Surfing Reddit, I am intrigued by an unusual headline: “Suicide Squad Official Comic Con Trailer.” I frown. Suicide Squad? Is this a movie about mental illness? A military thriller, perhaps? Somewhat dubiously, I play the video…

There they are: the motley crew of criminals, the veritable bevy of baddies. A cavalcade of colorful characters dancing across the screen to a jaunty tune.

…And then another.

They stomp across a ruined city street. They gleefully pummel identically-clothed, unfortunately outmatched guards.

And another.

Will Smith, morose: “Remember: We’re the bad guys.”

I am driven to learn more about this movie by an impulse I can’t quite articulate. For indeed, I initially pay no heed to the scantily clad, di-chromatically pigtailed blonde woman. She sports a fashionably torn baseball tee that bears the painfully Freudian “Daddy’s Lil’ Monster” beneath a bomber jacket branded by golden lettering: “Property of the Joker.” I dismiss her. After all, I think to myself, what’s another infantilized young thing as the token tough-as-nails-and-still-incontrovertibly-gorgeous-woman in this gang?

It isn’t until she opens her mouth that my interest is piqued.

She is in a detention center, surrounded by her fellow antiheroes and their military supervisors. “What?” she loudly asks no one in particular, her eyes darting through vacant space. “I should kill everyone here and escape?” She then smiles sheepishly, sweetly. “Sorry,” she chirps to the now-rapt audience that encircles her. By way of apology, she points to her head and explains, “It’s the voices.” A shocked silence, followed by a giggled, “I’m kidding!” and finally an ominous, under-the-breath, “That’s not what they really said.”

I then watch a recording of the Suicide Squad panel at 2015’s Comic Con. The host announces the celebrities (“Will Smith!” “Viola Davis!” “Margot Robbie!”), each of whom strides onstage and simpers accordingly as his or her name is called. Before long, this assembly of preternaturally attractive people fills the stage. Between hugs and handshakes amongst themselves, they wave to the crowd of hyperventilating fans. They promise to return next year and file out as the rabble erupts in whooping once more.

Looks fun, I muse. Maybe I should go to Comic Con next year. I laugh to myself over the absurdity of obtaining tickets to an affair notorious for selling out within seconds, but the desire remains, gnawing at me as I replay the trailer.

*          *          *

This was my first experience with Harley Quinn, the character.

I tried to shrug this off in the same way I so often found myself reluctantly dismissing other portrayals of the most commonly bastardized mental health issues (the disorder du jour, apparently, being schizophrenia). However, something about Quinn unsettled me, though the exact reason escaped me. As I learned more about her – that she was the Joker’s long-suffering companion and their abusive relationship had become the stuff of teenage fantasy and romantic aspiration; that many considered her a queer character whose unconventional sexuality had not been explicitly acknowledged for over two decades; that she had been known to be depicted in both the most modest and also most revealing and impractical costumes depending on the whims of the illustrator; that she was the Joker’s former psychiatrist whose utterly unprofessional devotion to her patient had arguably engendered her apparent mental illness – I realized that it was not that she embodied any one of these features, but that she embodied all of them simultaneously.

*          *          *

Some Useful Definitions:

DC Universe – One of the “Big Two” fictional universes that, along with Marvel, dominates the realm of comic books and their adaptations. DC’s Earth (the main planetary platform upon which most of the action takes place, with occasional trips to other planets or galaxies) is meant to mimic our Earth. It directly emulates our world in some ways, though there are significant changes in other respects (i.e., the existence of superheroes/villains and a sociopolitical climate informed by their presence). Some famous superheroes and villains in the DC Universe include Batman, the Joker, Superman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, the Justice League, the Riddler, the Penguin, and Lex Luthor.

Batman – Also known as the Dark Knight; a well-known superhero in the DC Universe and the alter ego of billionaire CEO Bruce Wayne. As with many such characters, the crux of his backstory, personality, and costume remain consistent across most adaptations (with slight variations between them). He inherits his parents’ company/wealth after witnessing their murder as a child. This act of violence sparks a series of events that ultimately lead to Wayne’s transformation into the bat-inspired vigilante that patrols Gotham City (a DC Universe analogue to New York City). He often works in tandem with sidekicks (most notably Robin) and the Gotham City Police Department (especially Commissioner James “Jim” Gordon). He uses his extensive corporate resources to fashion high-tech gadgets and tools for himself (e.g., his vehicle the Batmobile) in order to facilitate his crime-fighting.

The Joker – Also known as the Clown Prince of Crime; Batman’s arch-nemesis. His backstory is much more contested than Batman’s, though he is generally regarded as a failed standup comedian who turns to crime in order to support himself and his pregnant wife. Just before his first caper, he learns that his wife and unborn child have died in a freak accident. He is grief-stricken, but continues with the crime after being threatened by his compatriots with retribution should he fail to complete the heist. During the crime (which takes place at an old chemical plant) Batman interrupts him and the comedian, terrified, jumps into a vat of acid. He emerges crazed, with bleached skin and green hair. He believes in chaos above all else, and depending on the adaptation, his antics range from silly pranks and simple robberies or money-making schemes to murder and torture.

Poison Ivy – Also known as Dr. Pamela Isley; one of Batman’s most storied enemies. An eco-terrorist and brilliant botanist throughout her adaptations, she nevertheless has differing origin stories. However, there is a common thread throughout each backstory: Isley’s boyfriend betrays and assaults her with an injection of a rare plant toxin. These injections backfire and instead grant Ivy immunity to all poisons and pathogens. Ivy uses her expertise and immunity to craft toxins that can disable, kill, or hypnotize; one of her favorite weapons is her pheromone-laced lipstick, which she uses to control the mind of any man she kisses. Usually pictured as a shapely redhead in a leaf-covered corset, she often relies on her legendary beauty to ensnare or incapacitate men – and it is for men that she largely reserves her wrath.

Harley Quinn – [A working definition.] Also known as Dr. Harleen Quinzel and the Clown Princess of Crime; usually considered the Joker’s girlfriend and Poison Ivy’s best friend and occasional paramour. She has recently experienced a meteoric rise in exposure and popularity due to her prominent inclusion in Warner Brothers’ Suicide Squad film. She has established herself as a fan favorite, cultivating such a devoted following since her inception in 1992’s Batman: The Animated Series (hereafter Batman: TAS) that the show’s creators incorporated her initial single-episode appearance into an integral series-long residency. She has since emerged as a perennial presence across almost all strata of the DC universe, garnering such audience and critical enthusiasm as to earn her own eponymous comic series and to feature in many more. It should be noted that though she is not the only character currently featured in graphic novels who made her first appearance outside of that realm, she is the most popular example of this typically rare transformation.^[1]

*          *          *

Quinn now appears in virtually all types of media. From television shows to films to comic books to video games to fan art, Quinn is a ubiquitous presence across 25 years of history of the DC Universe. However, as mentioned above, she originated in Batman: TAS, and thus it is this iteration from which all subsequent versions of Quinn take their inspiration. As such, in in this piece, I focus on Batman: TAS, dissecting five of the fundamental personality types that inform her characterization in the television show (and thus influence her portrayals across succeeding adaptations). These facets of her personality can be traced through her evolution across page and screen, and many still consider the children’s show to feature the definitive “version” of Quinn.

There is a dearth of scholarship on this still-young character and her remarkable pop-cultural transmutation. The literature on comic books and their adaptations is already anemic in comparison to other areas of scholarship, and most academic work exploring Quinn’s multifaceted macrocosm is dedicated to psychological, philosophical, and sociological discourses on Batman, the Joker, and the larger universe they cohabit. The non-fan-created works on Quinn generally comprise brief mentions in scholarly journals,[2] with two exceptions: Tosha Taylor’s “Kiss with a Fist: The Gendered Power Struggle of the Joker and Harley Quinn”[3] and Kate Roddy’s “Masochist or Machiavel? Reading Harley Quinn in Canon and Fanon.” However, though compelling and worthwhile additions to the literature, these essays do not focus exclusively on Quinn’s original television show. As such, I attempt to contribute to this gap in the literature by examining Quinn in Batman: TAS as an unlikely proponent of a peculiar phenomenon: the acknowledgment of non-normativity[4] in many of its varied psychosocial configurations.

