wonder Woman too. I just think this is
Speaker 1: a more fun character. So yeah, for sure, Well should
Speaker 1: we get into the recap and go from there? Do it? So?
Speaker 1: We open on some backstory for Harley Quinn played by
Speaker 1: Margot Robbie. Of course, she had a rough childhood but
Speaker 1: made her way through college. She got a PhD. She
Speaker 1: became a psychiatrist, and that is how she met Joker,
Speaker 1: who she fell in love with, kind of lost her
Speaker 1: sense of herself and then eventually she and a Joker
Speaker 1: break up, which is sort of the catalyst that gets
Speaker 1: this movie going. And the way that they are able
Speaker 1: to avoid showing you Jared Letto in this movie is
Speaker 1: an art all its own, Like there are I was,
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't because I didn't see Suicide Squad,
Speaker 1: but I just knew I didn't want to look at
Speaker 1: Jared Letto Joker and that's not how I wanted to
Speaker 1: use my time watching this. And they don't make you
Speaker 1: look at Jared Letto Joker. It made me happy. That's
Speaker 1: very nice to them, and it's also it's also just fun,
Speaker 1: even if it was a way to get around showing
Speaker 1: Jared Lettter Joker. I love the animation at the beginning
Speaker 1: of it because it feels it feels like it really
Speaker 1: sets the tone, like it's it's very much like you're
Speaker 1: about to watch a cartoon, Like even if the whole
Speaker 1: thing won't be technically animated, is going to feel like this.
Speaker 1: So after this breakup, Harley Quinn resets her life, she
Speaker 1: gets her own place, she gets a pet, hyena. She's
Speaker 1: supposed to name him after Batman, right, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: she named him Bruce Wayne Bruce. I felt like a
Speaker 1: genius when I was like bruise. We also see her
Speaker 1: skating around because she plays like roller Derby now and
Speaker 1: it's like, who are you a Tania? Anyway, she had
Speaker 1: to use those skills and they come back later and payoff. Baby,
Speaker 1: love to see you. Oh wait, I want to. I
Speaker 1: want to bring up one more thing about the intro,
Speaker 1: which I just noticed on this watch through before, when
Speaker 1: she's talking about kind of striking out in love before
Speaker 1: she met the Joker. It's like a slots type machine
Speaker 1: where it's like we're spinning through through people and like
Speaker 1: it lands on like two guys, then it lands on
Speaker 1: a lady queer representation in Harley Quinn. And they didn't
Speaker 1: even make an article about it where they're like, this
Speaker 1: is the first fully bisexual DC character or whatever they
Speaker 1: would say. Um. She also says that she voted for
Speaker 1: which is a real treat. It was a real treat. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: from my understanding, the Harley Quinn character is canonically bisexual.
Speaker 1: I mean, slide straight into my mentions if I'm wrong
Speaker 1: about this, because again I have not read material as well,
Speaker 1: and I was also seeing that even Renee is canonically bisexual,
Speaker 1: even though that is not referenced really that much in
Speaker 1: this movie. Well, she it's mentioned that she and Ali
Speaker 1: Wong's character are like ex girlfriends, So we get a
Speaker 1: little bit there's I don't I canonically I guess that
Speaker 1: she and we'll get into this later, but like I
Speaker 1: guess that she was like kicked out of the police
Speaker 1: force for reasons having to do with her sexuality. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because but I don't know. I kind of appreciate that
Speaker 1: they go they reference it and then also keep it
Speaker 1: a cartoon. Anyways, So then we meet Romans Sionists that's
Speaker 1: played by and sorry, Jamie, how do you say his
Speaker 1: name again? It's you? And yes it is good job
Speaker 1: you and McGregor. He's all like, hey, Harley Quinn, give
Speaker 1: joker my best because she has not told people about
Speaker 1: her breakup. So to get closure and to prove to
Speaker 1: the world that they're broken up and she's over him
Speaker 1: and all that stuff, she blows up a toxic industrial
Speaker 1: processing plant where their relationship bloomed. Then we cut to
Speaker 1: Renee Montoya, that's Rosie Perez's character. She is a detective
Speaker 1: who is examining a crime scene where four men were murdered,
Speaker 1: and then we get a flashback that shows a mysterious
Speaker 1: crossbow killer character played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead murdering these men.
Speaker 1: So Renee Montoya is examining this crime scene nearby when
Speaker 1: the plant gets blown up and she's like, whoa, that
Speaker 1: must have been Harley Quinn, Like the j necklace she
Speaker 1: left behind, this was her and joker spot. So she
Speaker 1: goes and tries to find and arrest Harley Quinn the
Speaker 1: following morning, and she is one of many people who
Speaker 1: are unhappy with Harley Quinn, so there's a lot of
Speaker 1: people chasing her and then she gets captured by Roman
Speaker 1: Zionis as people. Meanwhile, Renee Montoya is working on a
Speaker 1: case against this Roman guy and she's heard that this
Speaker 1: diamond ship mint is coming in and she thinks it's
Speaker 1: the burton Elly Diamond, which belonged to the burton Elly
Speaker 1: crime family, and Roman Czionist is trying to get his
Speaker 1: hands on it because there's a reminded me of National Treasure.
Speaker 1: They're like, there's a map inside the diamond. It's I
Speaker 1: think we just watched National Treasure too recently, but I'm like,
Speaker 1: there's always a map inside of something important. There's a
Speaker 1: map inside of everything. There's a mcguffin inside a mcguffin.
Speaker 1: So Roman is trying to get his hands on this
Speaker 1: diamond because it's going to give him access to all
Speaker 1: these funds and connections that will allow him to control
Speaker 1: all of Gotham. So then Renee gets a call from
Speaker 1: her informant, Dinah Lance a k A. Black Canary played
Speaker 1: by Journey Smollett Bell, saying that this diamond is in
Speaker 1: the possession of this pickpocket kid, Cassandra Caine. Then we
Speaker 1: flash back to earlier when Harley and Black Canary meet
Speaker 1: or I don't know if this is them meeting for
Speaker 1: the first time, but we see an interaction they have.
Speaker 1: Black Canary ends up saving Harley Quinn from some bad
Speaker 1: guys Romans Zionists sees how good Black Canary is it
Speaker 1: fighting and promotes her to being his driver. She had
Speaker 1: previously had like a singing gig in his club, which
Speaker 1: I feel like it doesn't I wish that she got
Speaker 1: to talk more about how how much that job change
Speaker 1: sucks for her. Yeah, that's a terrible unless it pays
Speaker 1: considerably better, Like she says that at first, she's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'd rather continue being a singer and then he's like, well,
Speaker 1: you're a valet now, and she's like, uh okay. It's
Speaker 1: like can carve your own career path at the Underworld Club.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's other club. I'm assuming the pay bump
Speaker 1: was sweet enough that it made it worth. Maybe it
Speaker 1: was just sort of like a pay ad for exposure
Speaker 1: type thing with the singing. Yeah, that could be it.
Speaker 1: She's just all there's industry in the club all the
Speaker 1: time at the back of the room. It's probably the
Speaker 1: idea that like, if she's his driver, she gets closer
Speaker 1: into his inner circle and like is more protected or
Speaker 1: has more connections. I don't know, that's what I imagine,
Speaker 1: Like at least he thinks he's offering her, but she's like,
Speaker 1: I actually don't want to really be closer to you
Speaker 1: because you're scary anyway. Yeah, he skipped the part where
Speaker 1: he peels some people's faces. I did skip that part.
Speaker 1: That does happen. Um, he peels some people's faces off
Speaker 1: because they didn't want to go into business with him,
Speaker 1: and he's like, oh really, then your face is gone.
Speaker 1: It's another like it's there's a few scenes in this
Speaker 1: movie where it's like perfect live action cartoon and the
Speaker 1: face peeling scene is one of them, like they could
Speaker 1: have so easily gone like dark broody other Batman worlds
Speaker 1: that exist on it, and it's just it's so fun. See.
Speaker 1: I think the face peeling thing is one of there
Speaker 1: are two scenes in this movie that like are suddenly
Speaker 1: a little too real, and one of them I think
Speaker 1: works and I'm sure you guys know what when I'm
Speaker 1: talking about. And the other one is this one where
Speaker 1: I'm just I think it's so early in the film
Speaker 1: where I'm just like, one, who are these people too?
Speaker 1: Like we're going straight into a face Like I have
Speaker 1: no context for this scene, so which just like grillly
Speaker 1: grizzly and you see like the limp piece of face
Speaker 1: being towed it off and um, but it's not even
Speaker 1: done in a really over the top way because it's
Speaker 1: really like face peeling at the end of the day.
Speaker 1: Isn't like you know, Harley Quinn doing or jumped down
Speaker 1: on the guy's leg and breaking it like that's like
Speaker 1: looty tunes cartoon violence. Like the face peeling is just
Speaker 1: like I don't know why I like it. I like
Speaker 1: at the end he goes whoa at the end of
Speaker 1: the you're like, oh, I guess it's okay. There's a
Speaker 1: few separate moments in the movie where he could just goes, WHOA,
Speaker 1: You're just like I guess, I guess. That's his catchphrase
Speaker 1: in the movie. He says will a lot because once
Speaker 1: he goes Harley Quinn, whoa, I'm like, that's how I
Speaker 1: feel right now. Yeah, the same. So after Black Canary
Speaker 1: gets promoted to being Roman Sionists driver, a few days later,
Speaker 1: he sends her on an errand to pick up the
Speaker 1: Burton Elly diamond Um. The trouble is though, that it
Speaker 1: gets stolen by that pickpocket, Cassandra Kane. She is played
Speaker 1: by Ella j. Basco. Then Cassandra gets picked up by
Speaker 1: the cops right away, so she swallows the diamonds so
Speaker 1: she won't have to turn it over. So we're now
Speaker 1: back to the present. Harley has been captured and brought
Speaker 1: to Roman Szionists so that he can kill her because
Speaker 1: there's all these grievances. One of them is that she
Speaker 1: voted for Bernie Um and he also just hates women.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite ones was that she spoils a
Speaker 1: lot of movies. UM. So he has all these grievances
Speaker 1: against her. He's generally villainous. Indeed, he's villainous in a
Speaker 1: very general sense in a way that I'm just like,
Speaker 1: I don't know how I feel like that that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's supposed to be like his thing is that he's
Speaker 1: a narcissist. Yeah, but like that doesn't really come across.
