The Bechdel Cast - Birds of Prey with Emily Yoshida

Episode Date: May 21, 2020

Crime-fighting superheroes Caitlin and Jamie join forces with special guest Emily Yoshida to talk about Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn.(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @emilyyoshida from @nightcallpod on Twitter. While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. That's right, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Las Culturistas. That's right, the queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories,

and of course, the culture. Don't miss Katherine Hahn on Las Culturistas. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts.

There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism?

The patriarchy's effing vast. Start changing it with the Bechdel cast. Hello and welcome to the Bechdel cast. My name is Caitlin Durante. And my name is Jamie Loftus. Oh, what I should have said is hello, welcome to the birds of... No. No, there's nothing there. I think you got it right the first time. Bechdel? Oh, Bechdel. Bechdel cast. Birds of... No. No, there's nothing there. I think you got it right the first time. Bergdell?

Oh, Bergdell. Bergdell cast. Do birds... Are there... This is maybe... Oh, okay. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself in terms of brilliant discourse, but is there a single bird in this movie?

Do you see a bird? Isn't Black Canary a bird? But do you like see a physical bird? Oh. Oh. I don't do you like see a physical bird? Oh, oh. I don't think you actually see a real bird. No pigeons? Not even a pigeon. I feel like in most movies that don't have birds in the title, you get a pigeon.

I'm already coming out with some really brilliant takes that will be remembered. I'd have to like go back and re-watch bird man a thing i never want to do so maybe there's definitely birds in bird man unfortunately i just i i was for some reason i was watching this movie as if i was my dad and i was like didn't see a single bird pretty good could have done with more birds they could have thrown in a bird is what i'm saying anyways this is the birds of prey episode yes so if you're not familiar with the show we are a movie podcast that examines the treatment and representation of women in film and we use the bechdel test as a jumping off point. Jamie, what on earth is the

Bechdel test? Well, I can tell you what it is. It's a media metric invented by cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel-Wallace test, that requires for our purposes that there be two female identified characters in a piece of media with names who talk to each other about something other than a man most movies don't pass it i think movies are starting to pass it more but not because people regard women better but because they don't want to get canceled that's true yeah so that's where we start from well first we start with birds and then are there any birds in the movie yeah then we use the bechdel test to start the discussion right right right right but if it's failed the

bird test then it's kind of really not worth going into the bechdel test after that the movie is probably trash i'd like to see that venn diagram of how many movies pass the bird test which is a test that requires a movie have a bird versus how i bet more movies pass the bird test which is a test that requires a movie have a bird versus how i bet more movies pass the bird test than the bechdel test oh that's an interesting i'll keep my eye out for that someone write their thesis does the bird have to be in focus does the bird have to be in the foreground for the purposes of the bird test we need to feel that the bird is being represented well in focus right there's different caveats for the bird test sometimes need to feel that the bird is being represented in focus right there's different caveats for the bird test sometimes you have to see the bird in focus sometimes it can be in the

background you know just like how there's different caveats of the Bechdel test yeah for some people a bird in the distance is enough for others they're a little they're our standards are a little higher 2020 we're gonna need the bird to be in focus well uh you've you've heard her voice already but let's properly introduce our guest no don't apologize at all we love your contributions um thank you thank you thank you of course she is a writer a filmmaker and co-host of night call podcast. It's Emily Yoshida. Hi. Hello. Thanks for having me. Oh, it's our pleasure. Welcome to the BirdCast. Hey, yeah. No, I actually, I was trying to save this for after I got introduced because I did see a pigeon that

really, really struck me just a few days ago when I had to get in my car and drive somewhere and I was on the 101 and I saw a pigeon just straight chilling in a lane on the freeway and it was empty enough that you know he could do that and I was I you know I was going pretty you know I was in 60 miles an hour or something like that and I was like oh that's a pigeon that pigeon is gonna fly away and it kind of did it until the very last minute I was like am I gonna just run over a pigeon on the 101 that feels very weird um it was it was one of many end timesy things I feel like sure this happened to me the animals are for sure reclaiming the land yeah and the freeways the way the cats have been acting in my neighborhood it's like it's borderline inspiring i'm just like oh i don't live here you're right yeah you're right you were here first maybe i don't know your streets it's just like the end of that one jurassic world movie

that wasn't good which one both anyway swish um emily what's your relationship with the film Birds of Prey, the character of Harley Quinn, anything? Are you familiar with any comic books or any other like series that she's in? Anything like that? Not comics. Um, the most exposure I probably ever had to Harley Quinn was, um, in the cartoon, which is like, isn't that where she was originated the batman animated series i believe so yeah so i didn't watch that you know passionately whenever that was i mean it was on when i was a kid and i remember seeing it a little bit i was kind of more into x-men as far as like cartoon versions of comic books i never i never read any comic books growing up but i did watch the tv versions but uh yeah i i was always kind of intrigued by her i think like in general

like her and poison ivy even though i know like very little of either character but just because you know i saw like batman and robin where uma thurman plays her when i was like in junior high but i just thought it was kind of funny that there were two female batman villains who were like cool, but also like came from a science background. Progressive. They're both like lab coat ladies who turn bad. And I thought that was very fun. Like I,

I like that kind of trope in general. Like my version of that, that I really embraced was like, like like and so instead of comic books and all that I was really into Sailor Moon and like anime and stuff when I was a kid and Sailor Moon in particular has one season where the villains are like an evil lab of witches and they all just like wear lab coats and get into trouble and that was like a plus in my book I love I love a bad lady in a lab coat so yeah hell yeah but yeah I'm not like a I'm not like super up on this universe or anything but when I heard that they were doing a Harley Quinn movie I was like okay that will be for me like more so than Wonder Woman or any

or like Black Widow or any of these things we're supposed to be anticipating as women uh the Harley Quinn movie I was like that'll be fun like I I it doesn't need to be that great to me but I feel like more on board with something about her than a lot of these other these other films so nice that's sort of where I came into this yeah uh Jamie what about you what's your relationship um I think it's kind of similar to emily's i mean i if if you listen to the bechdel cast you know i'm not a huge superhero movies person they're just i i like every time i'm like sat down in front of them usually i'm like this is fun but i just i don't really seek them out um but i was excited to see i don't know i just thought that like it looks like a fun movie i really liked the

cast i really like i'm gonna say his name wrong i get so paranoid ewan ewan ewan ewan ewan ewan i said it wrong for the entire moulin rouge episode and i and so i and i still get oh that's so funny added for it it was two years ago okay I really I'm a big fan of uh his I really like Mary Elizabeth Winstead I like the whole cast is just it's a really fun cast uh Rosie Perrette like it was just I was just excited to see it um I hadn't seen and have not seen Margot Robbie's Harley quinn in suicide squad i did not subject myself to that it's just like now is not the time for me to see suicide squad it's just not going to be um i am assuming that this movie is quite different uh but i saw it in the theaters and i like it's a fun movie it's a

fun movie re-watching it was interesting because i was watching it completely uncritically the first time i was just like i'm just letting fun things happen but yeah i liked it what about you caitlin i saw in the theater as well i really really enjoyed it this will be like a movie that i think i'll like continue to revisit and i did watch suicide squad to like prepare for this episode because i was like i i do want to be able to like kind of compare and contrast and like like have that context brave of you um so i did make this great sacrifice for your show thank you so much appreciate it and i do i have like a bit to say when we get to the discussion about how either movie treats harley quinn because it is believe

it or not pretty vastly different so um yeah i'm excited to talk about that but yeah i mean i freaking love this movie i give it a 10 out of 10 on the caitlin rompo meter but um i too don't have like i i haven't really read any comic books i i did not watch the batman animated series so um i didn't get like that introduction to the Harley Quinn character then yeah but it's kind of interesting where I think that my main familiarity with Harley Quinn I knew who she was and I knew what her basic backstory was just I think through like cultural osmosis but I think where I saw her most were on like guys wearing naughty peer t-shirts of like harley quinn like posed all sexy on a t-shirt like i saw her a lot in middle school on horny boys shirts yeah so i think

she's had a real come up yeah indeed well she always like she just as easily can just turn into a really bad trope of like crazy ass girlfriend like that crazy bitch that you've met before like that and which is just like and I feel like that's what that's what I imagine the Suicide Squad film uses her as and just sort of ogles her but is like but she's crazy so I feel like people said similar things about the Justice League movie and Wonder Woman where it's just like she is treated in a very markedly different way and it's not a way you can immediately verbalize it's kind of just all cinematic less than what's necessarily on the page just like how the camera looks at her you know how we're meant to empathize with her or not that feels very active in this movie as I think it did in Wonder Woman 2 I just think this is a more