Indeed, Quinn embodies non-normativities in such disparate ways across so many narratives that her character is altogether impossible to pin down. She is malleable – the stuff of fantasy, seemingly unaccountable to any kind of larger source or authority. This flexibility is perhaps by virtue of her not having debuted in a comic book, but instead in a children’s television show; or perhaps because she was originally conceived as a featured sidekick to the Joker for a single episode before her runaway popularity necessitated her expansion. In this way, rather than fulfill her transient destiny as a one-time henchwoman, Quinn became an essential part of the series – and indeed, the entire Batman mythos. Absent the character codification that storied graphic novel lore affords enduring characters, Quinn’s creators took advantage of a unique opportunity: They crafted a new character sans the pressure to create an individual intended to be compatible with her animated companions in any long-term scale.

In regards to her canonical non-normativities Quinn has, in essence, been used in manners both empowering and exploitative. She simultaneously encompasses various identities to which historically disenfranchised consumers can relate while falling victim to certain tropes that misrepresent the very communities for which she could serve as an icon of visibility. As a result of her multiple manifestations, she embodies everything and nothing simultaneously, instead serving as a tool through which writers and illustrators can project their particular (a)political, philosophical, and/or aesthetic bent. As such, her character becomes an ambiguously political agent. The elusiveness of her past lends her present a temporal, narrative, and ideological flexibility. In this way, her present and all that it encompasses – her personality, her relationship status, her degree of autonomy, her relative villainous or (anti)heroic tendencies, etc. – is almost entirely open to the writers’ and illustrators’ interpretations and ideas. Quinn becomes a narrative tool, with aspects of her psyche and her story deployed and rescinded at will as dependent upon the inclination of the present arbiters of both her figurative and literal image (i.e., writers, illustrators, and the like).^[5] The ideological or political predilections of the creators (or the dearth/unawareness thereof) thus likely play a large role in crafting each Quinn iteration’s psychobiography, choices, etc.

 

*          *          *

She is drawn in broad, thick, unambiguous strokes, in repose against primrose yellow. The colors are vivid and definitive. There is no shadowing, and only enough contouring to clearly outline her paler features in the foreground. She is smirking, one corner of her closed smile turned up towards heavy-lidded eyes in mid-roll. There is a sultry sarcasm about her. She thrusts her weight onto extended hips – voluptuous convex grooves upon which one hand casually rests. In the opposite hand, she holds a joke pistol; a flag extends from its barrel, emblazoned with the word “BANG” for good measure. She looks satisfied, full of sass and a devil-may-care confidence.

I call this one The Comedian.

Brendan Shaw & Peter Vasquez

Fat Guy Inc.

*          *          *

Though both are stylized as clowns, the Joker and Quinn’s comedic sensibilities only occasionally intersect. The Joker often relies on obscure wordplay and esoteric references. For example, in Episode 223 (“The Man Who Killed Batman”), the Joker bemoans that there is no proof of Batman’s death: “[There is] no body – no batus delicti, so to speak.”^[6] In Episode 312 (“The Trial”), the Joker uses the phrase, “Here comes the judge.”^[7] These allusions require familiarity with their source material, while Quinn’s quips are simpler and more widely understandable. Her humor is easy, organic, full of puns and double entendres. For example, in “The Man Who Killed Batman,” Quinn impersonates an attorney and, acting on the Joker’s orders, demands the release of a prisoner from the holding cells of the Gotham City Police Department. One of the detectives almost recognizes her as Quinn, but without her usual ensemble, he has trouble placing her. “Don’t I know you from some place?” he asks, poking her shoulder. Helpfully, Quinn replies, “I think I served you a subpoena once.” She walks a few steps towards the exit before turning back and coolly clarifying, “It was a… small subpoena.”

Quinn is furnished with a strength-of-will to challenge those she perceives as threatening or otherwise irksome, and the manner in which she retaliates against those she finds hostile is often humorous. In this way, she makes the aggressor the butt of the joke. She often uses others’ perceptions of her as a dainty, helpless, or incompetent young woman as a means of manipulation, turning their impressions and assumptions against them when she reveals her strength and presence-of-mind. In fact, Quinn’s convincing performances are often indispensable to the success of the Joker’s plans. When she and the Joker infiltrate a gala honoring Commissioner Gordon in Episode 122 (“Joker’s Favor”), Quinn carries off her part with remarkable aplomb. While masquerading as a somewhat scantily-clad policewoman bearing the massive cake into the gala venue, an obnoxious detective rubs his hands eagerly upon seeing her, snickering, “Babydoll – entertainment!” As she approaches him, he stops her with his foot, crooning, “Hey sugar, you want to read me my rights?” She frowns at first, almost imperceptibly, then twirls the nightstick fastened to her costume. Smiling, she replies, “You have the right to remain silent!” bringing down her nightstick with a satisfying thwack! onto the man’s shin. As he groans and looks after her in shock, she strolls past him with eyes forward, spitting, “Jerk,” through a blithe smile.

Quinn’s tactic of relying on others’ conceptions of her as a helpless maiden is often successful,^[8] but it sometimes falls short with Batman. After the Dark Knight foils the plan to kill Commissioner Gordon in “Joker’s Favor,” Quinn plays the coquettish damsel until the precise moment the ruse will no longer serve her needs. Before she can escape, Batman corners her in the darkness and she gasps exaggeratedly, backing up as the hero’s towering silhouette advances upon her. She pants, her voice panicked and plaintive in equal measure: “I know… You’re thinking, ‘What a shame!’” The camera follows her eyes, zooming in on the knife gleaming tantalizingly just beyond her reach, though her voice betrays nothing. As she works her way to the knife using her peripheral vision, she continues, “‘A pure, innocent little thing like her, led astray by bad companions.’” She darts to the knife, but Batman is not fooled by her charade, grabbing her wrist before she can strike him and delivering a baleful, “Right – tell me another,” before handcuffing her to a nearby post. In this way, even Batman recognizes Quinn’s classic setup: He refuses to cede the upper hand, and thus refuses to give Quinn the comedic payoff of besting him. He instead makes Quinn’s failure the punch line; he leaves her and she sinks sadly to the ground, sighing, “Oy, beauty school is starting to look pretty good about now.”

Quinn’s humor often involves her calling attention to the obvious or the absurd, bringing a certain frivolity to otherwise grim situations. In one such example in “Joker’s Favor,” Quinn paralyzes the ball attendees with paralytic gas just before the Joker bursts from the cake. He is exuberant, squawking over what he declares to be “another stunning Joker entrance [that] leaves the crowd speechless,” and asks for a round of applause. Quinn enthusiastically obliges – the only figure moving in the room except the Joker, who is watching her celebration in approval – but she stops to shrug at what she implies to be the cold reception from the rest of the (paralyzed) onlookers, grousing, “Sheesh… tough audience!” Shortly thereafter, she is following a triumphant Joker out the doors of the gala; his plan apparently successful, he supposes, “Guess I’ll need a new hobby that [his victim] is pffft,” vaguely miming an explosion. Not missing a beat, Quinn quickly chimes in, “Macrame’s nice!”

However, for all of Quinn’s humor, self-assurance, and seeming independence, she follows the Joker’s every order, even to the point of her profound discomfort. In these instances, Quinn is the butt of the joke, her unease serving as a humorous counterpoint to the Joker’s delight. For example, in Episode 206 (“The Laughing Fish”), she helps the Joker film a commercial for his new line of fish, each branded with a telltale, grotesque, Joker-like grin. At one point, he jabs a fork-full of the fish into Quinn’s face, demanding that she eat it. She whispers, “Uh, Mistah J, I have a little problem with fish…” Ignoring her, he forces the fork into her mouth as her eyes widen in clear disgust. She then turns to the camera, mouth full, and chokes, “Yummy, yummy…” before running off camera; retching sounds are heard shortly thereafter. Related gags (no pun intended) are repeated later in the episode, with several jokes concerning Quinn’s revulsion in the face of fish. At one point, the duo is at an aquarium fulfilling the last components of the Joker’s latest plot. Quinn, repulsed, whines, “Ugh, again with the fish! I hate fish!” before hastily adding, “No offense, Mistah J!” The Joker turns to her, apparently sympathetic, and asks, “Poor Harley, this caper’s been pretty rough on you, hasn’t it?” She pouts, nodding. He then assures her, “Don’t worry – you can be my little mermaid!” She clasps her hands, gasping in delight – until the Joker traps her head and torso under a large fish-head mask. She narrows her eyes, annoyed. “You’re real sick, you know that boss?” she asks the Joker as he laughs hysterically.