Speaker 1: Like he does feel rather vague to me. Like the
Speaker 1: only and I was tweeting about this when I watched it,
Speaker 1: Like the only reference point for me for like what
Speaker 1: this kind of character is supposed to be is like, um,
Speaker 1: did you guys ever watched The Hills. Yes, he's a
Speaker 1: really like Brent bolt House character I feel like, but
Speaker 1: like dialed up to eleven, just like a slimy kind
Speaker 1: of club in Presario. And properly he's a landlord. He's
Speaker 1: like a property owner, um developer. So that I also
Speaker 1: added to that, I was like, okay, okay, I get
Speaker 1: I get this sort of villain, but it's sort of
Speaker 1: hard to read it first. Maybe that's why he has
Speaker 1: to yell woo so much to puncture wait his violent acts. Also,
Speaker 1: he's a super villain named Black Mask, which is also
Speaker 1: a very nondescript super villain name so vague. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: very and you never see it except like there's a
Speaker 1: little cutaway to him putting on said black mask. Then
Speaker 1: we don't see it again until the very end of
Speaker 1: the movie. So I just like, and is that like
Speaker 1: a is that like a canonical character in the DC universe, like,
Speaker 1: because that really feels like they were scraping the bottom
Speaker 1: of the barrel as far as concepts, he is canon, Okay,
Speaker 1: I guess he's just I mean, there's so many like
Speaker 1: Batman villains that I've never heard of, Like I know
Speaker 1: the ones that have been in Batman movies, but those
Speaker 1: are the only ones I know of, So that makes sense. Okay.
Speaker 1: So anyway, um, Roman is like, I'm going to kill
Speaker 1: you Harley, but she makes a bargain with him and
Speaker 1: says that she will find this diamond and like uses
Speaker 1: it as like a bargaining chip, like, don't kill me
Speaker 1: and I'll find this diamond for you. And he's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: you have until midnight to find it. And then Harley
Speaker 1: Quinn goes to the police precinct where Cassandra Caine is
Speaker 1: being held, breaks her out, and then when Harley discovers
Speaker 1: the Cassandra swallowed the diamond. They go to a store,
Speaker 1: they buy a bunch of laxatives, and they go back
Speaker 1: to Harley Quinn's apartment to wait it out, and then hey,
Speaker 1: remember the Crossbow Killer She shows up again. Her name
Speaker 1: is actually Huntress, also Helena Burton Elly, because she's the
Speaker 1: daughter of the Burton Elly crime family who are all murdered.
Speaker 1: And she does not like that Roman is after her
Speaker 1: family's diamond. Or that's what I thought when I was
Speaker 1: watching this, And then it turns out she's just trying
Speaker 1: to find she's trying to kill his like assistance. She's
Speaker 1: got like a kill bill narrative going where she has
Speaker 1: like a list of, however many people involved in a
Speaker 1: traumatic event that she needs to kill. Yeah, it's his,
Speaker 1: It's it's Christmas Tina that she wants to kill. She
Speaker 1: she I don't think she actually cares about Roman because
Speaker 1: he was one of the goons who came and killed
Speaker 1: her family Victor Zayz, which it didn't fully occur. I
Speaker 1: think that. I mean, the movie does tell you that,
Speaker 1: but it didn't occur to me until the end where
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, I guess she didn't care about Black
Speaker 1: Mask not really, because she shows up, she kills Christmas
Speaker 1: Ina and then it's like, okay, I'm done. And then
Speaker 1: Rosie Perez is like, um, who do you think funded
Speaker 1: this whole operation? It was because Roman, it is trying
Speaker 1: to do this thing like it all like plot, plot,
Speaker 1: plot plot. There there are a few times in the
Speaker 1: third act where they have to like stand in her
Speaker 1: room and be like, so, this is what's going on,
Speaker 1: and this is our relationship to the plot right now.
Speaker 1: Also we're all friends. Now, okay, let's start the scene.
Speaker 1: This is why I should care about what's going on,
Speaker 1: and this is why you should care about what's going on.
Speaker 1: Like it's just you know, reiterating the stakes for everybody.
Speaker 1: This is where I feel a Rosie Perez really a
Speaker 1: shines because she can make them very expository dialogue sound
Speaker 1: like not that like very urgent and cool. I love. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's great. So Huntress shows up. She's looking for the
Speaker 1: bad guys basically, and then Harley Quinn's friend Doc sells
Speaker 1: out her whereabouts and she's very disheartened and she's like, well,
Speaker 1: if this is the way the world is, I guess
Speaker 1: I gotta tell Roman to come and collect Cassandra. She
Speaker 1: makes this arrangement to meet at amusement Mile and everyone
Speaker 1: goes there. It's like this rundown theme park. Renee Montoya,
Speaker 1: Black Canary, and Huntress all show up because they've all
Speaker 1: got business with either Harley Quinn, Roman or one of
Speaker 1: his associates. But they all decide to band together and
Speaker 1: take down Roman and his goons. And there's the big
Speaker 1: fight and it seems like they won, but then Cassandra
Speaker 1: gets kidnapped, so Harley Quinn goes after her. There's a
Speaker 1: big chain. Then Cassandra plants a grenade on Roman and
Speaker 1: then Harley Quinn flings him over the railing and he
Speaker 1: blows into bits and it's a great moment of Catharsis.
Speaker 1: Then uh and then Huntress gets the diamond back and
Speaker 1: gets her family fortune back. Um. Then Renee, Black Canary,
Speaker 1: and Huntress all decide to band together as the Birds
Speaker 1: of Prey to fight crime throughout Gotham. And then Harley
Speaker 1: Quinn goes off with Cassandra. She's made Cassandra her like apprentice,
Speaker 1: and then she drives off into the sunset or whatever
Speaker 1: time of day. It is. The end, the end, So
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break and then we'll come right
Speaker 1: back to discuss. So where where do we want to
Speaker 1: start with with this movie? I've got I've got some pros,
Speaker 1: I've got some causa we want to start? Well, maybe
Speaker 1: would it make most sense to start by kind of
Speaker 1: how the Harley Quinn character was depicted previously in Suicide
Speaker 1: Squad and note those differences. Yeah, and then I've got
Speaker 1: some notes on comic book cannon for the other nine
Speaker 1: Birds of Prey. So if do you want to kick
Speaker 1: it off with? Yeah, So the Harley Quinn character evolved
Speaker 1: and is treated differently as a character between Suicide Squad,
Speaker 1: which came on was written and directed by men, versus
Speaker 1: Birds of Prey, which was written and directed by women.
Speaker 1: Imagine that. So in Suicide Squad, I would say that
Speaker 1: the Harley Quinn character is largely characterized by her relationship
Speaker 1: with a man, the Joker, who she is obsessed with.
Speaker 1: She wears a jacket that says property of the Joker.
Speaker 1: You know, things like that. Um. She is surrounded by
Speaker 1: mostly men. The story is populated by mostly male characters.
Speaker 1: We don't really know that much about her, and what
Speaker 1: we do learn a lot of what we learn is
Speaker 1: what other characters say about her, and that's mostly that
Speaker 1: she is quote crazy and her character is hyper sexualized.
Speaker 1: In terms of cinematography, wardrobe choices fight choreography, like we
Speaker 1: see the you know, she wraps her legs around a
Speaker 1: man's face and pussy slams him into the ground. Move happens.
Speaker 1: It's like female in an action movie three kicks in
Speaker 1: a pussy slam and then get her off screen. Yep.
Speaker 1: So all of that versus some just sort of basic
Speaker 1: things and then we'll go into far more detail about everything.
Speaker 1: But in Birds of Prey, as the title of the
Speaker 1: movie suggests, which is the fantabulous emancipation of one Harley Quinn,
Speaker 1: the story is about her being free of a toxic
Speaker 1: relationship with Joker, and her kind of like you know,
Speaker 1: emotional goal of the movie is wanting a fresh start.
Speaker 1: She wants to be her own woman. She's no longer
Speaker 1: defined by her relationship to a man. She is surrounded
Speaker 1: by mostly women, and she is no longer the object
Speaker 1: of the male gaze. I would say, like the closest
Speaker 1: thing we get to any type of gaze is Harley
Speaker 1: Quinn getting borderline horny as she watches her bacon egg
Speaker 1: and cheese sandwich being made, which is also one of
Speaker 1: my favorite jokes in the entire movie. And then similarly,
Speaker 1: her fight choreography is not sexualized, like now she's punching people,
Speaker 1: bashing them with baseball bats, throwing them on the ground,
Speaker 1: things like that. I liked her use of a mallet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I like a good mallet related engine a mallet swinging.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just fun. It's a great principal weapon
Speaker 1: to have. I think that's a lot of value, especially
Speaker 1: if you're Margot Robbie and you have the biggest smile
Speaker 1: in the entire world that you can just like spread
Speaker 1: across your face as you swing a mallet around. It's
Speaker 1: just fun, Like it looks great. So those are the
Speaker 1: main kind of just initial differences. So I mean that
Speaker 1: just goes to show like when a story is being
Speaker 1: handled by men who really only care about a woman
Speaker 1: being present in the story to like be hot, and
Speaker 1: that's basically it. The characters treated very differently versus when
Speaker 1: you have the story in the hands of like women
Speaker 1: with an agenda, like the director, the writer. I watched
Speaker 1: a few interviews with each of them saying and like,
Speaker 1: I mean, producer Margot Robbie. They were all like, we
Speaker 1: want this to be like a feminist like smashing of
Speaker 1: the patriarchy. So just goes to show who's behind the
Speaker 1: camera can largely influence, you know, the movie that gets made. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the things that really, aside from just the
Speaker 1: general framing of the character, which again haven't seen suicide
Speaker 1: squads that don't have an exact I have an idea
Speaker 1: just from if you'd see trailers of it and stuff
Speaker 1: from clips um, but I think like, aside from just
Speaker 1: how it views her, I think also the way that
Speaker 1: it can build a sense of danger out of these
Speaker 1: various scenarios she finds herself in, particularly with men, Like
Speaker 1: there's a lot of subtlety and like and stuff that
Speaker 1: I felt like I genuinely hadn't seen before and this
Speaker 1: kind of film, Like there's a part where she gets
Speaker 1: hit with like a tranquilizer dart or just like a
Speaker 1: paralyzing dart or something, so she's like conscious, but she
Speaker 1: can't move her body, and then you know the second
Speaker 1: that somebody starts to kind of creep on her in
Speaker 1: that scenario, it's like, really like your hackles go up
Speaker 1: as a viewer and you're just like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: the worst, this would suck um. And you know, it's
Speaker 1: still kind of done in this sort of whack of
Speaker 1: dude sort of tone, but it's able to kind of
Speaker 1: flip the perspective a little bit with you know, stuff
Speaker 1: like tranquilizer darts and stuff where where it's just you
Speaker 1: kind of have a new sort of palette to play
Speaker 1: with when you're looking at it from that perspective as
Speaker 1: opposed to what we usually see in these films. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I like, I mean there I I did a little
Speaker 1: bit of research on just like, what is the basic
Speaker 1: canon of a lot of the women we see in
Speaker 1: this movie, just to because I had a sneaking suspicion
Speaker 1: that maybe some of it had change. And I like,
Speaker 1: I like the choices, um that they make to alter
Speaker 1: some of the backstory too, because I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: because the comic book world for so long was so
Speaker 1: male dominated, that all of their canonical stories are somehow
Speaker 1: tied to a man, and so like, I mean, Harley Quinn,
Speaker 1: we've we've already talked through. Dina Lance was originally a
Speaker 1: detective's daughter who wants to be like she's someone's daughter
Speaker 1: and that's why she's involved in the story. Um. Huntresses
Speaker 1: story is pretty much the same, where she's she's an
Speaker 1: arnist who witnesses the murder of her family. UM. Cassandra
Speaker 1: Caine has a very different backstory where she's kind of
Speaker 1: I mean in this she is like they make vague
Speaker 1: references to like she is in the foster care system
Speaker 1: and she is not being serviced by it very well,
Speaker 1: which I kind of wish we had like a little
Speaker 1: more to go off of them, like two vague yelling
Speaker 1: adults in the background. Um, And that stands to get
Speaker 1: very depressing. But it was like interesting because that is
Speaker 1: not canonically what who she is at all. Um. She's
Speaker 1: originally discovered in a martial arts tournament. She becomes someone's bodyguard,
Speaker 1: and then she becomes an assassin. UM. So she was
Speaker 1: very different, and she had two living parents. She was
Speaker 1: like the daughter of like these famous married assassins in
Speaker 1: in the books. So I don't know why she also,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm look, you know right now, she's also
Speaker 1: bad girl. At one point, she becomes bad girl because
Speaker 1: she's like actually a wayne, like she was put into
Speaker 1: the foster system. But it's like like related to Bruce Wayne.