fun character so yeah for sure well uh should we get into the recap and go from there let's do it so we open on some backstory for Harley Quinn played by Margot Robbie, of course. She had a rough childhood, but made her way through college. She got a PhD, she became a psychiatrist. And that is how she met Joker, who she fell in love with, kind of lost her sense of herself. And then eventually she and Joker break up, which is sort of the catalyst that gets this movie going. And the way that they are able to avoid showing you Jared Leto in this movie is an art all its own. I was like, I didn't see Suicide Squad, but I just knew I didn't want to look at Jared Leto Joker. And that's not how I wanted to use my time watching this and they they don't make you look at Jared Leto Joker

yeah it made me happy yeah it's very nice of them and it's also it's also just fun even if it was a way to get around showing Jared Leto Joker I love the animation at the beginning of it because it feels it feels like it really sets the tone like it's it's very much like you are about to watch a cartoon like even if the whole thing won't be technically animated it's going to feel like this for sure so after this breakup harley quinn resets her life she gets her own place she gets a pet hyena she's supposed to name him after batman right yeah yeah yeah she names him bruce wayne bruce i felt like a genius when i was like br Bruce I see we also see her skating around because she plays like roller derby now and it's like who are you I Tanya anyway she had to use those skills

yeah and they come back later in the film plan pay off baby love to see it oh wait I want to I want to bring up one more thing about the intro which i just noticed on this watch through before when she's talking about kind of striking out in love before she met the joker it's like a slots type machine where it's like spinning through through people and like it lands on like two guys then it lands on a lady yeah queer representation and harley quinn and they didn't even make an article about it where they're like this is the first fully bisexual dc character or whatever they would say um she also says that she voted for bernie sanners which is a real treat it was a real treat yeah well from my understanding the harley quinn character is canonically bisexual i mean slide straight into my mentions

if I'm wrong about this, because again, I have not read the source material. That was what I was seeing as well. And I was also seeing that even Renee is canonically bisexual, even though that is not referenced really that much in this movie. Well, it's mentioned that she and Ali Wong's character

are like ex-girlfriends. So we get a little bit there's i don't i canonically i guess that she and we'll get into this later but like i guess that she was like kicked out of the police force for reasons having to do with her sexuality yeah i can shoot but i don't know i kind of appreciate that they, they reference it and then also keep it a cartoon. Right. Anyways. Yeah.

So then we meet Roman Sionis. That's played by, and sorry, Jamie, how do you say his name again? It's Ewan. Yes, it is. Good job. Ewan McGregor. He's all like, hey, Harley Quinn, give Joker my best because she has not told people about her breakup. So to get closure and to prove to the world that they're broken up and she's over him and all that stuff, she blows up a toxic industrial processing plant where their relationship bloomed. Then we cut to Renee Montoya. That's Rosie Perez's character.

She is a detective who is examining a crime scene where four men were murdered. And then we get a flashback that shows a mysterious crossbow killer character played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead murdering these men. So Renee Montoya is examining this crime scene nearby when the plant gets blown up. And she's like, whoa, that must have been harley quinn like the j necklace she left behind this was her and joker spot so she goes and tries to find and arrest harley quinn the following morning and she is one of many people who are unhappy with harley quinn so there's a lot of people chasing her and And then she gets captured by Roman Sionis' people. Meanwhile, Renee Montoya is working on a case against this Roman guy.

And she's heard that this diamond shipment is coming in. And she thinks it's the Bertinelli diamond, which belonged to the Bertinelli crime family. And Roman Sionis is trying to get his hands on it because... It reminded me of National Treasure. They're like, there's a map inside the diamond. There's a code in the diamond. I think we just watched National Treasure 2 recently, but I'm like, there's always a map inside of something important.

There's a map inside of everything. There's a MacGuffin inside a mcguffin yeah so roman is trying to get his hands on this diamond because it's going to give him access to all these funds and connections that will allow him to control all of gotham so then renee gets a call from her informant uh dinah lance aka black Canary, played by Journey Smollett-Bell, saying that this diamond is in the possession of this pickpocket kid, Cassandra Cain. Then we flash back to a week earlier when Harley and Black Canary meet, or I don't know if this is them meeting for the first time, but we see an interaction they have. Black Canary ends up saving Harley Quinn from some bad guys.

Roman Sionis sees how good Black Canary is at fighting and promotes her to being his driver. She had previously had like a singing gig in his club. Which I feel like it isn't. I wish that she got to talk more about how much that job change sucks for her. Yeah, that's a terrible job change. Unless it pays considerably better. Like she says it at first. She's like, oh, I'd rather continue being a singer.

And then he's like, well, you're a valet now. And she's like, oh, okay. It's like you can carve your own career path at the the underworld club i mean i'm sure there's other clubs i'm assuming the pay bump was sweet enough that yeah it made it worth maybe it was just sort of like a paid for exposure type thing with the singing yeah um that could be it she's just told there's industry in the club yeah all the time yeah there's always talent in the back of the room it's probably the idea that like if she's his driver she gets closer into his like inner circle and like is more protected or has more connections i don't know that's what i imagine like yeah at least he thinks he's offering her but she's like i actually don't

want to really be closer to you because you're scary. Anyway. Yeah. We skipped the part where he peels some people's faces off. Yeah, I did skip that part. That does happen. He peels some people's faces off because they didn't want to like go into business with him. And he's like, oh, really? Then your face is gone. It's another part.

Like it's there's a few scenes in this movie where it's like perfect live action cartoon. And the face peeling scene is one of them. Like they could have so easily gone like dark, broody other Batman worlds that exist on it. And it's just it's so fun. See, I think the face peeling thing is one of there are two scenes in this movie that like are suddenly a little too real. And one of them, think works and i'm sure you guys know what one i'm talking about and the other one is this one where i'm just i think it's so early in the film where i'm just like one who are these people two like we're going straight in

for a face like i have no context for this scene so it's just like really grisly and you see like the limp piece of face being toted off and um but it's not even done in a really over the top way because it's really like face peeling at the end of the day isn't like you know harley quinn doing her jump down on the guy's leg and breaking it like that's like looney tunes cartoon violence like the face peeling is just like oh i i don't know why i like it i like at the end he goes woo you're like oh i guess it's okay oh ewan there's a few separate moments in the movie where he just goes woo and you're just like yeah i guess i guess that's his catchphrase in the movie he says woo a lot because once he goes, Harley Quinn, woo!

I'm like, that's how I feel right now. Yeah, same. So after Black Canary gets promoted to being Roman Sionis' driver, a few days later, he sends her on an errand to pick up the Bertinelli diamond. The trouble is, though, that it gets stolen by that pickpocket, Cassandra Cain. She is played by Ella J. Basco. Then Cassandra gets picked up by the cops right away. So she swallows the diamond so she won't have to turn it over. So we're now back to the present. Harley has been captured and brought to Roman Sionis so that he can kill her because there's all these grievances. One of them is that she voted for Bernie. And he also just hates women. One of my favorite ones

was that she spoils a lot of movies. So he has all these grievances against her. He's generally villainous. Indeed. He's villainous in a very general sense in a way that i'm just like i don't know how i feel about that yeah it's supposed to be like his thing is that he's a narcissist yeah but like that doesn't really come across like he does feel rather vague to me like the only and i was tweeting about this when i watched it like the only reference point for me for like what this kind of character is supposed to be is like um did you guys ever watch the hills yes he's a real like Brent Bolthouse type character I feel like but like dialed up to 11 just a like a a slimy kind of club impresario and property he's a landlord he's he's like a property owner, developer.

So that also added to that. I was like, okay, okay, I get this sort of villain. But it's sort of hard to read at first. Maybe that's why he has to yell woo so much to punctuate his violent acts. Also, he's a supervillain named Black Mask, which is also a very nondescript supervillain name. So vague, yeah. And you never see it

except there's a little cutaway to him putting on said black mask. Then we don't see it again until the very end of the movie. So I was just like, is that like a canonical character in the DC universe? Because that really feels like they were scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as concepts.