Of course, though certain bits may play as playful banter between a couple with an unusual sense of humor, Quinn herself confirms the exploitative nature of their relationship in “The Laughing Fish.” Even these instances, however, are sometimes played for comedic effect. Quinn’s fidelity to such a contemptible partner becomes a source of dark irony, as when she witnesses the Joker’s seeming death near the end of the episode. She sniffs, crying, “Oh, my poor, poor puddin’.” A police officer chastises an inconsolable Quinn, telling her, “Come on, he was a demented, abusive, psychotic maniac.” “Yeah,” she sobs, “I’m really gonna miss him!”

Indeed, Quinn’s apparent obliviousness to the Joker’s abuse is sometimes a punch line. In “The Trial,” Quinn trades jibes with Gotham District Attorney Janet Van Dorn as part of a sham trial in which Batman is the defendant. Van Dorn tells the jury, “It’s a shame – Harleen Quinzel was a doctor here at Arkham [Asylum] before the Joker twisted her mind.” Quinn is unfazed. “Ha! You’re just jealous that you don’t have a fella who’s as loving and loyal to you as my puddin’ is to me.” The Joker (the “judge”) blows a kiss to Quinn on the witness stand; Quinn sighs and goes limp in her chair, feigning a spell of smitten weakness. Van Dorn replies, “Aha! And I suppose it was that same loyalty I saw last time you escaped and ‘puddin’’ here finked on you in the hopes of getting time off?” Quinn, taken aback, turns to the Joker, who has been emphatically motioning to the prosecutor to stop talking. “Is that true, puddin’?” The Joker charily obfuscates. “Finked is such an ugly word…” Quinn seizes him by his judge’s robes and shakes him, screaming, “You lousy, scum-sucking creep!” The Joker manages to stutter, “The witness is excused!” as the “bailiff” (a villain named Killer Croc) carries Quinn away. It is all very slapstick, and this episode is likely to earn a derisive laugh from an audience that is appalled, but not unaccustomed to noting Quinn’s myopia when it comes to her one-sided relationship with the Joker.

The cruelty inherent in the clown duo’s relationship influences Quinn’s humor even further, as the Joker often refuses to validate Quinn’s victories or comedic successes. For example, in Episode 421 (“Mad Love”), Quinn and the Joker hold Commissioner Gordon hostage in a dentist’s office. When Batman accosts the pair, Quinn releases the contents of a gas can into his face. As Batman collapses in a coughing fit, Quinn laughs and proudly proclaims, “That’s a real gasser, huh, Mistah J?” The Joker grabs the prongs of her jester’s hat and roughly pulls her face to his, snarling, “I give the punch lines around here, got it?” Quinn whimpers a quick, “Yes, sir,” before the Joker forcibly tugs her from the room by her cap. In this way, though Quinn’s humor may consist of more than the simplistic wordplay she usually volunteers, she is likely forced to stifle much of her jokes so as not to upset the irascible Joker.^[9]

In conclusion, though the Joker’s characterization is built upon the assumption that he is a literal “jokester,” Quinn’s fiery personality and breezy jokes offer a genuine levity seldom seen in the Joker’s bizarre or esoteric witticisms. In this way, though her humor is possibly constrained by the Joker’s expectations of her subservience in all respects, her jokes add a welcome gaiety to a series that is often dark in tone and subject matter. However, the pair’s abusive dynamic sometimes frames Quinn as a kind of punch line, which is accomplished through situations in which her love for the Joker runs contrary to her partner’s deservedness of such commitment.

*          *          *

I am waiting in the (likely 1,000+ person) line that is twice wrapped around the entire convention center, standing beside a second line of attendees whose position I had lapped 45 minutes ago. I imagine we must look a little ridiculous to passersby: this company of cartoonish outfits waiting in an interminable line. We talk amongst ourselves or fiddle with our phones to distract from the mind-numbing boredom that has settled over the line like an itchy blanket to frantically cast off at the earliest sign of an entrance up ahead. We are all packed together, mingling in this melting pot of pop culture: Peter Parkers laugh with pirates joke with Picards talk with Power Rangers flirt with Princess Leias. (Pheromones are high; fantasies are higher still.) There is lots of moaning and groaning, lots of “Are we there yet?[s]” And yet, many of them paid – often hundreds or even thousands of dollars – for the privilege to wait in this line that will eventually lead them towards that holiest of holies, their annual phantasmagoric forum – the undisputed king of all nerd symposia.

“Man… do you see how many Harleys are here?”

I am finalizing interview questions on the notepad app on my phone when my ears prick at the sound of her (my?) name. I take a step out, bending one knee so I can lean just out of the queue, ensuring one boot is resolutely planted in my original place to keep the Sailor Moon squad behind me from getting any nefarious ideas. My eyes fall on two men conspicuous in their casual plainclothes. I wonder if these two are part of the press corps that attend every year to document panels. (Those wearing press badges – photographers, writers, librarians, teachers, and others – pursue assignments such as frequenting confabs or photographing costumes.) Sure enough, I notice one of the men adjusting a camera looped around his neck. The other man is pointing to a Harley a la Arkham Knight;[10] her cropped black tutu rustles as she trudges by. “So. Many. Harleys. She’s everywhere!” the pointer whispers as the photographer surreptitiously snaps a photo.

As if on cue, a procession of Harleys passes in the line to our left. Though all are members of different attendee cliques, they have magically clustered within a few yards of each other. “It’s because of Suicide Squad,” the photographer mutters as a few Daddy’s Lil’ Monsters step in line beside us. He is unable to keep the scorn from his voice. “She’s so popular right now.”

“Yeah, but man, it’s not just the movie, you know? I mean…” the pointer jerks his head to indicate a Harley sporting the trademark bomber jacket of the Bombshells series.[11] “She’s bigger than the movie. You know she’s getting her own spin-off?”

“Yeah.” The photographer squints into his viewfinder, clearly focusing his lens on a white-blonde Harley in a full body suit. She is standing next to a woman in a particularly verdant, leaf-layered leotard; they chat as Harley fingers Poison Ivy’s blazing orange tresses. The cosplayers are holding hands, animated by color and confidence, flirting with the kind of effortless familiarity usually born of a long relationship. The photographer clicks away. “Let’s see if they make her a lesbian in the new one.”

“Nah, I think she’s bi,” the pointer clarifies.

The photographer shrugs. “Whatever she is, you’re right, dude – this place is crawling with Harleys.”

He is right – it had not taken long for me to notice that Harley Quinn is far from an endangered genus at Comic Con this year. Some are of the Suicide Squad species, while others are of her more classic varieties. Some are even accompanying Jokers or cradling Harley and Joker Jrs. Despite having exchanged some meaningful nods with other Harleys over the hours, I nevertheless feel largely removed from this veritable parade of clown princesses. I consider myself a cultural counterfeit, still ill at ease in both Harley’s metaverse and this, its real-world complement. Is this how undercover detectives feel? I wonder as I linger on the Harley/Ivy couple, now sharing a pair of headphones as their wigs bounce in syncopation.

I lose myself in my thoughts until I hear a flustered, “Um…” behind me. I turn around to see a Sailor Moon expectantly batting rhinestone-encrusted false eyelashes. She tilts her head and looks past me; I follow her eyes and realize the giant lizard-man in front of me has ambled several yards ahead in the line. Oops.

I blurt an embarrassed, “Sorry,” to Sailor Moon, throwing out an extra, “My bad!” to the White Walker[12] on tiptoe a few yards behind, wizened brow furrowed as she attempts to ascertain the source of the hold-up. I jog to catch up to Godzilla, only stopping when I am almost nose-to-spine with the creature. I am careful not to crash into him as he delicately sips a pink Vitamin Water, his teal lipstick leaving a shimmering stain on the bottle’s lip. I sigh – my umpteenth of the day – and brace myself for more line-waiting. I ache to start my day, and my research. I send a telepathic plea for patience to the armored angel primping her wings a few footsteps ahead of me.

Despite my prayer, only a few minutes pass before an unbearable restlessness grips me. I peer hopefully around Godzilla, searching for any sign of an entrance – but all I see is a Dr. Who anxiously wringing his rainbow scarf. He turns to the anthropomorphic telephone booth beside him,[13] hissing, “What if we have to go to the bathroom?”

As I stifle a chuckle, something clicks deep within me: I am but one nerd vertebra (nerd-ebra?) comprising the spinal column of this behemoth sluggishly snaking its way around the convention center. I don’t even need to wait until I make my way indoors. I am enveloped on all sides by characters of comics, film, and television, knee-deep in a sticky sci-fi swamp with nowhere to trek but further into the abyss. I angle my body to get a better look at the smattering of Harleys concentrated just ahead of me and begin taking notes. My subculture safari has, in fact, already begun.