Speaker 1: There's a few different versions of her too, which makes
Speaker 1: it more confusing. But and that was like one of
Speaker 1: the characters that they strayed really far from I think
Speaker 1: more for plot reasons than for other reasons. But I
Speaker 1: mean most of the changes were fun and like sir,
Speaker 1: I feel like gives the character more room to do stuff.
Speaker 1: I will say that she's probably my favorite of all
Speaker 1: of what I think are the birds of prey in
Speaker 1: this movie, just because I one, I think she's developed
Speaker 1: with the most clarity of all the characters. And also
Speaker 1: I just like feel I feel very represented and very
Speaker 1: seen when I see like an awkward, kind of grumpy
Speaker 1: teenage Asian girl who like with a permanent like frown.
Speaker 1: That's just like just like, oh, they made they made
Speaker 1: a superhero movie where like teenage me got to be
Speaker 1: like Harley Quinn's apprentice. That's cool. And like her eternal
Speaker 1: Pink cast too, I love so much. Like yeah, I
Speaker 1: like and and um, what's her name? Ella Ella J Basco. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's awesome, She's I can't wait to see her and
Speaker 1: more stuff. Yeah, she's super super funny, really really fun. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But yeah, those are those are the canon changes. That
Speaker 1: are made to the main characters. Yeah, it's I mean
Speaker 1: the relationships that they end up having with each other
Speaker 1: on screen in this movie, Like I really enjoyed, like
Speaker 1: how all those unfolded they pretty much all have like
Speaker 1: an arc where they all start out kind of antagonistic
Speaker 1: because at first, like Harley and Renee have like the
Speaker 1: like criminal versus cop dynamics, so they're like kind of
Speaker 1: natural enemies. We've got Black Canary being super annoyed by
Speaker 1: Harley all the time. You've got like Harley kind of
Speaker 1: joining forces with Cassandra and like saving her at first,
Speaker 1: but then like being willing to sell her out to
Speaker 1: save her own skin, but then like feeling really bad
Speaker 1: and guilty about that and apologizing and eventually like getting forgiveness,
Speaker 1: and then like when they converge at the end and
Speaker 1: they're like, well, all these people are probably gonna kill us,
Speaker 1: and we have a better chance if we band together
Speaker 1: and like fight as a group, and everyone's just like, well,
Speaker 1: I guess okay, fine, then yeah. I I mean I
Speaker 1: think a lot of that stuff is great. I think
Speaker 1: probably if I had to boil down my one gripe
Speaker 1: with this film, which is like not to take away
Speaker 1: from any of these individual performances. But I do think
Speaker 1: that it feels like a little bit of a disservice
Speaker 1: to trying to do a standalone Harley Quinn movie, to try,
Speaker 1: like instantly try to make it a girl gang movie,
Speaker 1: just because I don't think they have enough time. And
Speaker 1: I think that some characters, I think get really kind
Speaker 1: of thrown by the wayside. Like I think that you
Speaker 1: could lift out the entire Huntress story from this film
Speaker 1: and not really lose anything. She doesn't know anybody in
Speaker 1: the story until the end, and she's pursuing a different
Speaker 1: villain than everyone else. Yeah, And I think like kind
Speaker 1: of similarly you could. It would be less clean, but
Speaker 1: you could also take out a Black Canary part entirely
Speaker 1: and then just have more Like I think you have
Speaker 1: a really great movie between Cassandra Harley and Renee, Like
Speaker 1: you've got the cop who's looking for the villain, trying
Speaker 1: to reform herself villain, and the girl she has to
Speaker 1: take under her wing. Like that's like a that's like
Speaker 1: a fun little movie. Um, and you have much more
Speaker 1: time with all those characters. You would get more time
Speaker 1: for Renee and like really build out you know her
Speaker 1: stuff that's just gestured out about her conditions in in
Speaker 1: at her workplace and like her history and that she's
Speaker 1: sort of like, you know, it's very rare we get
Speaker 1: to see a kind of grizzled, not so virtuous cop
Speaker 1: that's a woman, and I wish we kind of have
Speaker 1: more time with that because and also I just love
Speaker 1: Rosie Perez, So I just wanted more of that as
Speaker 1: a kind of foil to Harley because they kind of
Speaker 1: have a lot of crossover, Like there's a lot that
Speaker 1: they have in common. Yeah, that's like my biggest like blanket,
Speaker 1: like what I would change about this film because I
Speaker 1: just I was so happy to get a chance to
Speaker 1: spend time with this character and then it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: but we have to like build a squad. Then it
Speaker 1: just feels really busy in the second half. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: see that. I still I don't mind that they're there though,
Speaker 1: like the Huntress and the Black Canary character, Um well,
Speaker 1: it does it might like take away real estate that
Speaker 1: could be used to like further develop some of the
Speaker 1: other characters. I'm just like, but they're so fun to
Speaker 1: look at when they're fighting and stuff. I think. I
Speaker 1: I don't mean this as I mean, this is just
Speaker 1: something that I've been thinking about over the last couple
Speaker 1: of days of just like prepping for this episode. I
Speaker 1: feel like because now there have been I think this
Speaker 1: is the third whatever in the past five years, female
Speaker 1: driven superhero movie, and there's always like a bunch of
Speaker 1: to do about like, will women succeed at the box office? Well,
Speaker 1: they finally proved that they deserve to be blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: And this was one of those movies. This is the
Speaker 1: only of those three movies that did not so ex
Speaker 1: expectations that I mean, it's just it. It's frustrating because, um,
Speaker 1: this movie didn't do badly. It just didn't make a
Speaker 1: billion dollars, and so I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: regarded it as a failure and most likely a setback
Speaker 1: for further um female driven superhero movies, which is equally frustrating. Um,
Speaker 1: but I do I I just watching the setup of
Speaker 1: this movie, I feel like there is a possibility that whatever,
Speaker 1: ten twenty years from now, you can sort of look
Speaker 1: at the way this movie is and it's kind of ore.
Speaker 1: This year's or this era is like girl power formula
Speaker 1: is very much at play in this movie, and I
Speaker 1: like it for the most part, but I do feel
Speaker 1: like there's like I wish that there was a little
Speaker 1: more freedom to do. I mean, like, this movie came
Speaker 1: out a few months after Joker came out, a movie
Speaker 1: that I did not like, but a movie where clearly
Speaker 1: the people the creatively were given free rein to do
Speaker 1: whatever the funk they wanted. Um. And in this I
Speaker 1: feel like you see a few things that when women
Speaker 1: are appearing on screen together right now, you kind of
Speaker 1: see a lot where they all band together at the end,
Speaker 1: even though they don't all know each other, and like
Speaker 1: they all band together kind of just because that's what
Speaker 1: women are supposed to the all women, and they realize
Speaker 1: they have this in common, right, right, right, and so
Speaker 1: those like it's I really like this movie. And I
Speaker 1: also was trying to like keep reminding myself, it's a
Speaker 1: fucking cartoon, Jamie, Like everyone bands together at the end
Speaker 1: of the cartoon. But because there were all these like
Speaker 1: expectations put on on top of it, and maybe having
Speaker 1: like less main characters would be able to contextualize this.
Speaker 1: But I do kind of get like a little like
Speaker 1: annoyed when it's like, oh, well, of course they're all
Speaker 1: going to fight together. They're all women, and all women
Speaker 1: are friends with all women, and that's how women work.