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

Like, don't kill me and I'll find this diamond for you. And he's like, okay, you have until midnight to find it. And then Harley Quinn goes to the police precinct where cassandra kane is being held breaks her out and then when harley discovers that cassandra swallowed the diamond they go to a store they buy a bunch of laxatives and they go back to harley quinn's apartment to wait it out and then hey remember the crossbow killer she shows up again her name is actually huntress also helena bertinelli because she's the daughter of the bertinelli crime family who are all murdered and she does not like that roman is after her family's diamond or that's what i thought when i was watching this and then it turns

out she's just trying to find she's trying to kill his like assistant she's got like a kill bill narrative going where she has like a list of however many people involved in a traumatic event that she needs to kill. Yeah. It's his, it's, it's Christmas Sina that she wants to kill. She actually,

I don't think she actually cares about Roman. Cause he was one of the goons who came and killed her family. Right. Victor Zaz. Yeah. Which it didn't fully occur. I think, I mean, the movie does tell you that, but it didn't occur to me until the end

where I'm like, oh, I guess she didn't care about Black Mask. Not really. Because she shows up, she kills Chris Messina, and then is like, okay, I'm done. Right, right. And then Rosie Perez is like, who do you think funded this whole operation it was because roman is trying to do this thing like she ties it all back they're like plot plot plot plot there

there are a few times in the third act where they they have to like stand in a room and be like so this is what's going on and this is our relationship to the plot right now also we're all friends now okay yeah let's start the scene this is why i should care about what's going on and this is why you should care about what's going on like it's just you know reiterating the stakes for everybody this is where i feel rosie perez really shines because she can make some very expository dialogue sound like not that like very urgent and cool yeah i love rosie yeah she's great so huntress shows up she's looking for the bad guys basically and then harley quinn's friend doc sells out her whereabouts and she's very disheartened and she's like oh well if this is the way the world is

i guess i gotta tell roman to come and collect chrisandra she makes this arrangement to meet at amusement mile and everyone goes there it's like this rundown theme park renee montoya black canary and huntress all show up because they've all got business with either harley quinn roman or one of his associates but they all decide to band together and take down Roman and his goons and there's the big fight and it seems like they've won but then Cassandra gets kidnapped so Harley Quinn goes after her there's a big chase then Cassandra plants a grenade on Roman and then Harley Quinn flings him over the railing and he blows into bits and it's a great moment of catharsis and then uh and then huntress gets the diamond back and gets her family fortune

back um then renee black canary and huntress all decide to band together as the birds of prey to fight crime throughout gotham. And then Harley Quinn goes off with Cassandra. She's made Cassandra her like apprentice. And then she drives off into the sunset or whatever time of day it is. The end. The end. So let's take a quick break and then we'll come right back to discuss. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate.

My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti.

And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Sanner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets

the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it like you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody. This is Matt Rogers. And Bowen Yang. We've got some exciting news for you. You know we're always bringing you the best guests, right? Well, this week we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Lost Culture East. That's right. The queen of comedy herself.

Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture. I feel some Sandra Bernhardt in you. Oh, my God. I would love it. I have to watch Lost. Oh, you have to. No, I know.

I'm so behind. Katherine Hanken's thing. Oh, I'm really good at karaoke. And on camera. Yeah, what's your song? Oh, I love a ballad. I felt Bjork's music. I just was like, who is this person?

I got to hawk this slalom, Lugie. Not hawk the slalom. I absolutely love it. It was somehow Shakespearean when you said it. It was somehow gorgeous. Yee, my slok, you hollum. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So where do we want to start with this movie?

I've got some pros. I've got some cons. Where do we want to start? Well, maybe would it make most sense to start by kind of how the Harley Quinn character was depicted previously in Suicide Squad and note those differences. Yeah. And then I've got some notes on comic book canon for the other Birds of Prey. So do you want to kick it off? Yeah. So the Harley Quinn character evolved and is treated differently as a character between Suicide Squad, which came on 2016, was written and directed by characterized by her relationship with a man, the Joker, who she is obsessed with. She wears a jacket that says property of the Joker, you know, things like that. She is surrounded by mostly men. The story is populated by mostly male characters.

We don't really know that much about her. And what we do learn, a lot of what we learn is what other characters say about her. And that's mostly that she is, quote, crazy. And her character is hyper-sexualized in terms of cinematography, wardrobe choices, fight choreography. Like we see the, you know, she wraps her legs

around a man's face and pussy slams him into the ground move happens in Suicide Squad. The classic female in an action movie three kicks and a pussy slam and then get her off screen. Yep so all of that versus some just sort of basic things and then we'll go into far more detail about everything but in birds of prey as the title of the movie suggests which is the fantabulous emancipation of one harley quinn the story is about her being free of a toxic relationship with joker and her kind of like you know emotional goal of the movie is wanting a fresh start she wants to be her own woman she is no longer defined by her relationship to a man

she is surrounded by mostly women and she is no longer the object of the male gaze i would say like the closest thing we get to any type of gaze is harley quinn getting borderline horny as she watches her bacon egg and cheese sandwich being made which is also one of my favorite jokes in the entire movie and then similarly her fight choreography is not sexualized like now she's punching people bashing them with baseball bats throwing them on the ground things like that i liked her use of a mallet yeah i like a good mallet related and a mallet swinging i mean it's just fun it's a great principal weapon to have I think it is yeah hell yeah says a lot about you especially if you're Margot Robbie and you like have the biggest smile in the entire world that you can just like spread across your face as you

swing a mallet around it's just fun like it looks great yeah so those are the main kind of just initial differences. So, I mean, that just goes to show like when a story is being handled by men who really only care about a woman being present in the story to like be hot. And that's basically it the characters treated very differently versus when you have the story in the hands of like women with an agenda like the director the writer uh i watched a few interviews with each of them saying and like i mean producer margot robbie they were all like we want this to be like a feminist like smashing of the patriarchy so just goes to show who's behind the camera can largely influence you know the movie that gets made yeah i think the things that really aside from just the general framing of the character which again haven't seen suicide squad so don't have an exact i have an idea just from having seen trailers of it and stuff and clips um but I think like aside from just how it views her

I think also the way that it can build a sense of danger out of these various scenarios she finds herself in particularly with men like there's a lot of subtlety and like and stuff that I felt like I genuinely hadn't seen before in this kind of film like there's a part where she gets um hit with like a tranquilizer dart or just like a paralyzing dart or something so she's like conscious but she can't move her body and then you know the second that somebody starts to kind of creep on her in that scenario it's like really like your hackles go up as a viewer and you're just like oh this is the worst this would suck um and you know it's still kind of done in this sort of

wackadoo sort of tone but it's able to kind of flip the perspective a little bit with you know stuff like tranquilizer darts and stuff where it's just you you kind of have a new sort of palette to play with when you're looking at it from that perspective as opposed to what we usually see in these films yeah i like i mean there i i did a little bit of research on just like, what is the basic canon of a lot of the women we see in this movie just to say had a sneaking suspicion that maybe some of it had changed. And I like I like the choices that they make to alter some of the backstory to because I think that, you know, because the the comic book world for so long was so male dominated that all of their canonical stories are somehow tied to a man and so like I mean Harley

Quinn we've we've already talked through Dinah Lance was originally a detective's daughter who wants to be like she's someone's daughter and that's why she's involved in the story um huntress's story is pretty much the same where she's the she's an heiress who witnesses the murder of her family um cassandra kane has a very different backstory where she's kind of i mean in this she is like they make vague references to like she is like in the foster care system and she is not being serviced by it very well, which I kind of wish we had like a little more to go off of than like two vague yelling adults in the background. And that stands to get very depressing. But it was like interesting because that is not canonically what who she is at all. She's originally discovered at a martial arts tournament she becomes someone's bodyguard and then she becomes an assassin um so she was very different and she had two

living parents she was like the daughter of like these famous uh married assassins in in the books so i don't know why she also i mean i'm looking at right now she's like also bat girl at one point yeah she becomes bat girl because she's like actually a wayne like she was put into the foster system but it's like uh like related to bruce wayne there's a few different versions of her too which makes it more confusing but in a that was like one of the characters that they strayed really far from i think more for plot reasons than for other reasons but I mean most of the changes were fun and like sir I feel like gives the character more room to do stuff I will say that she's probably my favorite of all of what I think are the birds of prey in this movie just because I one I think she's developed with the most clarity of all the characters and also

I just like feel I feel very represented and very seen when I see like a awkward kind of grumpy teenage Asian girl who like with a permanent like frown that's just like I'm just like oh they made they made a superhero movie where like teenage me got to be like Harley Quinn's apprentice that's cool and like her eternal pink cast too I love so much like yeah I like and and um what's her name Ella oh Ella J Basco yeah she's awesome she's like I can't wait to see her in more stuff. Yeah, she's super, super funny. Yeah. Really, really fun.