*          *          *

She catapults into frame, all fire and anger. The ferocity with which she flings herself upon the canvas sears away the fabric of her classic bodysuit to reveal pale, bruised skin. Her bright white pigtails whip behind her in cursive twists. She dashes herself against mottled brushstrokes that bleed out from beneath her; reds and blacks spray and seep across a colorless background. She seethes, her eyes narrowed and mouth agape, raging at the mask (or is it the skin?) she is holding – a piece of the unmistakable countenance of the man who inspired this wrath. She is fury personified. The artist’s caption reads, “My old man is a bad old man.”

I call this one The Woman Scorned.

Nen Chang

Retromortis.com

*          *          *

The Joker and Quinn exemplify two different models of aggression as defined in the field of social psychology: The Joker practices hostile or reactive aggression, while Quinn’s aggression is instrumental or proactive in nature. Hostile aggression “is characterized by impulsivity… and uncontrollable rage.”^[14] The Joker’s plans are often purposefully heavy-handed and inelegant, as his intent is simply to sow chaos. He persists to this end regardless of who or what his plots imperil or kill – Batman, Quinn, the citizens of Gotham, or even the Joker himself. This audacity is on full display in Episode 316 (“Harlequinade”); as the Joker shoots at a bomb from a helicopter, he is maniacal in his determination as he cackles through a smile, “That bomb’s going off, even if I go with it!”

I argue that, while he is certainly capable of goal-oriented aggression (see Episode 206 “The Laughing Fish,” for example), the Joker’s behaviors overall indicate a psychological profile more consistent with a largely hostile aggressor. Indeed, these behaviors become all the more blatantly hostile (as opposed to instrumental) when the Joker is confronted with unforeseen obstacles or unexpected slights. Furthermore, though his schemes are often planned in advance, their aim is usually to kill, injure, or otherwise inconvenience Batman, the Gotham Police Department, or Gotham’s inhabitants. For example, “The Laughing Fish” sees the Joker citing his desire to continue his “happily hedonistic lifestyle” as his motive for trademarking his fish look-alikes. However, even in this instance, the Joker practices hostile aggression, demanding that a lowly patent officer ignore laws against “copywrit[ing]… a natural resource.” When the patent officer later tells Batman, “I’m just a paper-pusher. I can’t change the laws. I’m harmless!” Batman makes clear that the Joker is likely well aware that the patent officer cannot fulfill the Joker’s wishes, explaining, “In [the Joker’s] sick mind, that’s the joke.” This illustrates that, even when pursuing superficially logical goals, the Joker is actually participating in aggressive acts that are implicitly hostile, wanting nothing more than to incite fear and chaos. He considers crime a sport, or a delicious and dastardly game in which heroes and villains trade parries and thrusts, but never truly take their opponents out of commission. In fact, this game continuing indefinitely is made possible because of Batman’s vow never to kill. This tenet is consistent across all major works exploring the hero’s universe, and makes what would be one-time duels with Batman’s adversaries instead chronic campaigns against the same combatants.

Though the Joker sometimes claims to want his enemies dead – Batman in particular – his inadequate plans and clumsy execution usually suggest otherwise. For example, in Episode 421 (“Mad Love”), the Joker and Quinn have Commissioner Gordon strapped to a chair in a dentist’s office as the Joker’s whirring drill inches closer to the commissioner’s forehead. Just in time, Batman bursts through the window, and the Joker, glowering, steps away from the commissioner. Batman throws dentures at the Joker’s feet, attached to which is a card reading “To: BATMAN, c/o: G.C.P.D.” Batman cheerlessly teases the Joker for the unimaginative clue: “It was an easy hint, Joker. Sloppy, predictable. You’re losing your edge.”^[15] The very fact that the Joker sends a hint to Batman as to his plans and the implicit acknowledgement that this is not the first time the Joker has done so illuminates the Joker’s true motives:^[16] He is both intent on upsetting the status quo (i.e., maintaining the city as a kind of criminal playground for himself and the city’s other villains) and married to a routine that preserves a balance between evildoers and their foils in Gotham. This balance sustains the game of criminal cat-and-mouse with which the Joker is so enamored. As such, the Joker chooses to take advantage of Batman’s pledge, secure in the knowledge that any one apprehension at Batman’s hands won’t be his last.

The Joker’s inclusion of hints as part of his plans and his subsequent paradoxical anger when Batman deduces the relevant information (or, at least, his frustration if Batman finds his clue less than brilliant) speaks to the inconsistency of the Joker’s priorities. These conflicting goals make it difficult for the Joker to be satisfied, which makes attempting to please the mob boss a potentially dangerous act.

Quinn is particularly vulnerable to the Joker’s malcontent, and may be understandably confused as to how best to fulfill the Joker and serve his discrepant aims. Immediately following the earlier scene in “Mad Love,” the viewer sees the Joker’s hideout. Quinn enters, attempting to seduce the Joker, clearly trying to cheer him as he stews over the disappointing confrontation with his nemesis. He sits at a desk, assiduously drawing up plans for his next run-in with Batman; she crawls onto the table and struggles to get his attention with a playful double entendre. Teeth gritted, he thrusts her face-first from the table. Undeterred, she tries once more to lift his mood, but he dismisses her abruptly and begins pacing, complaining, “Batman was right! That set-up today was corny, old hat!” As he tells her of his desire to subject Batman to “[Batman’s] ultimate humiliation… followed by his deliciously delirious death,” Quinn proposes, “Why don’t ya just shoot him?” The Joker drops his papers, irate, and turns to Quinn, cornering her as she backs away, terrified, from his tirade: “Shoot him?! Know this, my sweet. The death of Batman must be nothing less than a masterpiece! The triumph of my sheer comic genius over his ridiculous mask and gadgets!” She ducks, desperate to avoid the stream of acid the Joker shoots from his joke-boutonniere; it sails above her, sizzling instead through a life-size Batman model behind her. Slightly later in the scene, Quinn wraps her arms reassuringly around the Joker’s chest from behind, murmuring a sweet nothing. The viewer does not see his immediate response, but the next shot reveals the Joker’s reaction: An unseen force hurls Quinn through the hideout’s doorway. She skids face-first on the dirty concrete outside, lingerie and all. In this way, though Quinn is aware of the hero-villain balance the Joker chooses to promote in Gotham, she often finds herself in a quandary in which she must accurately anticipate the Joker’s prevailing priority of the day – or moment – or else face his unpredictable choler.

As the above scene makes obvious, the Joker becomes increasingly frustrated when he feels his balance with Batman has shifted. Usually, he takes out this exasperation on the closest individual in his vicinity; this is often Quinn, as she rarely leaves his side unless instructed to do so. As such, she often bears the brunt of his anger, and there exist few episodes in which the Joker and Quinn both appear that he does not bully, excoriate, and physically assault her. Through slaps and shoves, the Joker often intimidates Quinn into submission or silence, taking advantage of both her abiding love for her partner as well as her fear of being subjected to the his singular streak of brutality. These countless instances of abuse, which the Joker metes out to Quinn (most frequently) as well as to his henchmen and his victims, only serve to underscore his hostile aggressive tendencies, as these violent outbursts occur as impulsive reactions to events or statements that stymie his plans or insult his pride.

In the following scene from Episode 223 (“The Man Who Killed Batman”), the Joker is in denial after learning of Batman’s (alleged) death. In an attempt to lure Batman into the open to prove the Dark Knight is not really dead, the Joker stages a bank break-in, after which he awaits Batman’s appearance. This scene includes the Joker’s reflections on what he perceives to be a symbiotic relationship with Batman and exemplifies the hostile, reactionary aggression that typifies his exchanges with Quinn. The Joker begins pacing as he laments, “Where is he? He’s never been this late before. There’s a certain rhythm to these things: I cause trouble, he shows up, we have some laughs, and the game starts over again. Only now… I have this terrible feeling he’s really not coming.” Quinn approaches him from behind, arms spread wide to display the finery draped on her arms, neck, and waist. A crown sits between the prongs of her jester hat, each horn embellished by gold ornaments. She is in heaven: “Wee! Look at all of the pretties!” Despondent, the Joker tells her to return the baubles, but Quinn, still behind him, cannot yet see the extent of his distress. She admonishes him lovingly, “Oh, Mister J, you’re such a kidder. You never could –” Her face becomes a mask of fear and shock as he grabs her collar roughly, choking her. “I said, PUT THEM BACK!” he screeches, throwing her to the ground. She screams as she flips backward, bouncing first on her hips, then her neck, finally landing on her chest. Grunts of pain punctuate her flight. Petrified, she finally submits, her voice trembling as she placates the Joker: “Sure, boss, I can do that. This is me putting them back, no problemo!” As she returns her booty, the Joker sorrowfully opines, “Without Batman, crime has no punch line.”