Speaker 1: Enjoy the fight, and I do enjoy the fight, but
Speaker 1: there are moments like that that sometimes kind of bug me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the strongest stuff and it has nothing to
Speaker 1: do with like I'm I'm gonna do this even though
Speaker 1: I'm a woman, And it's all like about somebody trying
Speaker 1: to reform themselves from being a ship head, which is
Speaker 1: a universal experience that many people can relate to whether
Speaker 1: they are what, no matter what gender they are. Um,
Speaker 1: and so I think that's where like, I think you
Speaker 1: have a really clean especially for a cartoon, which I
Speaker 1: feel like should be broad and should be like easily
Speaker 1: painted in in in in very bold strokes. Like I
Speaker 1: think that you have a very clean movie if it's
Speaker 1: just about that, if you have a bit to be
Speaker 1: between Harley and Renee, and yeah, I think then. But
Speaker 1: but when it becomes a thing of like getting over
Speaker 1: a breakup and finding yourself through girlfriends, and that's like
Speaker 1: another thing on top of that, which is like I
Speaker 1: don't in this one. I just don't feel like it's
Speaker 1: set up as much as the other half, which is
Speaker 1: just like maybe this guy was a bad influence on
Speaker 1: me and I could be like a better person without him.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Again, yes, it's all cartoon. I feel
Speaker 1: like like it's just like you can't you can't take
Speaker 1: it too and and that's that's the fun of the
Speaker 1: fight scenes too. I think like it's just that it
Speaker 1: doesn't feel like it's taking itself that seriously while at
Speaker 1: the same time doing really really good fight scenes. So
Speaker 1: that's like a virtuo al on its own. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, yes, the motivation for all
Speaker 1: of them to band together at the end is perhaps
Speaker 1: flimsy at best for each character. Like you literally have
Speaker 1: like Huntress being like sure, you know, like I guess
Speaker 1: I'm not doing anything else tonight. Yeah, I mean they
Speaker 1: kind of wink at it. Yeah, So I guess narratively,
Speaker 1: there could be stronger motivation for all of these characters
Speaker 1: to have a reason to band together, and if we
Speaker 1: maybe knew a little bit more about them, we would
Speaker 1: understand them wanting to come together to fight together better.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, like I don't know, I'm
Speaker 1: just like, oh, this is like the I think this
Speaker 1: is the first ever all female superhero ensemble movie, because
Speaker 1: like the other superhero ensembles have been you know, your Avengers,
Speaker 1: your Guardians with the Galaxies, your Justice Leagues like your
Speaker 1: X Men's and things that, and there are reasons for
Speaker 1: banding together are always fairly flimsy as well. Often sure,
Speaker 1: and you know those are movies where men largely outnumber women.
Speaker 1: So for this to be like a all female ensemble
Speaker 1: superhero movie, I don't know. I just I was like
Speaker 1: very excited by that, and shorts a little flimsy why
Speaker 1: they all band together and stuff. But I'm just like, oh,
Speaker 1: but I don't know, I don't know. I think I
Speaker 1: maybe I will cut this movie a little too much
Speaker 1: slack because I just enjoy watching it. But no, it's fun.
Speaker 1: I mean, like this is the thing I'm talking about
Speaker 1: the top of the show. Like I love like the
Speaker 1: genres called magical girl, like the anime about like girl
Speaker 1: gangs of superheroes or whatever who all do transformation sequences
Speaker 1: and have powers and stuff like that, which is always
Speaker 1: like that's my comic book ship like that I kind
Speaker 1: of uncritically I'm just into and no too way too
Speaker 1: much about um yeah, and that's like never it's not
Speaker 1: that it's that much more like well defined why these
Speaker 1: people end up working together in that genre. It's just like, well,
Speaker 1: I guess we all have powers and we have to
Speaker 1: do stuff together. I guess at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: it would work if I felt like I knew all
Speaker 1: those characters better, Like then it's fine, like you can
Speaker 1: you can introduce your central character and then build a
Speaker 1: squat around them. And I feel like that stuff was
Speaker 1: done with less care than the Harley stuff. And like
Speaker 1: you're saying, Emily, it's like they all are like ship heads,
Speaker 1: which is part of what I like about them, Like
Speaker 1: we've all seen a scene where they're being assholes, and
Speaker 1: so for them to just like drop that, I don't Yeah,
Speaker 1: it felt like two different things were happening at once,
Speaker 1: like that scene has less to do with their characterization
Speaker 1: than the fact that this scene hasn't existed before on
Speaker 1: this scale, which is fine. I mean both both can't exist,
Speaker 1: but it just it feels like a very round about
Speaker 1: limitation where it's just I don't know, if that room
Speaker 1: were full of guys, I don't think that there would
Speaker 1: be that pressure to do that, you know, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: or feel like you have to stock it that heavily,
Speaker 1: like like Joker is a pretty sparse film character wise,
Speaker 1: like there's not that many people on. It's like there
Speaker 1: there's confidence that Joker on his own is enough for
Speaker 1: a movie. I think that's the thing where it just
Speaker 1: felt a little bit like guilding a lily here and
Speaker 1: it's like, no, you got a great you got a
Speaker 1: great lead, You've got a great actress playing her, You've
Speaker 1: got a really fun kinetic director working on it. Like
Speaker 1: just be confident in these elements, like you got it.
Speaker 1: It's it's ready to be a fun film that just
Speaker 1: had a little too much in the salad. I think,
Speaker 1: and if if the superhero genre were a little more
Speaker 1: willing to have female standalone movies, this movie could be
Speaker 1: three movies, three good movies. Yeah, totally. Yeah, that's the
Speaker 1: thing is like, yeah, that's that's like the other like
Speaker 1: in Meta or like Inside Baseball thing where it's just
Speaker 1: like you get the feeling that they're doing this because
Speaker 1: like they're not sure that they're going to get the
Speaker 1: second Harley Quinn movie, where you could actually just have
Speaker 1: that be the Birds of Prey movie, like tease it
Speaker 1: at the end of Harley Quinn and then be like, oh,
Speaker 1: and she's going to have this whole squad. You can't
Speaker 1: wait to meet them. It's going to be so much
Speaker 1: fun now that we've met this person. And I don't know, yeah,
Speaker 1: which would be great. I mean I hope they get
Speaker 1: another one. But you know, we'll see how well this does.
Speaker 1: Like how many people turn to this in in quarantine times.
Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of people will, but I
Speaker 1: hope so it's it put me in a great mood
Speaker 1: and maybe yeah, I the same. I was so stoked
Speaker 1: to watch it and like eight Boston watched Harley Harley
Speaker 1: Quinn and I've been eating so many like egg and
Speaker 1: cheese on toasts, like sandwiches since watching this movie. She
Speaker 1: have bacon on that she does I don't have any bacon.
Speaker 1: She I like that we see them. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is like another granular thing that we talked about all
Speaker 1: the time. But like, women eat in this movie. It's scene,
Speaker 1: it's known, it's even a plot point that women eat.
Speaker 1: She just wants that sandwich just like so satisfying. I
Speaker 1: love it. And they're eating like tacos and burritos at
Speaker 1: the end, like yeah, so they look like they still
Speaker 1: have to go to the gym fives a week. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's a movie, but I always appreciate that in a movie,
Speaker 1: like an action movie, where people are doing a lot
Speaker 1: of like essentially cardiol they need protein. Um, we got
Speaker 1: to take another quick break, but we'll come right back.
Speaker 1: And we're back and speaking of cardio and going to
Speaker 1: the gym, and I feel that I could feel this.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the fight scenes. Um, So
Speaker 1: a lot of discussion has been had about one particular
Speaker 1: small moment in one of the scenes when Harley Quinn
Speaker 1: gives a hair tie to Black Canary. Is just like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I see that you're struggling because your long hair is
Speaker 1: flying all around while you're kicking ass. Would you like
Speaker 1: a hair tie? And Black Canaries like yep, thank you,
Speaker 1: And like this was such a real moment for so
Speaker 1: many people because never before has this really happened in
Speaker 1: a movie where like women are participating in the action
Speaker 1: scenes in most cases, like their hair is just like
Speaker 1: flying around, like when Wonder Woman's walking through World War
Speaker 1: One and she's just flying around, yes perfectly, not just
Speaker 1: flying into her mouth like it was. Yeah, So, um,
Speaker 1: I I to appreciate that a lot of people. There's
Speaker 1: already again a lot of discussion about this tiny moment,
Speaker 1: but um, I was like, oh my gosh. And I
Speaker 1: watched an interview with the screenwriter and she explained like
Speaker 1: the origins of that where her sister, She and her
Speaker 1: sister would yeah, just like watch movies together and see
Speaker 1: that like women would never pull up their hair for
Speaker 1: any reason. And she's like, yeah, anytime I like eat
Speaker 1: a meal, I pull up my hair so that my
Speaker 1: hair doesn't get in my food. Or if I have
Speaker 1: to like move around, I pull up my hair. And
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, that's what usually happens. So I just
Speaker 1: appreciated that. No, it's great. And the action scenes, I
Speaker 1: mean the action scenes in this movie are They're long,
Speaker 1: They're not like the few quick like I think that
Speaker 1: there's like three extended action sequences, like one is hardly
Speaker 1: by herself and then there's the big climactic fight at
Speaker 1: the end, but we get to see her fight a lot,
Speaker 1: and she feels well and she fights. It's like I
Speaker 1: feel like a good balance of action movie fighting and
Speaker 1: like cartoony fighting. Well, it's like very martial arts movie
Speaker 1: and it's like people get hurt too, which is why
Speaker 1: you want to watch it, Like it's not like these
Speaker 1: Marvel movies where you're just like, nobody's going to get hurt.
Speaker 1: These people can't even get bruised, like like bones are
Speaker 1: broken and stuff in this and you kind of and
Speaker 1: you know that and it feels I'm sure that a
Speaker 1: lot of it is augmented by effects and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't feel overly done over. So you do
Speaker 1: feel like you're watching people doing stunts and coming in
Speaker 1: contact with each other's bodies. So you just want to
Speaker 1: watch it for that, which is like I always like
Speaker 1: check my phone if I'm watching a Marvel movie at
Speaker 1: home and it goes to the action sequence, because it's like,
Speaker 1: what is there to watch? There's nothing to watch here. Um,
Speaker 1: I know a lot of money and time goes to that,
Speaker 1: and I um, you know, support all the people who
Speaker 1: work in VFX, but yeah, those sequences are so disposable
Speaker 1: and almost every single one of those movies and this
Speaker 1: did not feel like that. It was great. I mean
Speaker 1: just I mean, even starting with Harley Quinn breaking that
Speaker 1: guy's leg at the beginning, you're just like, oh, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's exciting, and it's like that like sets the
Speaker 1: tone for the way that violence is in the movie
Speaker 1: in a way that like, I don't know, I love
Speaker 1: that leg because then it's like, not only does she
Speaker 1: break is like, but then he's like, you broke my
Speaker 1: fucking leg. Like it's just like they like, hang on it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's not it's not like he then hobbles off
Speaker 1: or dies instantly. It's just like it's just a very
Speaker 1: it's a good reaction. And she breaks his leg because
Speaker 1: he calls her a dumb slut and she's like, oh really,
Speaker 1: is that what you think? And then she breaks his
Speaker 1: leg and then she's like, I have a PhD, bitch,
Speaker 1: Like yeah, I love how often she reminds everybody that
Speaker 1: she has a PhD. It's so great. Which is a
Speaker 1: good time for me to mention something that I don't
Speaker 1: like to bring up. But I do have a master's
Speaker 1: degree in screen rinning from Boston University. Yeah, you should
Speaker 1: breaks someone's leg over it. I will next time anybody
Speaker 1: questions your credentials leg breaking time. Yeah. I found that
Speaker 1: very satisfied. Like that, just all of the fighting, I mean,
Speaker 1: it just was like really good movie fighting the evidence room.