Yeah. But yeah, those are the canon changes that are made to the main characters. Yeah, it's, I mean, the relationships that they end up having with each other on screen in this movie, like, I really enjoyed, like, how all those unfolded. They pretty much all have like an arc where they all start out kind of antagonistic because at first like Harley and Renee have like the like criminal versus cop dynamic. So they're like kind of natural enemies. We've got Black Canary being super annoyed by Harley all the time. You've got like Harley kind of joining forces with Cassandra and like saving her at first, but then like being willing to sell her out to save her own skin, but then like

feeling really bad and guilty about that and apologizing and eventually like getting forgiveness. And then like when they converge at the end and they're like, well, all these people are probably going to kill us and we have a better chance if we band together and like fight as a group and everyone's just like well I guess okay fine then yeah I I mean I think a lot of that stuff is great I think probably if I had to boil down my one gripe with this film which is like not to take away from any of these individual performances but I do think that it feels like a little bit of a disservice to trying to do a standalone Harley Quinn movie. To try like instantly try to make it a girl gang movie. Just because I don't think they have enough time.

And I think that some characters I think get really kind of thrown by the wayside. Like I think that you could lift out the entire Huntress story from this film and not really lose anything she doesn't know anybody in the story until the end and she's pursuing a different villain than everyone else yeah yeah and I think like kind of similarly you could it would be less clean but you could also take out the Black Canary part entirely and then just have more like i think you have a really great movie between cassandra harley and renee like you've got the cop who's looking for the the trying to reform herself villain and the girl she has to take under her

wing like that's like a that's like a fun little movie um and you have much more time with all those characters you would get more time for renee and like really build out you know her stuff that's just gestured out about her conditions in in at her workplace and like her history and that she's sort of like you know it's very rare we get to see a kind of grizzled not so virtuous cop that's a woman and i i wish we kind of had more time with that because and also I just love Rosie Perez so I just like wanted more of that as a kind of foil to Harley because they kind of have a lot of crossover like there's a lot that they have in common for sure yeah that's like my biggest like blanket like what I would change about this film because I just I was so happy to get a chance to spend time with this character and then it's like oh but we have to like build a squad then it just feels really busy in the second half

yeah I see that I still I don't mind that they're there though like the huntress and the black canary character um well it does it might like take away real estate that could be used to like further develop some of the other characters I'm just like but they're so fun to look at when they're fighting and stuff i think i i don't mean this as i mean this is just something that i've been thinking about over the last couple days of just like prepping for this episode i feel like because now there have been i think this is the third whatever in the past five years uh female driven superhero movie and there's always like a bunch of to do about like will women succeed at the box office will they finally prove that they deserve to be blah blah blah and this was one of those movies this is the only of those three movies that

did not so exceed expectations that i mean it it just, it, it's frustrating, because this movie didn't do badly, it just didn't make a billion dollars. And so I think a lot of people regarded it as a failure, and most likely a setback for further female driven superhero movies, which is equally frustrating. But I do I i just watching the the setup of this movie i feel like there is a possibility that whatever 10 20 years from now you can sort of look at the way this movie is and it's kind of our this year's or this era's like girl power formula is very much at play in this movie and i like it for the most part. But I do feel like there's like, I wish that there was a little more freedom to do. I mean, like this movie came out a few months after Joker came out,

a movie that I did not like, but a movie where clearly the people that creatively were given free reign to do whatever the fuck they wanted. And in this movie, i feel like you see a few things that when women are appearing on screen together right now you kind of see a lot where they all band together at the end even though they don't all know each other and like they all band together kind of just because that's what women are supposed to do they're all women and they realize they have this in common. Right, right, right. So those like, I really like this movie and I also was trying to like

keep reminding myself it's a fucking cartoon, Jamie. Like everyone bands together at the end of the cartoon. But because there were all these like expectations put on top of it and maybe having like less main characters would be able to contextualize this but I do kind of get like a little like annoyed when it's like oh well of

course they're all going to fight together they're all women and all women are friends with all women and that's how women work enjoy the fight and I do enjoy the fight but there are moments like that that sometimes kind of bug me. Yeah, I think the strongest stuff in it has nothing to do with like, I'm going to do this even though I'm a woman. And it's all like about somebody trying to reform themselves from being a shithead, which is a universal experience that many people can relate to whether they are, no matter what gender they are.

And so I think that's where, like, I think you have a really clean, especially for a cartoon, which I feel like should be broad and should be like easily painted and in very bold strokes. Like, I think that you have a very clean movie if it's just about that,

if you have it be between Harley and Renee. And yeah, I think then, but when it becomes a thing of like getting over a breakup and finding yourself through girlfriends then that's like another thing on top of that which is like I don't in this one I just don't feel like it's set up as much as the other half which is just like maybe this guy was a bad influence on me and I could be like a better person without him I don't know I again yes it's all a cartoon I feel like it's just like you can't you can't take it too and and that's that's the fun of the fight scenes too I think like it's just that it doesn't feel like it's taking itself that seriously while at the same

time doing really really good fight scenes so that's like a virtue all on its own. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, yes, the motivation for all of them to band together at the end is perhaps flimsy at best for each character. You literally have Huntress being like, sure. I guess I'm not doing anything else tonight. Yeah. I mean, they kind of wink at it

yeah yeah so i guess that narratively there could be stronger motivation for all of these characters to have a reason to band together and if we maybe knew a little bit more about them we would understand them wanting to come together to fight together better but at the same time like i don't know i'm just like oh this is like the i think this is the first ever all female superhero ensemble movie. Because like the other superhero ensembles have been, you know, your Avengers, your Guardians of the Galaxies, your Justice Leagues, like your X-Men's, the things that... And their reasons for banding together are always fairly flimsy as well. Often, sure. And, you know, those are movies where men largely outnumber women. So for this to be like a all-female ensemble superhero movie, I don't know.

I just I was like very excited by that. And sure, it's a little flimsy why they all band together and stuff. But I'm just like, oh, but I don't know. I don't know. I think maybe I will cut this movie a little too much slack because I just enjoy watching it but no it's I mean like this is the thing I was talking about the top of the show like I love like the genre is called magical girl like the anime about like girl gangs of superheroes or whatever who all do transformation sequences and have powers

and stuff like that which is always, that's my comic book shit. Like that I kind of uncritically I'm just into and know way too much about. Yeah. And that's like never, it's not that it's that much more like well-defined why these people end up working together in that genre. It's just like, well,

I guess we all have powers and we have to do stuff together. I guess at the end of the day, it would work if I felt like I knew all those characters better like then it's fine like you can you can introduce your central character and then build a squad around them and I feel like that stuff was done with less care than the Harley stuff and like you're saying Emily it's like they all are like shitheads which is part of what I like about them like we've all seen a scene where they're being assholes and so for them to just like drop that all I do yeah it felt like two different things were happening at once like that scene has less to do with their characterization than the fact that this scene

hasn't existed before um on this scale which is, both, both can exist, but it just, it feels like a very roundabout limitation where it's just, I don't know if that room were full of guys. I don't think that there would be that pressure to do that, you know? Right. Yeah. Or feel like you have to stock it that heavily. Like,

like Joker is a pretty sparse film character wise. Like there's not that many people on it. It's like there's not that many people on it's like there there's confidence that Joker on his own is enough for a movie I think that's the thing where it just felt a little bit like Gildy and Lily here it's like no you got a great you got a great lead you got a great actress playing her you got a really fun kinetic director working on it like just be confident in these elements like you got it it's it's ready to be a fun film that just had a little too much in the salad I think and if the superhero

genre were a little more willing to have female standalone movies this movie could be three movies three good movies yeah totally yeah that's the thing it's like yeah that's that's like the other like in meta or like inside baseball thing where it's just like, you get the feeling that they're doing this. Cause like, they're not sure that they're going to get the second Harley Quinn movie where you could actually just have that be the birds of prey movie, like tease it at the end of Harley Quinn and then be like,

oh, and she's going to have this whole squad. You can't wait to meet them. It's going to be so much fun now that we've met this person. And I don't know. Yeah. Which would be great. I mean, I hope they get another one, but but you know we'll see how well this does like how

many people turn to this in in quarantine times I feel like a lot of people will but I hope so it's a great it put me in a great mood it made me yeah no same I was so stoked to watch it and like ate pasta and watched Harley Quinn and I've been eating so many like egg and cheese on toast like sandwiches since re-watching this movie. Does she have bacon on that? She does. I don't have any bacon. I like that we see that. I mean, this is like another granular thing that we talk about all the time.