This scene also illuminates Quinn’s priorities and emphasizes the incompatibility of her aims in relation to the Joker’s: Besides always wanting to please her boss, Quinn also prefers to reap the monetary reward from their plundering. In this way, in contrast to the Joker’s impetuous, often irrational aggression, Quinn instead engages in instrumental or proactive aggression, distinguished by behavior more “deliberate… and goal-driven.”^[17] Throughout Batman: TAS, even when participating in plans apparently intended to cause harm or destruction, Quinn almost always conducts herself in service to the Joker. This behavior is antithetical to her own plans and motives, which lean towards acquiring a bounty as opposed to reveling in the intrinsic pleasure of entropy-minded schemes. For example, when Quinn and Ivy team up and become Gotham’s “Queens of Crime” in Episode 228 (“Harley and Ivy”), the newspaper clippings the pair proudly tape to their fridge reveal their capers to involve breaking and entering and theft. Earlier in the same episode, the first crime that Quinn executes on her own finds her stealing a large “Harlequin” diamond from a museum.^[18] In Episode 401 (“Holiday Knights”), Quinn and Ivy are again working together, this time using Bruce Wayne (Batman’s billionaire alter ego) and his sizable credit accounts to purchase themselves a slew of new, expensive outfits. These crimes all entail specific, achievable aims, and any harm caused to bystanders is incidental – only necessary to the extent that it removes an obstacle from Quinn’s path as she pursues her tangible objective.

Quinn’s ambitions deviating so distinctly from her boss’s matters little to the Joker, who forces his partner to forgo her own (criminal and sexual) desires and conduct herself in deference to his (or his lack thereof, in the case of the latter). As such, their relationship is complicated by the coercive control the Joker exerts over Quinn in roles as both her boss and her lover. In this way, the Joker exemplifies the practice of “intimate terrorism,” paraphrased in Jennifer Hardesty’s review of Michael P. Johnson’s The Typology of Domestic Violence as a “pervasive pattern of violent and nonviolent tactics… used to control one’s partner… perpetrated most often by men against female partners…” Quinn openly acknowledges these “violent tactics” during the episode “Harlequinade,” in which she partners with Batman and Robin to ensure her early release from Arkham Asylum. She finds herself needing a distraction to draw the attention of a roomful of assorted mobsters away from Batman and Robin, as the former squirms to escape his bonds and the latter sneaks his way into the club to help. After one of the mob bosses, Boxy Bennett, ask her why she stays with a “slob like the Joker… when there are suave guys like [Bennett] around” and slips an unctuous hand around her arm, she politely shakes off his advances. “Now Boxy,” she scolds, smiling, “Sure my puddin’s a little temperamental, but gee, what relationship doesn’t have its ups and downs?” With Olympics-caliber gymnastics, she vaults onto the stage and begins a vampy rendition of “Say That We’re Sweethearts Again” in the vein of a jazz cabaret singer of old:

I never knew that our romance had ended
Until you poisoned my food.
And I thought it was a lark when you kicked me in the park,
But now I think it was rude!
I never knew that you and I were finished
Until that bottle hit my head.
Though I tried to be aloof when you pushed me off the roof,
I fear our romance is dead.
Wouldn’t have been so bad if you had told me
That someone had taken my place.
But no, no you didn’t even scold me
You just tried to disfigure my face…
You’ll never know how this heart of mine is breaking.
It looks so hopeless, but then…
Life used to be so placid – won’t you please put down that acid –
And say that we’re sweethearts again!

Interestingly, the Joker often displays affection after he has just abused or assaulted Quinn in some way. In “The Man Who Killed Batman,” he throws her to the floor at the bank as described earlier. In “Harlequinade,” she is holding a gun to his head, but her conviction is clearly failing, and he goads her, “You wouldn’t dare. You don’t have the guts!” Tears fill her eyes; her lip quivers. He sees her hesitation and continues, “Not a million years would you – ” he is cut off, panicked, as she grits her teeth and refocuses her aim. He grimaces, preparing for the worst as she pulls the trigger… before a fall-away “Rat-Tat-Tat” sign drops from the gun. Disappointed trumpets and mischievous xylophone tones emphasize the farcical glances exchanged between the pair: The Joker frowns exaggeratedly and raises one eyebrow as Quinn grins in abashed, awkward apology. A pregnant pause, then the Joker laughs and gives the viewers a Hollywood ending. “Baby, you’re the greatest!” he declares as he opens his arms to receive Quinn. She lets out a high-pitched squeak of delight, running to him and jumping into his arms; they spin, a picture of classic romance. Quinn’s legs dangle as she and the Joker pirouette, and the episode closes with them in a close embrace as one of Quinn’s feet flicks upward in picturesque whimsy.^[19]

Undoubtedly, there is ample evidence to suggest that Quinn personifies “traumatic bonding theory,”^[20] which argues that “strong emotional attachments are formed by intermittent abuse.”^[21] The key to this abuse is the aforementioned intermittency, as physical, psychological, and/or sexual abuse is interspersed with instances in which the abuser exhibits kindness, affection, and other manifestations of “love” or positive reinforcement. The Joker is sometimes seen to offer such endearments: Shortly after the scene described earlier in “The Man Who Killed Batman,” the Joker holds a funeral for Batman in which, in place of a body, there is a crude cutout of Batman’s signature black cowl and cape folded carefully within a casket. A somber Joker tapes a “KICK ME” sign to the cape. When Quinn commends her partner for “really put[ting] the fun in funeral,” the Joker’s mournful expression softens to a melancholy smile as he looks at her gratefully, lightly pinching her cheek in what appears to be genuine tenderness.

Despite this affection, there is yet another way in which the Joker and Quinn’s relationship is characterized by “intimate terrorism:” There are countless cases of ill-treated partners striking back against their abusers.^[22] Indeed, “Harlequinade” is an unusual (and exaggerated) case study of such a turn of events. Quinn begins as a double agent after deciding to help Batman find the Joker before he annihilates Gotham with an atomic bomb (though it is implied she never intended to keep her promise and only hoped to be reunited with the Joker). She incapacitates Batman and Robin and leaps into the arms of a thoroughly astonished Joker, who thought she was still behind bars at Arkham Asylum. After explaining her double-cross to the heroes (“Deal’s off, B-Man. No one ever said anything about hurting Mistah J!”), the Joker carries Quinn to the plane to complete his plan to raze Gotham, telling Quinn, “Come, my dear! We’ll get to a safe altitude, then watch the fireworks.” When Robin points out that the ten-minute countdown the Joker had just activated would not have left the Joker enough time to “swing by Arkham to pick [Quinn] up,” Quinn solicits (a clearly empty) guarantee from her partner that he would have indeed come back for her. The Joker seats her in the plane, but she is not so easily mollified: “But what about all our friends?” she objects. Distraught, she refuses to leave her friends and her pet hyenas.^[23] Despite the Joker’s unsympathetic assuaging (“I’ll buy you a goldfish – let’s go!”), she cannot bring herself to abandon those to whom she feels an allegiance. In a show of strength both physical and psychological, she resists the Joker, sending a well-placed high kick to his jaw. Unsurprisingly, he makes moves to leave without her, taking off and attempting to detonate the bomb with bullets he fires at close-range from his helicopter. From the ground, Quinn grabs a prop from her bag and growls, “Laugh this off… puddin’!” shooting a projectile into the Joker’s head as he flies by. The resulting pandemonium ends with a plane crash, and the Joker emerges from under his deflated parachute to find an incensed Quinn staring at him down the muzzle of a large gun. She has every intent to kill him, stopped only by the surprise joke gun she has mistaken for a functioning weapon.