Speaker 1: I have two favorite I love the evidence. Actually, I
Speaker 1: like him all whatever. I don't know what I'm saying this,
Speaker 1: but I do the evidence Room fight is great, if
Speaker 1: only for the part where they shoot up the giant
Speaker 1: bag of cocaine and then she suddenly gets cocaine superpower.
Speaker 1: This is also something that would never happen in a
Speaker 1: Marvel movie. And it's like it's like, sure, it's like
Speaker 1: edged Lordy type shit or whatever, but it's also just
Speaker 1: like funny. It's just it's just it feels like something
Speaker 1: from like an eighties action movie, which tends to be
Speaker 1: a lot more coke fueled anyway, both on screen and off.
Speaker 1: So do we know why Black Canary is a really
Speaker 1: good fighter? That was like, this is again of me
Speaker 1: questioning a cartoon, but I think I could identify why
Speaker 1: every woman in the Birds of Prey averse was a
Speaker 1: good fighter, except for Black Canary, who I truly don't
Speaker 1: understand why she is. I guess she just she like
Speaker 1: grew up in a rough neighborhood. That's like kind of right.
Speaker 1: I'm like, that's like I guess that that's like cartoon.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know. She was the one
Speaker 1: character that I wish it you just got more with
Speaker 1: Black Canary in in general, because I like, I mean, Emily,
Speaker 1: you were referencing this earlier that like I'm really I'm
Speaker 1: glad she's there, and you feel like there's a lot
Speaker 1: of good character stuff in there, but you don't really
Speaker 1: get to find out that much about her. I don't
Speaker 1: know why she's a good fighter. I don't know why
Speaker 1: she like, I don't exactly know why she is just
Speaker 1: accepting this new job lying down, other than that she's
Speaker 1: scared of him, or why she's working for him in
Speaker 1: the first place, right, Yeah, I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: when Rosie Prez comes to her with like, hey, I
Speaker 1: had an arrangement with the other driver, and she's like,
Speaker 1: you know, you're you're working for this really awful guy.
Speaker 1: She like defends Roman and says like, well, he took
Speaker 1: me off the streets and protects me and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But I think like she is probably beholden to him
Speaker 1: much more than she would like to be. He like
Speaker 1: treats her like property, He treats her like his little pet.
Speaker 1: It's like, really how he views her as very creepy.
Speaker 1: I just wish I knew what it was like. I wish,
Speaker 1: and I think that that also speaks to like my
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm know, it's a cartoon, you guys.
Speaker 1: I just like some of my some of the vagueness
Speaker 1: of Black Masks villainy. I feel like maybe that's the
Speaker 1: cast off problem of that too, of like he's just
Speaker 1: a mean guy. He just is nice to nobody. I mean,
Speaker 1: And I think the one Black Mask moment that I
Speaker 1: didn't I felt like I didn't need. I didn't mind
Speaker 1: the face peeling. But what I didn't I don't think
Speaker 1: that I was like totally necessary. Was that scene where
Speaker 1: he makes a woman take her clothes off at the
Speaker 1: club and like is really leering at her in this
Speaker 1: way that I didn't feel it was really necessary. I
Speaker 1: feel like it was like kind of hitting you over
Speaker 1: the head with the fact that's like he's misogynist, and
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, we know, like we know, why do
Speaker 1: we need to see this scene of him doing that?
Speaker 1: And it reminded me of an equally uncomfortable and useless
Speaker 1: scene in Bombshell that I didn't well. Okay, so director
Speaker 1: Cathy Anne fought for this scene to stay in the
Speaker 1: movie because there are cuts of it where they did
Speaker 1: take that scene out, but she fought for it to
Speaker 1: be there because and I have a quote here from her,
Speaker 1: she says, quote, I think it's a huge turning point
Speaker 1: for Roman, it's a huge turning point for Canary. In
Speaker 1: the way that we shot it was hopefully not about
Speaker 1: the sexual violence upon the woman. It was more about
Speaker 1: Roman what he's capable of, and Canary seeing him for
Speaker 1: who he really is for the first time now she
Speaker 1: can fully cut herself off from him. And I thought
Speaker 1: it was a really important scene, so we fought for it.
Speaker 1: End quote. And in that scene you do see Canary
Speaker 1: realizing just how awful he is, and you can like
Speaker 1: see the gears working in her mind of like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I have to get out of this situation.
Speaker 1: I need to distance myself from this scary, scary man.
Speaker 1: But I see what you mean. It's her, it's her movie.
Speaker 1: I mean I think that the scene is I think
Speaker 1: that the scene is just technically well done. Is as
Speaker 1: far as like making you feel uncomfortable, which I think
Speaker 1: you should. And I think she's right, like it's not
Speaker 1: about the sexualization of the woman. It's about like what
Speaker 1: it feels like to be in the presence of this
Speaker 1: like terrible dude. Yes, it's been very underlined at that point.
Speaker 1: I do think the scene makes more sense in a
Speaker 1: movie where you have more time to track Black Canary
Speaker 1: and her relationship to Roman and get that there's something
Speaker 1: that needs to be accomplished there where she is on
Speaker 1: the fence about like, well he's a bad guy, but
Speaker 1: he pays me or whatever, like you know that she's
Speaker 1: sort of panking excuses for him, and this is the
Speaker 1: moment where she realizes she can't make excuses for him,
Speaker 1: which it sounds like that's what Cathy Anne was trying
Speaker 1: to do with it. I think that there's just not
Speaker 1: enough runway for that at this point. But I do
Speaker 1: think like you could keep the scene exactly the same
Speaker 1: if you built up to it more, and I think
Speaker 1: it would be really effective. The way the way it
Speaker 1: appears in the movie didn't feel earned to me, and
Speaker 1: I just I don't know. I'm also just I mean
Speaker 1: we've talked about this in past episode too. I'm just
Speaker 1: generally like I think sensitive and like annoyed by like
Speaker 1: do we really need a scene where another woman is
Speaker 1: like humiliated in order to better characterize uh male villain.
Speaker 1: I just like, I don't think it's always I don't
Speaker 1: know that it's small gripe, but I did that that
Speaker 1: didn't work for me in this one. Sure I wanted
Speaker 1: to go back to, like the fighting scenes a little
Speaker 1: bit more, to sing some more praises more or less
Speaker 1: um much like Canary sings anyway. Okay, for reasons we
Speaker 1: don't know, can break glass with her voice but then
Speaker 1: passes out. Yeah, I feel like that needed to also
Speaker 1: be set up better. Yeah, I don't know anyway that
Speaker 1: she has to have the fighting skills, because then otherwise
Speaker 1: she would have one move per fight, like oh and
Speaker 1: I'm done um um anyway. So, but things I did
Speaker 1: like was that we see women using real weapons and
Speaker 1: not kitchen appliances. We talk all the time about how
Speaker 1: women are allowed to fight in movies, like they're usually
Speaker 1: using frying pans and stuff. But we see crossbows, we
Speaker 1: see guns, we see a mallet um baseball bat, things
Speaker 1: like that. We've also talked in various episodes about like
Speaker 1: the tendency from movies to not allow men and women
Speaker 1: to fight each other. It's usually like the one woman
Speaker 1: in the good guy gang is made to fight the
Speaker 1: one woman in the bad guy gang, and they almost
Speaker 1: like launched her out of the bad guy gang to
Speaker 1: be like, Okay, we know you've only seen this character
Speaker 1: twice before, but here's why we so that she can
Speaker 1: fight though one of the lady exactly. Um, And like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe this is the idea of like
Speaker 1: we don't want to show a man being violent toward
Speaker 1: a woman, or probably more likely it's the idea that
Speaker 1: we don't see women as being equal, like an equal
Speaker 1: fighting opponent to a quote stronger man, so she can
Speaker 1: fight the woman who is on her level. Like I
Speaker 1: think that's what the filmmakers who have made like fight
Speaker 1: scenes like this, that's probably what they're thinking. Which I
Speaker 1: am way more insulted by the thing where you can't
Speaker 1: show or like you don't want to see a man
Speaker 1: in a fight with the woman, Like not so much
Speaker 1: about her ability to win the fight, but just the
Speaker 1: idea that like we're gonna deny that there is ever
Speaker 1: violence done against women by men, like it just doesn't happen,
Speaker 1: so you can't see it. And I think that so
Speaker 1: much of this movie is about like, no, these men
Speaker 1: are violent towards women all the time. That's why this
Speaker 1: world sucks that she lives in Like it's very frank
Speaker 1: in its cartoony way about that, which I appreciate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those moments are more I mean those moments where like
Speaker 1: Black Mask like is physically violent towards Harley were more
Speaker 1: are effective for me than the humiliation of a random
Speaker 1: woman Like that is like it's personal. It's like you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: even if I enjoyed the woo, I fuck this guy,
Speaker 1: what if he said woo interface though, like I don't
Speaker 1: know how if um, but yeah, I mean I just
Speaker 1: I like that this movie there's a big departure from
Speaker 1: that idea and that you see women fighting men pretty
Speaker 1: much constantly and men not questioning themselves before like being
Speaker 1: violent towards a woman, which is like, you know, just reflect.