But like women eat in this movie. Yeah. It's seen. It's known. It's even a plot point that women eat in this movie yeah it's seen it's known it's even a plot point that women eat she just wants that sandwich which is like so satisfying i love it and they're eating like tacos and burritos at the end like yeah oh it's great do they look like they still have to go to the gym 500 hours a week yes it's a movie um but i always appreciate that in

a movie like an action movie where people are doing a lot of like essentially cardio it's a movie. But I always appreciate that in a movie, like an action movie, where people are doing a lot of like essentially cardio. It's like, I've got to refuel. They need protein. We got to take another quick break, but we'll come right back. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now.

The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app,

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some exciting news for you. You know, we're always bringing you the best guests, right? Well, this week we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Lost Culture East. That's right, the queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture. I feel some Sandra Bernhard in you. Oh my God, I would love it. I have to watch Lost.

Oh, you have to. No, I know. I'm so behind. Katherine Hanken's thing. Oh, I'm really good at karaoke. What's your song? Yeah, what's your song? Oh, I love a ballad.

I felt Bjork's music. I just was like, who is this person? I got to hawk this slalom, Ludi. Not hawk the slalom. I absolutely love it. It was somehow Shakespearean when you said it. It was somehow gorgeous. Yee, my slok, you hollum.

Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. And speaking of cardio and going to the gym and stuff like that. I could feel it. I could feel this coming. I want to talk about the fight scenes. Yeah. So a lot of discussion has been had

about one particular small moment in one of the scenes when harley quinn gives a hair tie to black canary is it's just like a oh i see that you're struggling because your long hair is flying all around while you're kicking ass would you like a hair tie and black canary's like yep thank you and like this was such a real moment for so many people because never before has this really happened in a movie where like women are participating in the action scenes in most cases like their hair is just like flying around it's like when wonder woman's walking through world war one and she's just like flying around yes perfectly not just flying into her mouth like it was yeah so um i i too appreciate that a lot of people there's already again a lot of discussion about

this tiny moment but um i was like oh my gosh and i watched an interview with the screenwriter and she explained like the origins of that where her sister she and her sister would yeah just like watch movies together and see that like women would never pull up their hair for any reason and she's like yeah anytime i like eat a meal i pull up my hair so that my hair doesn't get in my food or if i have to like move around i pull up my hair and it's like yeah that's what usually happens so yeah just appreciated that no it's great and the action scenes i mean the action scenes in this movie are they're long they're not like the few quick like i think that there's like three extended action sequences like one is harley by herself and then

there's the big climactic fight at the end but we get to see her fight a lot and she feels well and she fights it's like i feel like a good balance of action movie fighting and like cartoony fighting well it's like very martial arts movie and it's like people get hurt too which is why you want to watch it like it's not like these marvel movies where you're just like nobody's fucking gonna get hurt these people can't even get bruised like like bones are broken and stuff in this and you kind and you know that and it feels I'm sure that a lot of it is augmented by effects and stuff like that but it doesn't feel overly done over so you do feel like you're watching people doing stunts and coming in contact with each other's bodies so you just want

to watch it for that which is like I always like check my phone if I'm watching a Marvel movie at home and it goes to the action sequence because it's like what is there to watch like there's nothing to watch here um I know a lot of money and time goes to that and I um you know support all the people who work in VFX but uh yeah those sequences are so disposable in almost every single one of those movies true and this did not feel like that it was great I mean just i mean even starting with harley quinn breaking that guy's leg at the beginning you're just like oh it's it's oh it's exciting great move and i feel like that like sets the tone for yeah the way that violence is in the movie in a way that like i don't know i love that leg

because then it's like not only does she break his leg but then he's like you broke my fucking leg like it's just like they like a hang on it yeah yeah it's it's not it's not like he then hobbles off or dies instantly it's just like what it's just a very it's a good reaction and she breaks his leg because he calls her a dumb slut and she's like oh really is that what you think and then she breaks his leg and then she's like i have a phd bitch like yeah i love how often she reminds everybody that she has a phd it's so great which is a good time for me to mention something that i don't like to bring up but i do have a master's degree in screenwriting from boston university yeah yeah you should break someone's leg over it i will no i won't next time anybody

questions your credentials it's leg breaking time yeah i found that very satisfying like that just all of the fighting i mean it just was like a really good movie fight the the evidence room i have two favorites i love the evidence actually i like them all whatever i don't know i'm saying this but i do the evidence room fight is great if only for the part where they shoot up the giant bag of cocaine and then she suddenly gets cocaine superpowers this is also something that would never happen in a marvel movie and it's like it's like sure it's like edgelordy type shit or whatever but it's also just like funny it's just it's just it feels like something from like an 80s action movie which tend to be a lot more coke fueled anyway both on screen and off

do we know why black canary is a really good fighter that was like this is again me questioning a cartoon but i think i could identify why every woman in the birds of prey averse was a good fighter except for black canary who i truly don't understand why she is i guess she just is she like grew up in a rough neighborhood that's like kind of right i'm like that's like i guess that that's like cartoon i don't know yeah don't know. She was the one character that I wish that you just got more with Black Canary in general because I mean, Emily, you were referencing this earlier

that I'm glad she's there and you feel like there's a lot of good character stuff in there, but you don't really get to find out that much about her. I don't know why she's a good fighter. I don't know why she, I don't exactly know why she's a good fighter i don't know why she like i don't exactly know why she is just accepting this new job right lying down other than that she's scared of him or why

she's working for him in the first place right yeah yeah i don't know i mean when rosie prez like comes to her with like hey i had an arrangement with the other driver and she's like you know you're working for this really awful guy she like defends roman and says like well he took me off the streets and protects me and stuff like that but i think like she is probably beholden to him much more than she would like to be he like treats her like property he treats her like his little pet it's like really how he views her is very creepy i just wish i knew what it was like i wish and i think that that also speaks to like my i don't know i know it's a cartoon you guys i just like some of my

some of the vagueness of black mask's villainy i feel like maybe that's a cast-off problem of that too of like he's just a mean guy yeah he just is nice to nobody i mean and i think the one black mask moment that i didn't i felt like i didn't need i didn't mind the face peeling but what i didn't i don't think that i was like totally necessary was that scene where he makes a woman take her clothes off at the club and like is really leering at her in this way that i didn't feel like was really necessary i feel like was really necessary. I feel like it was like kind of hitting you over the head with the fact that it's like he's misogynist. It's like, yeah, we know.

Like, yeah, we know. Why do we need to see this scene of him doing that? And it reminded me of an equally uncomfortable and useless scene in Bombshell. Well, OK, so director Kathy Yan fought for this scene to stay in the movie because there are cuts of it where they did take that scene out but she fought for it to be there because and i have a quote here from her she says quote i think it's a huge turning point for roman it's a huge turning point for canary and the way that we shot it was hopefully not about the sexual violence upon the woman it was more about roman what he's capable of and canary and the way that we shot it was hopefully not about the sexual violence upon

the woman it was more about roman what he's capable of and canary seeing him for who he really is for the first time now she can fully cut herself off from him and i thought it was a really important scene so we fought for it end quote and in that scene you do see Canary realizing just how awful he is. And you can see the gears working in her mind of like, oh, my God, I have to get out of this situation. I need to distance myself from this scary, scary man. But I see what you mean, Jamie. It's her it's her movie I mean I think that the scene is I think that the scene is just technically well done as as far as like making you feel uncomfortable which I think you should

and I think she's right like it's not about the sexualization of the woman it's about like what it feels like to be in the presence of this like terrible dude yes it's been very underlined at that point I do think the scene makes more sense in a movie where you have more time to track black canary and her relationship to roman and get that there's something that needs to be accomplished there where she is on the fence about like well he's a bad guy but he pays me or whatever like you know that she's sort of making excuses for him and this is the moment where she realizes she can't make excuses for him which it sounds like that's what Kathy Ann was trying to do with it I think that there's just not enough runway for that at this point but I do think like you

could keep the scene exactly the same if you built up to it more and I think it would be really effective the way the way it appears in the movie didn't feel earned to me and I just I don't know I'm also just i mean we've talked about this in past episodes too i'm just generally like i think sensitive and like annoyed by like do we really need a a scene where uh another woman is like humiliated in order to better characterize a male villain i just like yeah i don't think it's always, I don't know. Small gripe, but that didn't work for me in this one. Sure.