Additionally, Quinn sometimes blames herself for the abuse, which occurs in a small percentage of battered woman trapped in a cycle of intimate partner violence.^[24] In one of the most famous moments of Batman: TAS from “Mad Love,” Quinn has called the Joker to come see her handiwork: She has outwitted Batman and has him chained upside down above a piranha-filled tank. Batman convinces her to wait until the Joker arrives before she lowers Batman into the water.^[25] The Joker bursts into the room, beside himself as he roars, “HARLEY!” Quinn, believing him excited to witness Batman’s undoing, runs to her partner with open arms. “Hi, puddin’! You’re just in time to see the – ugh!” The frame cuts to Batman’s face; he winces as we hear a loud smack! Moments later, we see Quinn – she slides across the floor on her back, body buckled from the force of the blow. The Joker, ever the gentleman, begs Batman’s pardon (“‘Scuse me, I’ll be just a minute,”) before walking back to Quinn. She struggles to lift her head, still crumpled on the floor as the Joker’s shadow darkens over her; his hands twitch as if impatient to strike her once more. She finally raises her head to address the Joker, voice shrill with fear and confusion. “But puddin’, I-I don’t understand! Don’t you want to finally get rid of Batman?” He lunges towards her as she recoils and raises a hand to protect her face. “Only if I do it, idiot!” he snarls. Quinn, still speaking from the floor, explains to the Joker how and why she has designed Batman’s death in this way: She has arranged it so in order to perfect one of the Joker’s pre-conceived plans, changing the previously-problematic setup so as to enhance the metaphorical “punch line” of the Dark Knight’s death. “Now it all works!” she insists to the Joker. If anything, this only makes him more furious. “Except you had to explain it to me! If you have to explain a joke, there is no joke!” Quinn grabs a decorative swordfish from the wall and clutches it so as to shelter herself behind it. She retreats backwards, voice beseeching as she stammers, “N-now, calm down, puddin’!” The Joker backs her slowly against the window, fuming, “You’ve forgotten what I told you a long time ago – one of the painful truths of comedy…” She glances behind her to the window before looking back to her partner in abject terror. He snatches the swordfish from her hands, bellowing, “You always take shots from folks who JUST DON’T GET THE JOKE!” With a mighty shove and a desperate cry from Quinn, the Joker sends her crashing through the window. The frame follows her fall in agonizing slow motion, painstakingly capturing her flailing limbs and silent scream. Shards of glass and chunks of wall tinkle as they follow her down several stories; we hear a muffled thud! as the Joker peers through the Quinn-sized hole in the wall. “And don’t call me ‘puddin’,” he grumbles as he walks away in disgust. We are brought back to the ruin outside; one gloved hand falls limply from a mound of misshapen metal just before we see Quinn’s full body broken against the wreckage beneath her. “My… fault…” she gasps, blood trickling from her mouth. “I didn’t get the joke…”

In conclusion, the threats and violence inherent in this character pairing, while reciprocal in rare instances, are skewed in frequency and intensity. This creates a dynamic which the Joker subjects Quinn to near-constant physical and emotional abuse. Viewing this relationship through the lens of traumatic bonding theory, it becomes clear that Quinn’s behaviors are consistent with those of a battered woman, enhancing a cartoon character with real-life psychological phenomena that add layers of equivocal morality to a character whose complexity eschews the oversimplified “victim” label.[26]

*          *          *

“I said, PUT THEM BACK!”

He pushes her; she falls back, screaming…

 

“I said, PUT THEM BACK!”

He shoves her; she tumbles to the ground, her face a grimace of petrified pain as she…

 

“I said, PUT THEM BACK!”

He shoves her. She tumbles to the ground, grimacing as she falls and bounces, the picture of petrified pain as she…

 

I am watching a clip over and over, trying my best to capture the excruciating detail of Harley’s fall. I have been at this for over fifteen minutes already before I am interrupted by a voice too faraway to be from the horror playing out repeatedly on my computer screen.

“Lauren?”

I yank my headphones out and look up from my laptop to find my roommate staring at me, forehead crinkled and mouth crooked in concern. I realize I have been visibly flinching with each replay. I un-scrunch my features, but it takes a surprising amount of effort; the discomfort I feel watching this scene still simmers behind my uneasy smile. “Sorry, I just want to get this exactly right.”

My roommate raises a quizzical eyebrow. “You probably got it down ten minutes ago.”

“I know, I know. It’s just… This is really important. I can’t let it go. Not yet.”

I no longer see a cartoon woman being brutalized by a cartoon man, but a woman being brutalized by a man. These animations take on new meaning, their significance becoming more and more profound the more I write.

I don’t know when “Quinn” became “Harley” to me. I don’t know when this – she – became more than a cartoon for me. I don’t know when this character leapt from the screen and into my emotional world, transcending her two dimensions as deftly as if she had careened into my consciousness with one of her trademark tumbling passes.

Maybe it was when I realized how closely her animated domain was tethered to my physical one – and when I allowed myself to fully consider the implications that followed. Maybe it was when I discovered that the showtune she sang in “Harlequinade” describing her life as a lovesick, beleaguered survivor of domestic abuse was not created for that moment in the series (as I had originally assumed, because how could such a chilling song actually exist?), but was in fact a product of the 1946 film Meet the People. Maybe it was when I realized the grand finale later in that same episode was actually a reference to The Honeymooners, and thus a nod to another television show in which viewers casually accepted the reality that a woman lived under the constant threat of intimate partner violence. Maybe it was when I considered how many thousands or millions of children and their parents had watched this series – how Harley had perhaps served to raise uncomfortable, necessary questions, or acted for many children as a de facto entree into adult issues.

Through the open door of my bedroom, I see some of the posters of Harley; The Woman Scorned scowls at me and The Comedian smirks at me. The posters flap in the breeze sidling in through my open window. If I squint my eyes just right, the Harleys are alive and dancing, swaying in soft undulations on my wall.

I turn back to my screen and will Video Harley to avoid the Joker’s hands this time – to somehow escape this perpetual animated prison. A few moments before the strike, she smiles. I pause the videos. If I squint my eyes just right… I square my shoulders, determined, and click “Play.”

 

“I said, PUT THEM BACK!”

He shoves her. She tumbles to the ground, grimacing as she bounces first on her hips, then on her shoulder…

 *          *          *

Wonder Woman is trying to pass in front of me. “‘Scuse me,” she mumbles shyly, angling her colossal sword so as not to whack into my arm.

“Oh, so sorry!” I step out of her way, marveling at the sight, taking care to avoid being trampled by imposing winged boots. It is not until she overtakes me, lasso and all, that I notice the little Superman toddling past at her side. One of his hands grips her gleaming cuffs while the other falls from his mouth, which one moment ago had been clamped on a pudgy thumb. He swivels his gaze so as to take in his surroundings: Silver scaffolding girds glass panes that loom around us, the pipes intersecting to form geometric silhouettes superimposed against the cloudless blue sky. As we cross the cavernous room, weaving through torrents of bodies (human and otherwise), we duck fins, claws, swords, wands, and other appendages, slipping in and out of the strange shadows the pipes project onto the laminated concrete beneath us. It could be Superman’s Fortress of Solitude, if he had received a few thousand too many RSVPs to a Halloween party. It is difficult to think in this din – my thoughts moil and splinter against the cacophony that now assaults my senses. Rendered powerless in this pandemonium, I have no room in my mind to make heads-or-tails of what I am seeing – literally. An amorphous alien slips past me, a curious composite of sinew and sharp teeth, commandeering Superman’s gaze. Superman stares, mesmerized, before Wonder Woman tugs him along; he almost trips, briefly tottering on one small foot before falling in step with his companion, miniature red cape billowing in his wake.

A white dragon passes on my left. The creature inadvertently presses on my arm briefly in the crossing, its unique topography of scales and thorns and feathers imprinting a shallow relief on my skin. An amply-bosomed zombie hurries to catch up to the dragon, tapping on its wing and breathlessly requesting a selfie. Suddenly, there is pronounced shrieking a little ways to my right. I attempt to maintain my trajectory forward, but am helplessly buffeted by the crowd; I must awkwardly grapevine to stay upright as the curious flood of onlookers moves me east. When the current stops, I find myself face to face with a fluffy Pikachu[27] panting happily on his handler’s forearm. A gaggle of giggling black-plated knights asks to pet the Pokemon. Some must divest themselves of daggers and other accessories, passing spears and shields to their fellow warriors before leaning in to coo at the animal now eyeing the Pokeball his owner holds just out of reach. After a few minutes, Ash takes his leave to give Pikachu his potty break and the knights compare pictures, still squealing, as I watch the man carry the canary-yellow-dyed Pomeranian out the glass doors.

I am having fun, but I have to fight the urge to follow them outside. I am a little overwhelmed, and as the only person I see to have come alone, I have no battalion of similarly out-of-place students on which to fall back. I steel myself for a long day and plunge back into the flow of bodies.