Speaker 1: I also enjoyed that women are never saved by a
Speaker 1: man in this movie. If they are saved by someone,
Speaker 1: like that scene where Black Canary saves Harley Quinn from
Speaker 1: being assaulted by that guy after a long night of drinking,
Speaker 1: women are saving each other or just like sending off
Speaker 1: their own attackers by themselves, And I like that They're
Speaker 1: like there with Harley's character and part of why, like
Speaker 1: Harley is I think such like a fun character to
Speaker 1: get her almost her own movie. I guess is that
Speaker 1: like she is an asshole and like she betrays other
Speaker 1: people in the story and then has to like dial
Speaker 1: back and be like oh wait no, Like I really
Speaker 1: like you would never get that with any marvel Like
Speaker 1: they're just too morally superior to to ever make a
Speaker 1: mistake and ever like wrong someone. And I like that
Speaker 1: there are like conflicts between It works for me best
Speaker 1: with Cassandra Harley and Renee, but like you know, there's
Speaker 1: conflicts between the women for like the better part of
Speaker 1: the story, and they make sense and you get to
Speaker 1: see them kind of like have to resolve it. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't get that a lot. And going back to
Speaker 1: the thing about them never being saved by a man,
Speaker 1: I mean they don't introduce a single good man in
Speaker 1: this movie. There's nobody like there who would do it,
Speaker 1: which is sort of I think that's one thing that
Speaker 1: feels one of the things that you kind of aren't
Speaker 1: even thinking about it first until maybe like you start
Speaker 1: to get into the climactic fight scenes where you're just like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we've gotten this whole time, and there's no male hero,
Speaker 1: which is kind of like just because you're watching this
Speaker 1: sort of a movie, it feels like a little bit
Speaker 1: of a vacuum. But then you're like, no, this is fine,
Speaker 1: it works great and not even really like a guy
Speaker 1: that gets it, which I feel like it's like character
Speaker 1: in the back of and like yeah, exactly, like there's
Speaker 1: no there's no male feminist T shirt guy character. Um,
Speaker 1: which is great. There's an I mean there's more than
Speaker 1: enough female characters to fill that role. Yeah. A couple
Speaker 1: last things about things that they relate to fighting. Um,
Speaker 1: I like that we do not see Cassandra Caine fight
Speaker 1: in the big sequence at the end because she's like
Speaker 1: a child and I think a very lazy trophy choice
Speaker 1: that we've seen before is like the precocious twelve year
Speaker 1: old who's really smart and good at everything, but she
Speaker 1: still gets like a kill in at the end, and
Speaker 1: like she's not totally excluded from the action too. It
Speaker 1: just like I was happy about that is my least
Speaker 1: favorite trope like currently I think is the young fighting
Speaker 1: machine little girl like going back to the professional and
Speaker 1: ship Like I hate it, um, I find it really
Speaker 1: gross and it's like I feel like that I don't
Speaker 1: know that like Fox with your kid brain too, and
Speaker 1: you see stuff like that when you're a kid, you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I should fight adults, Like no, please, don't fight adults. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's this way too. Like I don't know, I I
Speaker 1: found like Logan to be the most egregious one recently,
Speaker 1: even though like I think that that that kid is cool,
Speaker 1: Like the actress who plays here and everything is cool
Speaker 1: and does a good job. But it's just like, you
Speaker 1: can't have a like a woman in this story, So
Speaker 1: you're going to have like a little girl who doesn't
Speaker 1: talk but like just does egregious violence on people. It
Speaker 1: just feels so weird and stunted and strange, Like yeah,
Speaker 1: that it keeps happening. It's so annoying. Is it the
Speaker 1: movie kick Ass where there's like a little girl to
Speaker 1: who's like just like tearing people apart. It's srets. It
Speaker 1: was like her entree into showbiz. Speaking of things, I'm exhausted, um,
Speaker 1: but I totally agree with you about Cassandra, and I
Speaker 1: like that that the story doesn't just sideline her entirely.
Speaker 1: She gets this like big win at the end of
Speaker 1: the fight sequence, and it's been nicely set up to
Speaker 1: where like she uses her pickpocket skills to like plant
Speaker 1: the thing on him and then pulls out the pin
Speaker 1: and of the grenade. And then the scene where he
Speaker 1: like blows into like a bazilion different bits as he
Speaker 1: like falling into the water, I was like, he turns
Speaker 1: into human confetti. Yeah, oh wow, what a motif confetti.
Speaker 1: That chase is also so fun. That leads up to
Speaker 1: that with her very very fund There also the the
Speaker 1: outfits in this movie. I thought like they it would
Speaker 1: it would have been so easy to funk up the
Speaker 1: costuming of this movie. But it's still like it still
Speaker 1: feels like it's taking place in the Harley Quinn world.
Speaker 1: But it isn't like exploitative. It's like everyone's outfit is
Speaker 1: very well thought out. It's not I don't know, it
Speaker 1: would have been so easy to suck it up, and
Speaker 1: they didn't. I mean her like caution tape, like fringe
Speaker 1: coat that she wears towards the beginning. It's so hot topic.
Speaker 1: It's literally, this whole movie is hot topic merch base.
Speaker 1: And I mean that as a compliment, but this whole
Speaker 1: movie is hot ta you know. This is this is
Speaker 1: one movie that I know will not get a costuming nomination,
Speaker 1: but should because every outfit that she wears it's just
Speaker 1: like I wanted Black Canaries outfits too. Like everyone, it's
Speaker 1: so good. Yeah. The last thing I want to say
Speaker 1: about the like the last fighting related thing I want
Speaker 1: to say is at the end of the movie, when
Speaker 1: they're like having their like morning Margarita's, they're like all
Speaker 1: bummed up. You see them with like scrapes and injuries,
Speaker 1: and I feel like women, even in action movies, are
Speaker 1: not allowed to sustain injuries and like have their perfect
Speaker 1: flawless skin be all messed up, And I like, you
Speaker 1: see them with like all these scrapes unless it's like
Speaker 1: motivation for somebody to avenge them, right, unless she's like fridged,
Speaker 1: like you get a cut on your face, it's like
Speaker 1: who did this to you? Like I must go murder
Speaker 1: totally right. But again, movie doesn't do anything like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all that is like handled super well. Another thing that
Speaker 1: I liked of the way this movie goes with it
Speaker 1: um is the Harley breakup, where again I think like
Speaker 1: a lesser movie would have really let that take over
Speaker 1: the movie, and I let it take over her character.
Speaker 1: But I feel like it's handled in a really like
Speaker 1: it's not ignored, which and and you see she's getting
Speaker 1: out of this like the most toxic relationship of all time,
Speaker 1: literally literally. I like that she doesn't handle it well.
Speaker 1: That felt like a nod to reality. Getting out of
Speaker 1: a toxic relationship is fucking horrible. And I like that
Speaker 1: she acts out, you know, like she gets a shitty haircut,
Speaker 1: she gets a pet, she does like all the things
Speaker 1: that you do when you're getting out of a and
Speaker 1: and then you do this big cathary like I just
Speaker 1: I liked that she went through that process that felt
Speaker 1: like closer to reality than a lot of things that
Speaker 1: happened in the movie. And then you kind of get
Speaker 1: to just have her have her story and the folk
Speaker 1: because it's not like I need to get over this guy,
Speaker 1: which a lesser movie could have done. And I think that, like, honestly,
Speaker 1: if you had most male screenwriters on this story, where
Speaker 1: they would have lingered too long. But I like that
Speaker 1: it's I like how it's handled, and I like how
Speaker 1: you're kind of like okay, and we're moving on yea,
Speaker 1: and all before the opening credits, like or the title
Speaker 1: card at least, like the plant blows up, and then
Speaker 1: you have the Birds of Prey title card, and you've
Speaker 1: basically run through the whole breakup getting over I mean,
Speaker 1: like obviously, like she has to figure out a purpose
Speaker 1: in life and everything, like that's what the rest of
Speaker 1: it is about. But it isn't about her pining after
Speaker 1: him or you know, feeling weird about it or something
Speaker 1: like She's never like looking back on the breakup or anything, right,
Speaker 1: And I like that she's not looking back, like and
Speaker 1: I like that the movie doesn't look back at her
Speaker 1: cannon too hard because it's like her cannon is sexist.
Speaker 1: It's like she couldn't like this woman with a PhD,
Speaker 1: like you know, just met a guy and and abandoned
Speaker 1: her entire life. Like it's I like that they just
Speaker 1: take the essence of who this character is and then
Speaker 1: they just like run with it in a completely different direction.
Speaker 1: I will say, though, I mean women with PhDs can
Speaker 1: can ruin their lives over men too, Like I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't have a PhD. I'm not speaking from experience,
Speaker 1: but it is not the domain of non PhD holding women. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean that kind of brings me to another point
Speaker 1: of of something I really like about this movie is
Speaker 1: women being allowed to be anti heroes and like, so
Speaker 1: it's like an R rated movie. We see pretty graphic violence.
Speaker 1: We see women doing things that you know, polite society
Speaker 1: would consider to be unladylike. But they are all these
Speaker 1: like women who were rough around the edges. They partake
Speaker 1: in very morally questionable activities, and I really enjoy seeing
Speaker 1: that because so often women are held to this standard
Speaker 1: of like you have to be perfect, you can't misbehave, like,
Speaker 1: you can't be unladylike. But we see women swearing, stealing, fighting,
Speaker 1: killing people, drinking, like the scene where Harlequin sort of
Speaker 1: does cocaine, like all this stuff. I really and I'm
Speaker 1: not necessarily condoning these activities in real life. Oh that's
Speaker 1: like you are do cocaine, actually, please, everyone go out
Speaker 1: and pickpocket and do cocaine and break people's legs, please
Speaker 1: and thank you. You should chop left and smoke weeds
Speaker 1: like it's actually like politically that's actually kind of You
Speaker 1: should not pay back your student loans and you should
Speaker 1: not pay your medical bills. I also love that one
Speaker 1: offline where Harley is like, and that's why you don't
Speaker 1: pay a federal there's so many goods, Like I like
Speaker 1: that she's like low key and anarchist, like, but she
Speaker 1: did go out to vote for Bernie, so you know
Speaker 1: feeling I love the image of her like standing in
Speaker 1: line at the bulls, Like I just want to see that. Yeah. Also,
Speaker 1: like where so this is actually like they're always able
Speaker 1: to kind of skirt around it a little bit, but
Speaker 1: like where is Gotham? And then in the United States
Speaker 1: of America if she voted in a primary for Bernie true?