I wanted to go back to the fighting scenes a little bit more to sing some more praises, more or less. Much like Canary sings. Anyway, okay. For reasons we don't know can break glass with her voice but then passes out that's like yeah i feel like that needed to also be set up better yeah i don't know i mean that she has to have the fighting skills because then otherwise she would have one move per fight like oh and i'm done um yeah um anyway so but things i did like was that we see women using real weapons and not kitchen appliances we talk all the time about how if women are allowed to fight in movies like they're usually using frying pans and stuff but we we see crossbows we see guns

we see a hand a mallet um a baseball bat things like that we've also talked in various episodes about like the tendency for movies to not allow men and women to fight each other it's usually like the one woman in the good guy gang is made to fight the one woman in the bad guy gang and they almost like launch her out of the bad guy gang to be like okay we know you've only seen this character twice before but here's why we have her so that she can fight the one good lady exactly yeah right um and like i don't know maybe this is the idea of like, we don't want to show a man being violent toward a woman or probably more likely it's the idea that we don't see women as being equal, like an equal fighting opponent to a quote stronger man so she can fight the woman who is on her level. Like, I think that's what the filmmakers who have made like fight scenes like this. That's probably what they're thinking.

Which I am way more insulted by the thing where you can't show, or you don't want to see a man in a fight with a woman. Not so much about her ability to win the fight, but just the idea that we're going to deny that there is ever violence done against women by men. Like it just doesn't happen. So you can't see it. And I think that so much of this movie is about like,

no, these men are violent towards women all the time. That's why this world sucks that she lives in. Like, yeah, it's very Frank in its cartoony way about that, which I appreciate. Yeah.

Yeah. Those moments are more, I mean, those moments where like black mask like is physically violent towards harley were more effective for me than the uh humiliation of a random woman like that is like it's personal it's like you're like oh even if i enjoyed the woo i'd fuck this guy yeah yeah yeah what if he said woo in her face, though, while he was, like, choking her out?

I'd be like, I don't know how to feel. But, yeah, I mean, I like that this movie, there's a big departure from that idea in that you see women fighting men pretty much constantly. And men not questioning themselves before, like, being violent towards a woman, which is just reflective. Yeah.

I also enjoy that women are never saved by a man in this movie. If they are saved by someone, like that scene where Black Canary saves Harley Quinn from being assaulted by that guy after a long night of drinking women are saving each other or just like fending off their own attackers by themselves and I like that they're like they're with Harley's character and part of why like Harley is of I think such like a fun

character to get her almost her own movie I guess is that like she is an asshole and like she betrays other people in the story and then has to like dial back and be like oh wait no like i really like you would never get that with any marvel like they're just too morally superior to to ever make a mistake yeah and ever like wrong someone and I like that there are like conflicts between it works for me best with Cassandra Harley and Renee but like you know there's conflicts between the women for like the the better part of the story and they make sense and you get to see them kind of like have to resolve it um yeah you don't get that a lot oh and going back to the thing about them never being saved by a man i mean they don't

need to introduce a single good man in this movie like suitable candidate there's nobody like there who would do it uh which is sort of i think that's one thing that feels one of the things that you kind of aren't even thinking about at first until maybe like you start to get into the climactic fight scenes where you're just like oh yeah we've gotten this whole time and there's no male hero which is kind of like just because you're watching this sort of movie it feels like a little bit of a vacuum but then you're like no this is fine it works great and not even really like guy that gets it which i feel like is like a looming character in the back of and like maybe make one rest yeah yeah exactly like there's no there's no male feminist t-shirt guy character um which is great there's an i mean there's more than enough female characters to fill that role.

Yeah. A couple last things about things as they relate to fighting. I like that we do not see Cassandra Cain fight in the big sequence at the end because she's like a child. And I think a very lazy tropey choice that we've seen before is like the precocious 12 year old who's really smart and good at everything but she still gets like a kill in at the end and like she's not totally excluded from the action too just like i was happy about that is my least favorite trope like currently i think is the young fighting machine little girl like going back to the professional and shit like I hate it um I find it really gross I can't like and it's like I feel like that I don't know that like fucks with your kid brain too and you see stuff like that when you're a kid you're like oh I should fight adults like no please don't fight adults yeah yeah it's this way to like I don't know I I found like Logan

to be the most egregious one recently even though like i think that that that kid is cool like the actress who plays her and everything is like cool and does a good job but it's just like you can't have a like a woman in this story so you're gonna have like a little girl who doesn't talk but like just does egregious violence on people it just feels so weird and stunted and strange like yeah that it keeps happening it's so annoying yeah is it the movie kick-ass where there's like a little girl too who's like just like tearing people apart it's chloe grace smurats it was like her and entree and to showbiz speaking of things i'm exhausted but I totally agree with you about Cassandra and I like

that the story doesn't just sideline her entirely she gets this like big win at the end of the fight sequence and it's been nicely set up to where like she uses her pickpocket skills to like plant the thing on him and then pulls out

the pin of the grenade and then oh the scene where he like blows into like a bazillion different bits as he's like falling into the water i was like he turns into human confetti yeah oh wow what a motif confetti that chase is also so fun that leads up to that with her on the roller skates very very fun wanted to do it so good with me there i also the the outfits in this movie i thought like that yeah it would it would have been so easy to fuck up the costuming of this movie but it's still like it still feels like it's taking place in the harley world, but it isn't exploitative. Everyone's outfit is very well thought out.

It's not, I don't know. It would have been so easy to fuck it up, and they didn't. I mean, her caution tape fringe coat that she wears towards the beginning, it's so hot topic. It's literally, this whole movie is hot topic merch based. I mean that as a compliment, but this whole movie is hot topic merch base i mean that as a compliment but this whole movie is hot topic yeah this is this is one movie that like i know will not get

a costuming nomination but should because every outfit that she wears is just like i want it black canaries outfits too like everyone uh it's so good it's all yeah um the last thing i want to say about the like the last fighting related thing i want to say is at the end of the movie when they're like having their like morning margaritas they're like all bunged up you see them with like scrapes and injuries and i feel like women even in action movies are not allowed to like sustain injuries and like have their perfect flawless skin be all messed up. And you see them with all these scrapes. Unless it's motivation for somebody to avenge them.

Right. Unless she's fridged. You get a cut on your face and it's like, who did this to you? I must go murder them. I will destroy them. Totally. Right.

But again, movie doesn't do anything like that yeah yeah all that is like handled super well another thing that i i liked of the the way this movie goes with it um is the harley breakup where again i think like a lesser movie would have really let that take over the movie and let it take over her character but i feel like it's handled in a really like it's not ignored which and and you see she's getting out of this like the most toxic relationship of all time literally literally i i like that she doesn't handle it well that felt like a nod to reality getting out of a toxic relationship is fucking horrible and i like that she acts out you know like she gets a shitty haircut she gets a pet

she does like all the things that you do when you're getting out of a and and then you do this big cathartic like i just i liked that she went through that process that felt like closer to reality than a lot of things that happened in the movie and then you kind of get to just have her have her story and the focus is not like i need to get over this guy which a lesser movie could have done and i think that like honestly if you had most male screenwriters on this story where they would have lingered too long but i like that it's i like how it's handled and i like how you're kind of like okay and we're moving on yeah and all before the opening credits like yeah or the title card at least like the plant blows up and then you have the birds of prey title card

and you've basically run through the whole breakup getting over I mean like obviously like she has to figure out a purpose in life and everything like that's what the rest of it is about but it isn't about her pining after him or you know feeling weird about it or something like she's never like looking back on the breakup or anything right and I like that she's not looking back like and I like that the movie doesn't look back at her canon too hard because it's like her canon is sexist it's like she couldn't like this woman with a phd like you know just met a guy and then abandoned her entire life like it's yeah i like that they they just take the essence of who this character is and then they just like run with it in a completely different direction i will say though i mean women with PhDs can can ruin their lives over men too like true I mean I don't