*          *          *

She is splayed on the floor of a claustrophobic padded cell. Her back curves in a titillating arch, legs slightly bent beneath her. She wears a straightjacket, though it could be a teddy – she is clearly sans underwear. The viewer hovers above her as if peering at her through the roof, or perhaps observing her through a ceiling-mounted security camera at Arkham Asylum. Her makeup is a study in chiaroscuro, red lips traced with thick black liner that slices her smile through white skin. Her eyes are painted, or perhaps bruised; inky, purple-black blotches coagulate around gray-blue irises. Her hair is dyed at the part, forming moieties of black and red tendrils that spill across the ivory cell like colored flame. The outlined panels of the padded cell narrow as they stretch away from the viewer, receding as if to coalesce at a point beyond the floor like the kissing strands of a spider’s web. Which is she, I wonder – the spider or the fly?

I call this one The Mad Scientist.

Adam Hughes

JustSayAH.com 

*          *          *

An issue central to one’s conception of this character is an understanding of just when Dr. Harleen Quinzel becomes Harley Quinn. There is, of course, a widely accepted answer: Quinn emerges when Dr. Quinzel steals a jester costume and breaks the Joker out of Arkham Asylum. Is there a precise moment, however, that Quinzel surrenders to the kind of love strong enough to throw away one’s promising career for the affection of a super-villain? Or does she rather slowly succumb to a madness so all-encompassing that she must alter her personality, change her name, and sacrifice her future in order to pursue a relationship with the man she loves? Or, to hear Quinn describe this in her own words in Episode 421 (“Mad Love”), “Face it, Harl: This stinks. You’re a certified nutso wanted in twelve states and hopelessly in love with a psychopathic clown. At what point did my life go Looney Tunes?^[28] How did it happen? Who’s to blame?”

Though other works featuring Quinn sometimes explore (or, more appropriately, create) an extensive backstory, Batman: TAS looks only at Quinn’s history beginning from moments before she meets the Joker. The screen dissolves into Quinn’s flashback, where we first see Dr. Harleen Quinzel: Her shape is familiar, but little else about her calls to mind the jingle bell-capped jester we had seen seconds before. Her face seems naked, minimally makeuped and stripped of its white paint. Where her usual black eye mask lays over bright blue eyes instead sit large circular glasses that tuck into her prim blonde bun. She completes the look with high heels and a white lab coat that dips just low enough to reveal a red blouse and small black tie (her color scheme at least remaining similar to Quinn’s). Joan Leland, one of Arkham’s head psychiatrists, greets Quinzel, who then politely requests, “Call me Harley – everyone does.” Leland gives Quinzel a tour of the facility and mentions her surprise that Quinzel “wanted to intern here at Arkham.” Quinzel explains, “Well, I’ve always had an attraction for extreme personalities. They’re more exciting, more challenging.” Leland, unimpressed, interrupts, “…And more high-profile?” Quinzel is unashamed, countering, “You can’t deny there’s an element of glamour to these super criminals.” Leland hastily corrects Quinzel, stopping her in the middle of the hallway and cautioning her authoritatively. “I’ll warn you right now, these are hard-core psychotics.” As if to emphasize her point, a bespectacled man in one of the rooms behind Quinzel approaches the transparent wall cordoning off his cell and begins happily licking the glass; the women do not acknowledge this curious lapping. Leland continues, “If you’re thinking about cashing in on them by writing a tell-all book, think again.” Cheerful whistling suddenly floats over Leland’s words, drawing Quinzel as if by a mysterious magnetism towards the source of the tune. From within his cell, the Joker stops his whistling as Quinzel approaches and stares, transfixed – perhaps star-struck. He tosses her a gamely wink, but Quinzel does not react, her eyes still wide and mouth slightly open in… shock? Fear? Intrigue? Leland steps into frame behind Quinzel, voice casual. “They’d eat a novice like you for breakfast.” She walks away as Quinzel blushes.

Quinzel is, indeed, interested in “cashing in” on her patients. The Joker – perhaps by having heard Quinzel and Leland’s conversation, perhaps by simply sensing the impulse – somehow understands Quinzel’s intentions and chooses to exploit them. Quinzel finds a rose in her office; attached is a note reading, “Come see me sometime,” signed simply, “J.” Though Quinzel is clearly delighted by the gift in the privacy of her office, she confronts the Joker in his cell with a cutting professionalism. “Care to tell me how this got in my office?” Quinzel asks him, producing the note. “I put it there,” the Joker murmurs, grinning. Quinzel keeps her voice impassive as she threatens, “I think the guards would be interested to know you’ve been out of your cell.” The Joker is the picture of calm self-satisfaction, recumbent on his bed with hands folded under his head as he gloats, “If you were really going to tell, you already would’ve. You know, sweets, I like what I’ve heard about you!” He compliments her name, but she offers only a curt response before turning to walk away. He continues, “[Your name] makes me feel there’s someone here I can relate to – someone who might like to hear my secrets…” She freezes, mouth open in surprise before narrowing into a sly smile as she takes the bait.

This “attraction” to the more “glamorous elements” of the Arkham residents in fact extends beyond Arkham; it manifests not only as a kind of avarice (i.e., “cashing in”), but also as a kind of professional ambition independent of financial motives. This is made apparent in Episode 206 (“The Laughing Fish”) when Quinn addresses the patent office workers as “wage slaves.” This implies that she considers the idea of a standard, 9 AM – 5 PM, corporate job humiliating – that she is instead drawn to careers that entail some level of risk or intrigue. Through both her job as a psychiatrist working with Gotham’s most unfortunate, criminally-bent “hard-core psychotics” as well as her later post as the right-hand officer to the city’s most infamous gang leader, Quinzel first flirts with, then Quinn directly engages in, the penchant for danger and deviance that she ostensibly endeavors to eradicate in her patients. For reasons unknown, something in this cult of criminality speaks to Quinzel, and when she realizes that she can’t beat them, she joins them, embodying the fulfillment of a previously articulated – if not quite understood – fascination.

Quinn indulges her affinity for noir romanticism as a way of rationalizing her own metamorphosis from Quinzel to Quinn. Indeed, Quinzel sees some of herself in the Joker, and must reconcile the cognitive dissonance produced by her duty to help these criminals with her urge to become one of them. She craves notoriety, independence, and a life lived in communion with the darker or more mysterious elements of the human condition – the drive to wield power and incite chaos. However, she is likely unaware of how deeply in her psyche these inclinations are rooted, as she simultaneously harbors complementary cravings for stability and intimacy that complicate her present and her future. In crafting a love story-narrative between herself and the Joker, she accommodates both her longing for the tenebrous life of a super-criminal with her yearning for a loving and fulfilling relationship.

However, as she does not ultimately find this kind of relationship with the Joker, she must justify to herself the dissatisfaction, neglect, and abuse she experiences with her partner. In searching for an explanation for the Joker’s truculence, she decides to scapegoat Batman – the same villain she holds responsible for her ruining her patient’s life. After speaking with the Joker in their sessions at Arkham, Quinzel delivers the following analysis over a montage in which she imagines the Joker’s descent into despair and crime: “It soon became clear to me that the Joker, so often described as a raving, homicidal madman, was actually a tortured soul crying out for love and acceptance – a lost, injured child trying to make the world laugh at his antics. And there, as always, was the self-righteous Batman, determined to make life miserable for my angel.” The montage fades on the last vision – a menacing-looking Dark Knight advancing upon a helpless Joker – and we see that she has been doodling on her yellow notepad. She adds a moustache and shades a gap between the teeth of an already unflattering caricature of Batman’s face. As the more of the notepad moves into frame, we see smiling portraits of Quinzel and the Joker just above a large heart inscribed with “J & H.” She continues, “Yes, I admit it. As unprofessional as it sounds, I had fallen in love with my patient.” The frame shifts, and we finally see her face. Her head slumps in shame as she closes her eyes. “Pretty crazy, huh?” An unseen man tenderly responds, “Not at all. As a dedicated, career-oriented young woman, you felt the need to abstain from all amusement and fun. It’s only natural you’d be attracted to a man who could make you laugh again.” Her face alights, relieved, as the frame widens to reveal Quinzel on a classic therapy couch. “I knew you’d understand,” she discloses to her counselor. The frame shifts once more to reveal the Joker in the chair that had, in their previous sessions, been reserved for Quinzel. “Anytime,” the Joker reassures her, voice soft with sympathy. The scene segues into the moment the Joker is re-apprehended after his most recent escape from Arkham, and Quinzel resumes her narration. “Then there was that horrible week when he escaped. The poor thing was on the run, alone and frightened. I was so worried.”  She anxiously scrutinizes a newspaper with a headline reading, “JOKER STILL AT LARGE, BODY COUNT RISES.” We watch as Batman drops a bloodied Joker into Quinzel’s arms; she cries as she cradles him gently. Soon thereafter, Quinzel steals a jester ensemble from a costume shop. After sneaking and smacking her way through Arkham and its cadre of guards and orderlies, she uses a bomb to shatter the glass of the Joker’s cell. As she emerges from the rubble, she shows off her new look: “Knock, knock, puddin’! Say hello to your new, improved Harley Quinn!” She escapes with the Joker in her car, eluding the searchlights and busting her way through the security gate. Quinn beams triumphantly as the Joker cackles; they drive off into the sunset as Quinn reflects, “It seemed like we would live happily ever after.” The flashback fades back into the present, where Quinn is in a trance, drooped eyelids framing a dreamy stare as she gazes into the memories – and perhaps the fantasy – with which she is so captivated. Her daydreaming done, she complains, “But that’ll never happen as long as there’s a Batman around to torment my puddin’.”