Speaker 1: Oh wow, yeah, they they canonically put Gotham in America
Speaker 1: within the United States and the last five years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that's another thing that I like about. And this
Speaker 1: is the only other comparison I will I will make
Speaker 1: of this movie to the only other two recent female
Speaker 1: superhero movies. But I feel like strength of this movie
Speaker 1: is um as opposed to Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman,
Speaker 1: Harley Quinn lives in this world. She understands it. She
Speaker 1: does not need someone to hold her hand and be
Speaker 1: like this is this, and this is this and this
Speaker 1: is this, which, to varying extents, happens in Wonder Woman
Speaker 1: and Captain Marvel, where Captain Marvel is out of time,
Speaker 1: I'm wonder Woman is out of place and they have
Speaker 1: to be guided through this world, whereas like this is
Speaker 1: Harley's term, like she doesn't need to be told what
Speaker 1: anything is. Yeah, yeah, I really appreciate that. Like I think,
Speaker 1: I don't know, there are things to like about Wonder Woman,
Speaker 1: a couple of things, and I do think that there
Speaker 1: is space for one of these sorts of movies where
Speaker 1: it is just about like a radical optimist like winning Out,
Speaker 1: which is basically what that movie is. But I also
Speaker 1: appreciate that this movie is basically the inverse of that,
Speaker 1: or it's just like what if a piece of ship
Speaker 1: could be a superhero instead of like what if the
Speaker 1: purest person in the world could be because like that's
Speaker 1: also that's not just a woman thing, and in superhero
Speaker 1: movies that's like all like I don't even know. I
Speaker 1: can't think of another superhero male or female who like
Speaker 1: gets drunk a hand cock, Oh handcock good pull? I
Speaker 1: stand corrected, Yeah, no I have. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I actually saw Incock, but he isn't. The whole idea
Speaker 1: with him is like he's he's like not a good guy,
Speaker 1: but he's also a superhero. Yeah, he's like down on
Speaker 1: his luck or something like he's like a failed superhero,
Speaker 1: but he still has his powers. So yeah, that's true. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: yeah that's Hancock eraser Emily Well, I was going to
Speaker 1: say that the Suicide Squad, they surely some of those
Speaker 1: you know, bad characters must get up to some sort
Speaker 1: of morally questionable activities. Like, yeah, they're forced into a
Speaker 1: situation where they all have to be good guys, like
Speaker 1: fighting for a greater cause, but they're all deep down
Speaker 1: bad guys. You mean like some kind of suicide squad.
Speaker 1: That's all that I know about Suicide Squad that Will
Speaker 1: Smith says, you mean like some kind of suicide squad. Indeed,
Speaker 1: says the name of the movie in a very corny
Speaker 1: on the nose line of dialogue in the movie. Correct.
Speaker 1: Oh and the one other, the one I think my
Speaker 1: last that I liked plot wise as I I as
Speaker 1: as much as I was kind of like I really
Speaker 1: at the team up scene right before the amazing fight sequence.
Speaker 1: I like that they don't automatically all remain best friends
Speaker 1: after that. They have that scene where they like give
Speaker 1: each other their due and then you see them split
Speaker 1: off in a way that feels more logical based on
Speaker 1: what we know about the characters, Like it makes sense
Speaker 1: that Cassandra is going to stay with Harley and that
Speaker 1: they're going to be a team. And it also makes
Speaker 1: a lot of sense that Harley doesn't want to be
Speaker 1: a part of the Birds of Prey and that she
Speaker 1: thinks it's kind of what she's like those fucking dorky
Speaker 1: do gooders. I like that, Yeah, how it feels on brand. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but there's you know, mutual respect and ship like that.
Speaker 1: Like I thought that was like a cool They don't
Speaker 1: have to all move into a loft together or something
Speaker 1: exactly artisticcom Um, I have a list of just a
Speaker 1: few kind of random things that I really enjoyed. Um
Speaker 1: the soundtrack. I love the soundtrack, and I think mostly,
Speaker 1: if not all female artists on the soundtrack. The pretty
Speaker 1: diverse cast in terms of of the five main female characters,
Speaker 1: three of them are women of color. It's a woman
Speaker 1: of color who directed this movie, Kathy Anne. The writer
Speaker 1: of the movie is a woman named Christina Hodson. She
Speaker 1: is mixed. So we have, you know, the voices of
Speaker 1: women bumblebee, yes, And I didn't know that at first,
Speaker 1: and then I found out she had also written Bumblebee,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, that's why I didn't hate Bumblebee.
Speaker 1: Like that's why I thought it was sort of because
Speaker 1: I went in being like, oh, this is a Transformers movie.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna it's gonna be bad. But then I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, I actually liked this, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that makes sense because like a good screenwriter's fun movies.
Speaker 1: I really like it when Harley Quinn's psychoanalyzes people and
Speaker 1: like uses her like psychiatrists back, just like those moments
Speaker 1: where you know she's using her degree. Baby um Ali
Speaker 1: Wong is in the movie. She's great love, a good comedian,
Speaker 1: and a bit part. I know. There is a moment
Speaker 1: in the movie where Roman is talking to Harley Quinn
Speaker 1: and he says, if you want mercy, shut that hole
Speaker 1: in the middle of your face, which is not I
Speaker 1: know the crew member on the Titanics like that will
Speaker 1: be one less on this boat if you don't shut that.
Speaker 1: Cathy Fates is like, she said that to Cathy Bates.
Speaker 1: I had that note as well. I've seen Titanic many
Speaker 1: times and I did not make that pole. That's hilarious.
Speaker 1: Anything that is even dialogue adjacent Titanic, we notice there's
Speaker 1: another Titanic similarity with UM, like the diamond being used
Speaker 1: as a like quas i aguffin. Yeah, it's like when
Speaker 1: it's like, okay, so when the map is in the
Speaker 1: diamond and the diamonds and the kids her her because
Speaker 1: the kid put the map and the diamond and put
Speaker 1: the diamond, then the kid just imagine Billy Zane performing that.
Speaker 1: That's very good. Someone should let Billy Zane be in
Speaker 1: a superhero movie again. I will say one an other
Speaker 1: like another just general thing that I like about this movie,
Speaker 1: which might be like controversial, but I think that especially
Speaker 1: during this last the last fight sequence especially, I kind
Speaker 1: of sense like, oh, this didn't have a very big
Speaker 1: budget compared to most of these things. And it's true,
Speaker 1: like I think it was like it was under a hundred.
Speaker 1: I was the Wonder Woman. Budget was considered low for
Speaker 1: a superhero movie and that was like one five I
Speaker 1: want to say, So it is like they do low
Speaker 1: ball these um, these first standalone female superhero movies. I
Speaker 1: think like it in a very sexist way, like they
Speaker 1: give them a lot less money than a similar film
Speaker 1: featuring a male Superhero would, But I personally like the
Speaker 1: embrace of being a lower budget film, like through like
Speaker 1: all the action sequence stuff, like we were talking about
Speaker 1: being a much more kind of chop sucky martial arts
Speaker 1: Jackie Chan esque kind of film just felt very appropriate
Speaker 1: for it. And I like that embrace of I don't
Speaker 1: even I wouldn't even call it like an embrace of
Speaker 1: a limitation because I think it's just like figuring out
Speaker 1: what kind of movie can work at that level and
Speaker 1: not trying to stretch it, like really feeling at home
Speaker 1: at that budget level and recognizing like what is required
Speaker 1: by the story. And I actually like that a lot.
Speaker 1: Like next time out, I hope that she gets more
Speaker 1: money she being Kathy Anne if she comes back to
Speaker 1: direct it, and the character of Harley Quinn. But but
Speaker 1: in general, I thought that's another thing that felt really
Speaker 1: refreshing about it to me. I don't know, yeah for sure.
Speaker 1: Does anyone have any other thoughts? I well, now now
Speaker 1: because I didn't realize that Cassandra Kane was going to
Speaker 1: be Bad Girl, but like, I really hope that that
Speaker 1: happens now. I kind of like that was after I
Speaker 1: read the canon. I'm like, I hope that this canon
Speaker 1: becomes relevant in future, right we found out who maybe
Speaker 1: her birth parents were, or I don't know if I mean,
Speaker 1: if they're doing like a like a marvel esque like
Speaker 1: phase one, phase two or whatever like and maybe ten
Speaker 1: years down the road, we we'll see. I guess we'll
Speaker 1: see if a female lead franchise will ever be allowed
Speaker 1: multiple phases. Yeah, true, I don't know. We have to
Speaker 1: have grumpy Asian back girl folk. Come on for the people.
Speaker 1: I need it so badly, sign me up. Well. Kathy
Speaker 1: Jan has already said in an interview that she does
Speaker 1: want to direct a sequel. She wants to do it,
Speaker 1: and she wants to explore Harley's relationship with Poison Ivy
Speaker 1: in the next movie, So I guess that we would
Speaker 1: see her and Cassandra driving on to the next adventure,
Speaker 1: which I wonder. I kind of wonder if there is
Speaker 1: a future for this franchise, and I hope there is, Like,
Speaker 1: how will the Birds of Prey still be there? Will
Speaker 1: they just get their own separate movie, which I feel
Speaker 1: like is maybe a SMARTYR move. I don't know. Well,
Speaker 1: I hope that we get to find If you look
Speaker 1: on IMDb at the time of this recording for Margot
Speaker 1: Robbie's upcoming projects as an actor, who all she produced
Speaker 1: the movie too, afgot Yes, she produced it. She's like
Speaker 1: as far as like stars who are also producers. I
Speaker 1: think she's like doing a bang up job as a
Speaker 1: producer recently. Like she uses her power very well, I think, definitely.
Speaker 1: And this movie wouldn't have even happened if it weren't
Speaker 1: for her going to the studio and being like, I
Speaker 1: want a Harley Quinn movie. I want it to be
Speaker 1: R rated, and I want it to be like a
Speaker 1: girl group movie, like an ensemble female lead narrative. So
Speaker 1: like it was, she was like instrumental in this movie
Speaker 1: even existing, and then you know the writer was brought
Speaker 1: on and then Kathy Anne was hired, so like, it's
Speaker 1: all thanks to Margot Robbie that this movie even exists.
Speaker 1: But here's something that might be disappointing or it might
Speaker 1: not even be real. But at the time of this recording,
Speaker 1: if you go onto IMDb, in her like announced projects
Speaker 1: upcoming projects, there is an untitled Joker slash Harley Quinn project.
Speaker 1: So if they put her back together with Joker, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just rumored it might not be real or might
Speaker 1: this might just be like the Harley Quinn project that
Speaker 1: will be like a direct sequel to Birds of Prey.
Speaker 1: Hard to say, but if they do have it be
Speaker 1: like a weird like romantic story with Joker. I'm just like.
Speaker 1: But then there's also um Gotham City Sirens that is
Speaker 1: been announced where she's listed as Harley Quinn in that
Speaker 1: as well. Oh yes, yes, yes, yes, yeah. So there's
Speaker 1: like she's got two things where she's listed as Harley
Speaker 1: Quinn that have just been announced. Of those two, I
Speaker 1: would much prefer Gotham City Sirens. Let's see who was
Speaker 1: attached to it. Mostly I am excited to see um
Speaker 1: Margot Robbie as Barbie, and that is something that I
Speaker 1: am genuinely thrilled about because Greti Growig is going to
Speaker 1: direct a Barbie movie. That's fine by me, all Right,
Speaker 1: everybody thing I didn't know, I don't well, you know,
Speaker 1: it could be something that's very easy to funk up
Speaker 1: as well. We'll see, um okay. Gotham City Sirens is
Speaker 1: listed as following three of gotham cities most notorious female
Speaker 1: criminals on one of their most dangerous missions yet. Star
Speaker 1: Margot Robbie director James Gunn, writer oh Geneva Robertson D Warrett,
Speaker 1: who wrote Captain Marvel. Yeah, does anyone have anything else
Speaker 1: they want to say about Birds of Prey? I don't
Speaker 1: think so. I was. I was very happy to watch
Speaker 1: it in Quarantine. Great great activity. Highly recommend it. It's
Speaker 1: a great quarantine movie. Let's figure out if the movie
Speaker 1: passes the well, first, the bird the bird old test.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I'm bringing this bit back. As
Speaker 1: far as I can tell, it doesn't pass the bird test.