have a PhD I'm not speaking from experience but I'm just saying it is not the domain of non-PhD holding women for sure well I mean that kind of brings me to another point of something I really like about this movie is women being allowed to be antiheroes. And like, so it's like an R rated movie, we see pretty graphic violence, we see women doing things that, you know, polite society would consider to be unladylike. But there are all these like women who are rough around the edges. They partake in very morally questionable activities. And I really enjoy seeing that because so often women are held to this standard of like, you have to be perfect. You can't misbehave. Like you can't be unladylike. But we see women swearing, stealing, fighting, killing people, people drinking like the scene where harlequin sort of

does cocaine like all this stuff i really and i'm not like necessarily condoning these activities in real life oh no it sounds like you are it sounds like you're telling everybody cocaine actually please everyone go out and pickpocket and do cocaine and break people's legs please and thank you you should shoplift and smoke weed like it's actually like politically good that's actually kind of you should not pay back your student loans yeah and you should not pay your medical bills i also love that one offline where harley is like and that's why you don't pay federal or state income taxes there's so many good like i like that she's like low-key and anarchist yes like but she did go out to vote for bernie so you know feeling seen i love the image

of her like standing in line at the bulls like i just i want to see that yeah also like where so this actually like they're always able to kind of skirt around it a little bit but like where is gotham then in the united states of america if she voted in a primary for bernie that's true oh wow yeah they're they canonically put gotham in america okay within the united states in the last five years yeah so well that's another thing that i i about, and this is the only other comparison I will make of this movie to the only other two recent female superhero movies. But I feel like a strength of this movie is, as opposed to Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman, Harley Quinn lives in this world. She understands it. someone to hold her hand and be like, this is this and this is this and this is this, which to varying extents happens in Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel, where Captain Marvel is out of time. Wonder Woman is out of place and they have to be guided through this world. Whereas

like this is Harley's turf. Like she doesn't need to be told what anything is. Yeah. Yeah. I, I really appreciate that. Like, I think, think I don't know there are things to like about Wonder Woman a couple of things and I I do think that there is space for one of these sorts of movies where it is just about like a radical optimist like winning out which is basically what that movie is but I also appreciate that this movie is basically the inverse of that or it's just like what if a piece of shit could be a superhero instead of like what if the purest person on in the world could be because like that's also that's not just a woman thing and in superhero movies that's like all like i don't even know i can't think of another superhero male or female who like gets drunk um in any of these movies movies Hancock oh Hancock good pull I stand corrected yeah no I don't know if I actually

saw Hancock but he isn't the whole idea with him is like he's he's like not a good guy but he's also a superhero yeah he's like down on his luck or something like he he's like a failed superhero but he still has his powers so yeah that's true okay well yeah that's Hancock erasure Emily well I was gonna say that that that Suicide Squad they surely some of those you know bad characters must get up to some sort of morally questionable activities like yeah they're forced into a situation where they all have to be good guys like fighting for a greater cause but they're all deep down bad guys you mean like some kind of suicide squad that's all that i know about suicide squad is that will smith says you mean like some kind of suicide squad indeed says the

name of the movie in a very corny on the nose line of dialogue in the movie, correct. Woo-hoo! Great. Oh, and the one other thing, I think my last thing that I liked plot-wise, as much as I was kind of like eye-rolly at the team-up scene right before the amazing fight sequence, I like that they don't automatically all remain best friends after, that they have that scene

where they give each other their due due and then you see them split off in a way that feels more logical based on what we know about the characters right like it makes sense that cassandra is going to stay with harley and that they're going to be a team and it also makes a lot of sense that harley doesn't want to be a part of the birds of prey and that she thinks it's kind of she's like those fucking dorky do-gooders i like that yeah how it feels on brand yeah but there's you know mutual respect and shit like that like i thought that was like a cool yeah they don't have to all move into a loft together or something exactly yeah sort of sitcom um i have a list of just a few kind of random things that i really enjoyed um the soundtrack i love the soundtrack and i think mostly if not all female artists on the soundtrack i believe so yeah the pretty diverse cast in terms of of the five main female characters three of them are women of color it's a woman

of color who directed this movie kathy ann the writer of the movie is a woman named christina hodgson she is mixed so we have you know the voices of women of color bumblebee yes and i i didn't know that at first and then i found out she had also written bumblebee like what a fun and i was like oh that's why i didn't hate bumblebee like that's why i thought it was sort of because i went in being like oh this is a transformers movie i'm gonna it's gonna be bad but then i was like oh wait a minute i actually liked this and i was like oh that makes sense because like a good screenwriter writes fun movies yeah uh i really like it when harley quinn psychoanalyzes people and like uses her like psychiatrist background i just like those moments where you know she's using her degree

baby um ali wong is in the movie she's great love a good comedian and a bit part i know there is a moment in the movie where roman is talking to harley quinn and he says if you want mercy shut that hole in the middle of your face which is not titanic i know the crew member on the titanic's like there'll be one less on this boat if you don't shut that hole in your face and kathy bates is like, she said that to Kathy Bates. I had that note as well. That's so funny. I've seen Titanic many times

and I did not make that poll. That's hilarious. Anything that is even dialogue adjacent to Titanic, we notice. There's another titanic similarity with um like the diamond being used as a like quasi macguffin oh yeah it's like when it's like okay so when the map is in the diamond and the diamonds in the kid it's like when he put the diamond in the coat on her i put the diamond in the kid i put the map in the diamond i put the diamond in the kid. I put the map in the diamond.

I put the diamond in the kid. Just imagine Billy Zane performing that. Incredible. That's very good. Someone should let Billy Zane be in a superhero movie again. I will say one other, like, another just general thing that I like about this movie, which might be, controversial but I think that especially during this last the last fight sequence especially I kind of sense like oh this didn't have a very big budget compared to most of these things and it's true like it I think it was like uh it was under a hundred I was I think 80

81 or 82 million dollar budget yeah the the wonder woman budget was considered low for a superhero movie and that was like 125 i want to say so it is like they do lowball these um these first standalone female superhero movies i think like in a very sexist way like they give them a lot less money than a similar film featuring a male superhero would. But I personally like the embrace of being a lower budget film. Like through like all the action sequence stuff like we were talking about being a much more kind of chop-socky martial arts Jackie Chan-esque kind of film just felt very appropriate for it. And I like that embrace of I don't even I wouldn't. And I like that embrace of, I don't even, I wouldn't even call it like an embrace of a limitation because I think it's just like figuring out what kind of movie can work at that level and not

trying to stretch it. Like really feeling at home at that budget level and recognizing like what is required by the story. And I actually like that a lot. Like next time out, I hope that she gets more money. She being Kathy Ann, if she comes back to direct it and the character of Harley Quinn but uh but in general I thought that's another thing that felt really refreshing about it to me I don't know yeah for sure does anyone have any other thoughts I well now now because I didn't realize that

Cassandra Cain was going to be Batgirl but like I really hope that that happens now I kind of like that was after I read the canon I'm like I hope that this canon becomes relevant in future movies right we find out who maybe her birth parents were or I don't know I mean if they're doing like a like a Marvel-esque like phase one phase two or whatever like in maybe 10 years down the road we have we'll see I guess we'll see if a marvel-esque like phase one phase two or whatever like in maybe 10 years down the road we have we'll see i guess we'll see if a female-led franchise will ever be allowed multiple phases uh yeah true i don't know we have to have grumpy asian bat girl though come on for the people i need it so badly

sign me up well kathy yen has already said in an interview that she does want to direct a sequel she wants to do it and she wants to explore Harley's relationship with Poison Ivy in the next movie so I guess that we would see her and Cassandra driving on to the next adventure which I wonder I kind of wonder if there is a future for this franchise and i hope there is like how will the birds of prey still be there will they just get their own separate movie which i feel like is maybe a smarter move i don't know well i hope that we get to find out if you look on imdb at the time of this recording for margot robbie's upcoming projects as an actor. She produced the movie too, I forgot to say that.

