Movie

Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn

Name: Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn
Released: 2020

2020 • Action, Comedy, Crime

Woke Score

out of 10

Plot

A twisted tale told by Harley Quinn herself, when Gotham's most nefariously narcissistic villain, Roman Sionis, and his zealous right-hand, Zsasz, put a target on a young girl named Cass, the city is turned upside down looking for her. Harley, Huntress, Black Canary and Renee Montoya's paths collide, and the unlikely foursome have no choice but to team up to take Roman down.

Overall Series Review

The film positions itself as a chaotic, hyper-stylized action narrative centered on Harley Quinn's liberation from the shadow of her former male partner, the Joker. The central conflict is essentially framed as a collection of diverse, anti-heroic women uniting for survival against a corrupt male power structure. Every member of the core female team—Harley Quinn, Black Canary, Huntress, and Renee Montoya—is defined by her struggle with or against a toxic man or a male-dominated institution. The primary antagonists, Black Mask and Zsasz, are depicted as purely narcissistic, misogynistic, and physically abusive white males whose incompetence is only masked by their brutality. The narrative heavily promotes themes of female solidarity and empowerment, often directly correlating male power with corruption, misogyny, and cruelty. The world of Gotham is portrayed as one where all traditional institutions, particularly the police and high society, are rotten, leading the characters to find their own moral compass in anarchy and self-interest. Multiple characters are explicitly established as queer, further cementing the film's progressive leanings.

Categorical Breakdown

Identity Politics9/10

The core team is composed of women from different races and sexual orientations: an unstable white anti-hero, a Black meta-human, a Latina lesbian cop, an East-Asian pickpocket, and a white vigilante with a wealthy family background. The villains, Black Mask and Victor Zsasz, are two white males who embody sadism, narcissism, and rampant misogyny. The police institution itself is depicted as failing the Latina female detective. This frames the conflict as an intersectional group of women fighting a system run by uniquely vile white men.

Oikophobia8/10

The film explicitly deconstructs and demonizes traditional Western structures. The main antagonist, Roman Sionis (Black Mask), directly rejects his family, calling it a 'f-cking illusion' and proclaiming he will make his own 'family' of crime. The Gotham City Police Department is universally depicted as corrupt and incompetent, with the few characters attempting to follow the law being repeatedly sabotaged by the system. The central message is that all established institutions are corrupt, and individuals must form a new, chaotic 'family' of outcasts to survive.

Feminism9/10

The movie's subtitle, 'The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn,' signals its core theme of female liberation from an abusive male relationship (The Joker). The narrative features an all-female core team, is directed by a woman, and is designed to subvert the 'male gaze,' avoiding the sexual objectification of the female characters. Every male character in a position of power is presented as a bumbling idiot, a sexual predator, or a toxic, misogynistic sociopath. The collective team-up is positioned as an act of female solidarity against the 'patriarchy.'

LGBTQ+8/10

The character Renee Montoya is explicitly established as a lesbian detective whose ex-girlfriend, Ellen Yee, is the district attorney. The protagonist, Harley Quinn, is canonically bisexual, a detail that is acknowledged visually in the movie's opening. Furthermore, the two central antagonists, Black Mask and Victor Zsasz, share a relationship that is heavily 'queer-coded' and implied to be an intense romantic obsession, featuring a flamboyant, non-heteronormative dynamic between the villains.

Anti-Theism6/10

The film operates within a nihilistic, secular crime underworld, where objective moral truth is replaced by 'everyone for themselves' survival and revenge. The protagonists are anti-heroes motivated by self-interest or settling scores rather than a higher moral code. While there are no scenes directly attacking organized religion or featuring Christian villains, the underlying moral structure is purely secular and relativistic, placing the score in the moderate range due to the complete lack of any transcendent morality or faith-based character strength.