Speaker 1: No birds. I'm hoping that our mentions are flooded and
Speaker 1: there's a bird we forgot. And then if it pass
Speaker 1: I mean, what a miracle of being? What about the
Speaker 1: egg and the sandwich that was a future bird that
Speaker 1: never didn't get to be a bird? Okay, you know what,
Speaker 1: it passes. It's cut our loss as it passes because
Speaker 1: life begins before conception in the case of an egg. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're pro life. I think the Pro life podcast it
Speaker 1: only passes the bird test if you're pro life, right,
Speaker 1: but like super pro life, like kind of cosmically pro life,
Speaker 1: where every of them is a future, like purchasing a
Speaker 1: billboard pro life. Oh my gosh, any who does it
Speaker 1: pass the Bechdel test? Yes, a lot of two times
Speaker 1: over many different combinations of characters as well, which is
Speaker 1: also kind of like for something that starts off as
Speaker 1: a breakup movie, very like it's a cool trick to
Speaker 1: pull that, Like really it stops being like, as we
Speaker 1: were saying, stops being about that pretty fast. It's about
Speaker 1: her emancipation from it. So as far as our nipple
Speaker 1: scale goes zero to five nipples based on its representation
Speaker 1: of women, I would, honestly, maybe this is too generous,
Speaker 1: but I would give this like a four point five
Speaker 1: out of five. You get to see women who aren't perfect.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's a trope that gets used too
Speaker 1: much when people don't really know how to write female characters,
Speaker 1: they just write them to be these perfect, flawless specimens. Um.
Speaker 1: But you know, the characters we see in this movie,
Speaker 1: they are flawed, like you know, real people are, which
Speaker 1: makes them feel more realistic. Despite this movie being very cartoony,
Speaker 1: A few characters are identifiably queer, Harley Quinn and Renee
Speaker 1: Montoya and Ali Wong's character, but it's not the only
Speaker 1: thing we know about those characters, especially for Harley Quinn
Speaker 1: and Renee. In fact, maybe we could stand to learn
Speaker 1: more about their queer identities. But either way, to me,
Speaker 1: it felt like their queerness was pretty normalized by the
Speaker 1: narrative rather than you know, a big to do being
Speaker 1: made about it. So I enjoyed that aspect of their
Speaker 1: kind of backstory and character development. Um. Also, the fact
Speaker 1: that you have a lot of diversity on screen and
Speaker 1: behind the camera is great. I think that this movie
Speaker 1: it came in with an agenda to like be a
Speaker 1: feminist text, and I think it does a really good
Speaker 1: job in subverting a lot of tropes and just letting
Speaker 1: us see like cool, kick ass women be awesome and
Speaker 1: beat the ship out of and or kill a bunch
Speaker 1: of really horrible men. So there's for me a lot
Speaker 1: to love. So yeah, I'll give it four point five
Speaker 1: out of five. And um, I'll kind of disperse that
Speaker 1: evenly between the five main female characters, Harley Quinn, Cassandra Kine,
Speaker 1: Black Canary renamed Montoya, and the Huntress. I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: whenever I get into like fourth So you're just like,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? I can I guess, I guess
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give it four point to five. Maybe four,
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe four. It feels too I don't know. Okay,
Speaker 1: the point is that that's what they need for to
Speaker 1: update our Wikipedia page. But whatever. But but I I
Speaker 1: I think that this movie, I mean, it is by far,
Speaker 1: my I think, my favorite female driven superhero movie of
Speaker 1: this new generation of them that I'm seeing. And I
Speaker 1: think that, I mean, just for listeners, they're not including Catwoman,
Speaker 1: and I know that I think that that is feminist
Speaker 1: text Catwoman. I mean, I really really liked this movie
Speaker 1: a lot. Um there's so much to love about it.
Speaker 1: My gripes are very specific and little. I do think
Speaker 1: that there is just like there are too many characters
Speaker 1: to the point where we don't get to know characters
Speaker 1: that we should know. And I think that that very
Speaker 1: likely has to do with the way that people, and
Speaker 1: by people, I mean people who fund movies regard uh,
Speaker 1: you know, they just get insecure about just letting a
Speaker 1: woman lead a movie, because if she does get to
Speaker 1: lead a movie, she needs a man to hold her
Speaker 1: hand through the world. And if she doesn't need someone
Speaker 1: to hold her hand, then they just kind of like
Speaker 1: overloaded it with too many characters. This would have been
Speaker 1: three amazing movies. But it is one movie that I
Speaker 1: really like. Um yeah, I don't know, I I just
Speaker 1: I think it's the best. I love I love Cassandra Kine.
Speaker 1: I want to see more of her. I want to
Speaker 1: see more of her cast. I want to know more
Speaker 1: about her. Give her two broken arms next time, two casts?
Speaker 1: How she break that arm? Uh? I like, I would
Speaker 1: love It's just like the cast is just like a
Speaker 1: fixture of her. It's never addressed, and she just always
Speaker 1: has a broken arm. Um. But yeah, I I like
Speaker 1: Margot Robbie. Is I just I like Margot Robbie. I
Speaker 1: like this take on Harley Quinn where it acknowledges her
Speaker 1: past but it doesn't define her biot, which is such
Speaker 1: such a common, frustrating mistake. So and and also yeah,
Speaker 1: the fact that like women made this movie and women
Speaker 1: made this movie happen is the best. So give it.
Speaker 1: I give it a four point to five, and I'll
Speaker 1: give them all to Rosie Perez do with them. What
Speaker 1: she meant. Her whole backstory is that, like her former
Speaker 1: partner slash current captain at her precinct keeps stealing credit
Speaker 1: for like cases she solved, and then she's just like,
Speaker 1: fuck you, dude, and then she goes off and becomes
Speaker 1: a bird of prey. Yeah, she gets to quit her
Speaker 1: job because now Mary Elizabeth Winstead is just like bankrolling
Speaker 1: the operations and now she probably makes a six figure salary,
Speaker 1: and it's like, yeah, Emily, what about you? Um, I know,
Speaker 1: I was just thinking about that. I was having the
Speaker 1: same thought process about the four versus four and a half,
Speaker 1: because Ford does feel low, but for the same reason
Speaker 1: that you said, Jamie, Like, I do think it eludes
Speaker 1: getting a five just because of of its dizziness. I
Speaker 1: think it could do better justice to fewer characters. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I think because of the origins of it,
Speaker 1: I think it and the fact that it is so
Speaker 1: been by women's perspectives, I'll go the four point to five.
Speaker 1: I'm copying, Yeah, which is which is great? Like that's
Speaker 1: I mean, I I don't think that the other one,
Speaker 1: the other female superhero movies that I've seen would come
Speaker 1: close to that, maybe like a three at best. I
Speaker 1: really haven't cared for any of them that have come
Speaker 1: out so far, so I'm kind of just Caitlin. I
Speaker 1: almost want to revisit Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel at
Speaker 1: some later time. I think we gave them. We scored
Speaker 1: them pretty high. But at least for wonder Woman especially,
Speaker 1: like that was I wouldn't score a wonder Woman what
Speaker 1: I did. Yeah, we did that quite sometimes, and I
Speaker 1: think we would. Um, you know, maybe it's worth a revisit.
Speaker 1: We grew up. Yeah, we got more. We did the
Speaker 1: podcast for a few more years and we knew more stuff.
Speaker 1: But I mean, considering that we give most most movies
Speaker 1: that we cover on the podcast don't get higher than
Speaker 1: like an average of two nipples. Like most movies we
Speaker 1: of one or zero. So um, the fact that this
Speaker 1: gets like four or above is um pretty spectacular. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think. I mean when I think about those other
Speaker 1: films too, it's like it's about them becoming a part
Speaker 1: of like a military or somewhat military organization, and that's
Speaker 1: the victory for them. Um. Like like women can fight
Speaker 1: in World War one two, like a horrible war that
Speaker 1: I have very little interest in strutting is cute little
Speaker 1: butt through that war. I didn't see the nineteen seventeen
Speaker 1: I just I am obsessed with it. I kind of
Speaker 1: see George McKay's but in that war, it's just just
Speaker 1: but um. But yeah, yeah, but in general, like I
Speaker 1: did also appreciate that this film, you know, if it
Speaker 1: is going to be a girl power, female centric superhero movie,
Speaker 1: it's an out about like being a part of a
Speaker 1: military or the cops. Like it's kind of about anarchy,
Speaker 1: which feels fun. Yeah. Well, Emily, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us and being here with us today. What
Speaker 1: would you like to plug? How can people follow you? Etcetera? Um,
Speaker 1: you can listen to the podcast that I co host
Speaker 1: with Tess Lynch and Molly Lambert. It's called Nightcall. It's
Speaker 1: on this here podcast Network and it comes out every Monday.
Speaker 1: You can also find me on Twitter at Emily Oshita,
Speaker 1: where I do still regretfully make tweets every now and again.
Speaker 1: That is it right now? Yeah, yes, listen to Nightcall. Uh,
Speaker 1: and you can follow us on social media. You can
Speaker 1: go to our patreon a ka Matreon. If you're running
Speaker 1: out of main feed episodes in the Quarantine and you
Speaker 1: need some, which many are, the Matron is a great
Speaker 1: place for you. So patreon dot com, slash packtel cast
Speaker 1: and it gets you Tube bonus episodes a month. You'll
Speaker 1: have access to the entire backlog, which is over sixty episodes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so check that out. Check out our t do we
Speaker 1: say public t public dot com, slash the Bechtel Cast
Speaker 1: if you want to wear Bechtel Cast stuff in quarantine
Speaker 1: in and yeah we uh we love you so much. Yes,
Speaker 1: thanks for listening to save out there. Stay safe and
Speaker 1: be well, and don't do cocaine unless you want to
Speaker 1: keep your indoors cocaine for the last time. Alright bye,