Yes, she produced it. She's like, as far as like stars who are also producers, I think she's like doing a bang up job as a producer recently. Like she uses her power very well, I think. Definitely. And this movie wouldn't have even happened if it weren't for her going to the studio

and being like, want a harley quinn movie i want it to be r-rated and i want it to be like a girl group movie like an ensemble female-led narrative so like it was she was like instrumental in this movie even existing and then you know the writer was brought on and then kathy ann was hired so like it's all thanks to margot robbie that this movie even exists yeah but here's something that might be disappointing or it might not even be real but at the time of this recording if you go on to imdb in her like announced projects upcoming projects there is an untitled joker slash harley quinn project so if they put her back together with joker i know it's just rumored it might not be

real or might this might just be like the harley quinn project that will be like a direct sequel to birds of prey hard to say but if they do have it be like a weird like romantic story with joker i'm just like but then there's also um gotham city sirens that has been announced where she's listed as Harley Quinn in that as well. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah. So there's like she's got two things where she's listed as Harley Quinn that have just been announced. Of those two, I would much prefer Gotham City Sirens. Let's see who is attached to it.

Mostly I am excited to see um margot robbie as barbie and that is something that i am genuinely thrilled about because greta gerwig is going to direct a barbie movie that's fine by me all right everybody thing i didn't know i needed i hope she doesn't well you know it could be something that's very easy to fuck up as well. We'll see. Okay. Gotham City Sirens is listed as following three of Gotham City's most notorious female

criminals on one of their most dangerous missions yet. Star Margot Robbie, director James Gunn, writer. Oh, Geneva Robertson-Douon duaret who wrote um captain marvel interesting um yeah does anyone have anything else they want to say about birds of prey i don't think so i was i was very happy to to watch it in quarantine just great great activity highly recommend it it's a great quarantine movie let's figure out if the movie passes the well first the bird the bird duel test i don't know why i'm bringing this bit back as far as i can tell it doesn't pass the bird test i don't know no birds i'm hoping that our mentions are

flooded and there's a bird we forgot and then if it passed i mean what a miracle would be what about the egg and the sandwich that was a future bird that never that didn't get to be a bird okay you know what it passes let's cut our losses it passes because life begins before conception in the case of an egg sandwich okay we're pro-life this is a pro-life podcast it only passes the bird test if you're pro-life right but like super pro-life like kind of cosmically pro-life like where every ovum is a future a baby like purchasing a billboard pro-life oh my gosh anywho does it pass the bechdel test yes lots a lot of times over many different combinations of characters as well which is also kind of like for something that starts off as a breakup movie very like it's a cool trick to pull that like really it stops being like as we

were saying stops being about that pretty fast yeah it's about her emancipation from it so as far as our nipple scale goes zero to five nipples based on its representation of women i would honestly maybe this is too generous but i would give this like a 4.5 out of 5 uh you get to see women who aren't perfect i feel like that's a trope that gets used too much when people don't really know how to write female characters they just write them to be these perfect flawless specimens um but you know the characters we see in this movie they are flawed like you know real people are which makes them feel more realistic, despite this movie being very cartoony. A few characters are identifiably queer, Harley Quinn and Renee Montoya and Ali Wong's character.

But it's not the only thing we know about those characters, especially for Harley Quinn and Renee. In fact, maybe we could stand to learn more about their queer identities. But either way, to me, it felt like their queerness was pretty normalized by the narrative rather than, you know, a big to-do being made about it. So I enjoyed that aspect of their kind of backstory and character development. Also, the fact that you have a lot of diversity on screen and behind the camera is great. I think that this movie, it came in with an agenda to like be a feminist text. And I think it does a really good job in subverting a lot of tropes and just letting us see like cool kick ass women be awesome and beat the shit out of and or kill a bunch of really horrible men so there's

for me a lot to love so yeah i'll give it 4.5 out of 5 and um i'll kind of disperse that evenly between the five main female characters harley quinn cassandra kane Black Canary, Renee Montoya, and The Huntress. I'm going to go, whenever I get into like fourths, you're just like, what are you doing? I guess I'm going to give it 4.25. Maybe four. I don't know. Four feels too, I don't know. Okay.

The point is that that's what they need for to update our wikipedia page but whatever but but I I think that this movie I mean it is by far my I think my favorite female driven superhero movie of this new generation of them that I'm seeing and I think that I mean just for listeners so you're not including Cat Woman I'm not no that's I think that that is feminist text Cat Woman starring an absolutely feminist type I mean I I really really like this movie a lot um there's so much to love about it uh my gripes are very specific and little I do think that there is just like there are too many characters to the point where we don't get to know characters that we should know. And

I think that that very likely has to do with the way that people and by people, I mean, people who fund movies regard, you know, they just get insecure about just letting a woman lead a movie. Because if she does get to lead a movie, she needs a man to hold her hand through the world and if she doesn't need someone to hold her hand then they just kind of like overloaded it with too many characters this would have been three amazing movies but it is one movie that I really like um yeah I don't know I just I think it's the best I love love, I love Cassandra Cain. I want to see more of her. I want to see more of her cast.

I want to know more about her. Give her two broken arms next time. Two casts. How'd she break that arm? Uh, I like, I would love if just like the, the cast is just like a fixture of her. It's never addressed and she just always has a broken arm. Um, but yeah, I, I like Margot Robbie is, uh arm um but yeah i like margot robbie's i just i like margot robbie i like this take on harley quinn where it acknowledges her past but it doesn't

define her bio which is such a common frustrating mistake so and and also yeah the fact that like women made this movie and women made this movie happen is the best. So I'll give it a 4.25. And I'll give them all to Rosie Perez. Do with them what she may. Her whole backstory is that like her former partner slash current captain at her precinct keeps stealing credit for like cases she solved. And then she's just like, fuck you fuck you dude and then she goes off and becomes a bird of prey yeah she gets to quit her job because now mary elizabeth winstead is just

like bankrolling the operations and now she probably makes a six-figure salary and it's like really chilling yeah emily what about you um i know, I was just thinking about, I was having the same thought process about the four versus four and a half because four does feel low. But for the same reason that you said, Jamie, like I do think it eludes getting a five just because of its busyness. I think it could do better justice to fewer characters.

But yeah, I think because of the origins of it, I think it, and the fact that it is so driven by women's perspectives. I'll echo the 4.25, I'm copying you. Yeah, which is great. Like that's, I mean, I don't think that the other one, the other female superhero movies that I've seen would come close to that. Maybe like a three at best.

I really haven't cared for any of them that have come out so far. I'm kind of interested. Caitlin, I almost want to revisit Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel at some later time. I think we scored them pretty high, but at least for Wonder woman especially like that was i wouldn't score wonder woman what i did yeah we did that quite some time ago and i think we would um you know maybe it's worth a revisit we grew up right yeah we got smarter we did the podcast for a few more years and we knew more stuff but i mean considering that we give most most movies that we cover on the podcast don't get higher than like an average of two nipples.

Like most movies we give one or zero. So the fact that this gets like four or above is pretty spectacular. Yeah, I think I mean, when I'm thinking about those other films, too, it's like it's about them becoming a part of like a military or somewhat military organization and that's the victory for them. Right. Like, like women can fight in World War I too, like a horrible war that I have very little interest in.

But 1917 is a great film. George Mackay is strutting his cute little butt through that war. I didn't see 1917 i just can't i am allergic obsessed with it i gotta see george mckay's butt in that war it's just just the butt um but yeah yeah but in general like i i did also appreciate that this film, you know, if it is going to be a girl power, female centric superhero movie, it's not about like being a part of a military or the cops. Like it's kind of about anarchy, which feels fun. Oh, yeah. Well, Emily, thank you so much for joining us and being here with us today. What would you like to plug how can people follow you etc um you can listen to the podcast that i co-host with tess lynch and molly

lambert it's called night call it's on this here podcast network and it comes out every monday you can also find me on twitter at emily yoshida where i do still regretfully make tweets every now and again that is it right now yeah awesome yes listen to night call uh and you can follow us on social media you can go to our patreon aka matreon if you're running out of main feed episodes in in the quarantine and you need some which many the matron's a great place for you it's patreon.com slash pectocast and it gets you two bonus episodes a month you'll have access to the entire backlog which is over 60 episodes yeah so check that out check out our t do we say t public t public uh dot com slash the bechtel cast if you want to wear bechtel cast stuff in quarantine and yeah we uh we love you so much yes thanks for listening

stay safe out there stay safe and be well and and don't do cocaine don't unless you want to your body or choice endorse cocaine for the last time. All right, bye. Bye. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption

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