What Harley Quinn Means to Me

I didn’t feel the need to write this until I saw a wave of posts on Twitter last week that demand something along the lines of Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn being queer. Even before Margot Robbie would join the family of actors to depict the character, I notice Harley fans become territorial about who should play her. Whenever I would jump in these threads to remind people that there exists a two going on three-season series clearly depicting Harley as bi, it would still fall on deaf ears sometimes under the cry for Margot to be given a similar storyline despite nothing being wrong with Kaley Cuoco’s performance. Maybe they also think animation isn’t to be taken seriously? Idk, I’m just gonna go off…

People forget that Harley Quinn was a character created specifically for Batman, the Animated Series played by Arleen Sorkin. At the time, the character’s primary purpose was to put on display how much of a piece of shit the Joker is. That was the song that DC chose to sing with that character for a long time. They would experiment with other stories to tell through that character, but none of them really were as regarded as being the Joker’s punching bag.

We’re in 2021, and shit’s changed. With that, about a dozen women have lent their voice to Harley Quinn, but we, the general public, decided to narrow that in on Margot Robbie. I want to point out that the last person that the internet appointed as the only person fit to play Harley was Tara Strong. Not to be mistaken, with me enjoying her performance in the Arkham games, I find it more important to talk about what Harley Quinn means more than who plays her.

In this regard, Harley has evolved into an equally extreme and fun character by comparison to the one she’s taken over two decades of abuse from. What I’m saying is that Margot Robbie’s Harley was given the best direction/performance, but Kaley Cuoco’s Harley was given the best writing. Apart from fan art and the play safe nods in comics, Harley Quinn was not openly bisexual, and that being the main driver for that character until the DC animated series launched in 2019.

I don’t feel that people understand that for a comic book movie to happen, you need the comic book first, and DC recently published the first installment of the ‘Eat. Bang. Kill. Tour’ series. Everything you need to know about what I’m talking about is on the front f%*king cover and in the name. It isn’t hidden in a panel. It isn’t implied. It’s put out in full display, which to me was the most that DC (or any giant company, to my knowledge) has done to give the people what they want. Everyone forgot that when that one executive said, ‘superheroes don’t do that in regards to Batman going down on Catwoman, that spurred from an interview concerning the animated series.

If you think there’s nothing queer about Margot Robbie singing a song with the lyric, “Won’t some sweet mama come and take a chance with me?” then you’re just looking for things to be mad about. As I write this, Dick Grayson was just announced to be written as bi in a recent comic storyline that DC is doing. Not to mention when brought up in their Playboy interview, Grant Morrison told us, “Batman is very, very gay.” Y’all seen the 60s series, right? Lol, that company has/is doing much more for queerness than Twitter is giving credit for, but that’s okay because I know they’re gonna keep it going 😉