Batman makes for a convenient, plausible patsy, given the Joker’s preoccupation with the Dark Knight and how the Joker seems to interact with Quinn only insofar as she is another tool at his disposal to help him toy with the superhero. She truly believes disposing of Batman will rid the Joker of his abusive proclivities and allow her and the Joker to move on with their courtship. In “Mad Love,” when Quinn has Batman chained upside down, inches away from death-by-piranha, she almost apologizes to him. “You know, for what it’s worth, I actually enjoyed some of our romps. But there comes a time when a gal wants more, and now all this gal wants is to settle down with her loving sweetheart.” Batman laughs – which, ironically, deeply unsettles Quinn – and, in a harrowing conversation, presents Quinn with evidence of the Joker’s manipulation: “You little fool. The Joker doesn’t love anything except himself. Wake up, Harleen. He had you pegged for hired help the minute you walked into Arkham.” Quinn is first apoplectic, then woebegone as she listens to Batman elucidate the Joker’s cunning, tears filling her eyes as she begins to understand her role in the Joker’s machinations. But she ultimately cannot let herself accept this conclusion, even when presented with compelling evidence to the contrary; she angrily wipes away tears as she shrieks, “You’re wrong! My puddin’ does love me, he does!” Unsurprisingly, she points to Batman and accuses him, “You’re the problem!” She moves to lower him into the piranha tank, tears still streaming down her cheeks, raging through a manic smile, “And now you’re going to die and make everything right!”

Though Quinn supposedly wants Batman dead in order to retire to a comfortable life with the Joker, she fails to grasp that she perhaps does not have as much of an appetite for a normal, law-abiding life as she believes. For example, in Episode 325 (“Harley’s Holiday”), she finds herself knee-deep in a crime spree within a few short hours of being released from Arkham. Quinn pays for a dress and immediately makes for the door, forgetting to let the cashier unclip the protective tag. A security guard sprints after her, promising her that she can leave with the dress after the tag is removed. However, Quinn is spooked. After just this minor “misunderstanding,” as Bruce Wayne attests – an easily resolved hiccup – Quinn opts to don her jester costume once more and retreat into her villainy, declaring loudly, “I tried to play by the rules, but no, they wouldn’t let me go straight! Society is to blame!” This reveals, perhaps less than her inability to abide by “society’s rules,” instead her deep-seated, unconscious unwillingness to do so.

Quinn’s lack of self-awareness may explain one more puzzling aspect of her presentation: her changing voice. Curiously, Quinzel has a typical speaking voice that then transforms into her high-pitched, hammy accent as she falls in love and works with the Joker. This shift is never more apparent than at the end of “Mad Love,” when Quinn is being re-deposited back into Arkham. The other inmates cluster around televisions that project news of the Joker’s demise as she is wheeled into her cell. When we hear her next, it is Quinzel’s level voice that is narrating her inner thoughts: “Never again. No more obsession, no more craziness, no more Joker.” The orderlies close the door to Quinzel’s cell as she stews, sulking under her blankets. “I finally see that slime for what he is: a murderous, manipulative, irredeemable…” She trails off and turns her head to look at her desk, and we see what has caught her eye: There is a single flower in a slim vase. Looped around the stem is a note reading, “Feel better soon. – J.” Quinzel’s shocked face yields to an expression of loopy contentedness as a smile softens her features. We then hear Quinn’s voice – several octaves higher than it was moments before – emerge from her lips as she finishes her sentence with a sigh: “Angel…”

Though there is disagreement among scholars as to the nature of Quinn’s disorders (some fans even arguing that post-traumatic stress disorder is to blame for many of her behaviors),^[29] I argue that Quinn exhibits signs of both histrionic personality disorder and borderline personality disorder. As her rapid emotional and physical flips suggests, it is almost as if she changes herself and the fundamentals of her personality to live and work with the Joker, adopting a voice and comportment that – for better or for worse – may not be taken as seriously (i.e., may be considered sillier, or perhaps more vapid, so as to communicate to the Joker and those around them that she is subservient). This performativity and the pathological obsequiousness and adulation it implies (not to mention her tendencies towards elements of psychological extremism, as discussed earlier) speak to a psyche on a spectrum. Quinn, is, in fact, operating at an intersection of comorbid disorders.

As described in the fifth volume of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM-V), histrionic personality disorder is,

A pervasive pattern of excessive emotionality and attention seeking, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

1. Is uncomfortable in situations in which he or she is not the center of attention.
2. Interaction with others is often characterized by inappropriate sexually seductive or provocative behavior.
3. Displays rapidly shifting and shallow expression of emotions.
4. Consistently uses physical appearance to draw attention to self.
5. Has a style of speech that is excessively impressionistic and lacking in detail.
6. Shows self-dramatization, theatricality, and exaggerated expression of emotion.
7. Is suggestible (i.e., easily influenced by others or circumstances).
8. Considers relationships to be more intimate than they actually are.

The ways in which Quinn presents herself through physical appearance, speech patterns, emotional affect, and behavioral choices parallel several features of this disorder. Additionally, her willingness to kill Batman for no other reason than her desperation to be forever the center of the Joker’s attention supports this diagnosis,^[30] as does her insistence that the Joker cherishes her (see the last criterion). Furthermore, a partial diagnosis of histrionic personality disorder would at least in part account for her dramatic propensities. This is consistent with my earlier argument that there are facets of her traits and desires she can neither fully recognize nor entirely articulate – aspects that otherwise inexplicably entice her to the more unconventional, dark, or violent manifestations of humanness and the pursuits that fully exercise this abandon.

Quinn also evinces several hallmarks of borderline personality disorder, which is categorized in the same “cluster” of personality disorders (Cluster B, known in the DSM-IV as the “dramatic-erratic” cluster). According to the DSM-IV, borderline personality disorder is,

A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment…
2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
3. Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
4. Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating). (Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5.)
5. Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior.
6. Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days).
7. Chronic feelings of emptiness.
8. Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights).
9. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms.

Quinn’s emotional lability, lack of self-awareness, and dependency on the Joker (or on the notion of their close relationship) all speak to a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder.

In conclusion, though Quinzel’s personal and professional predilections render her transformation to Quinn a relatively predictable evolution, her mental illnesses likely contribute to this metamorphosis. Though she is somewhat cognizant of her atypical mental state – and indeed, at times even seems to embrace it[31] – she nevertheless fails to see how her troublesome thought patterns misattribute blame upon actors that bear little to no responsibility for inauspicious developments in her life. In this way, Quinn struggles to identify and/or orient herself and her circumstances within overly simplistic, binary conceptions of right and wrong, love and hate, and victim and perpetrator.

*          *          *

Harley Quinn: A Recipe

I‘d like to say this is a tried and tested formulation, but really it is a matter of what I could find on hand; a creation of convenience, tailored for Comic Con. That being said, it’s a perfectly adequate presentation: noncommittal enough to represent the character across any of her iterations, but distinctive enough to appear indisputably Harley. Not too sweet, not too spicy.

• 1 pair of dark boots, sans heels (you’ll thank me later)
• 1 pair of black gloves (think studded, or steampunk)
• 1 pair of black and red leggings (preferably with colors divvied by leg, and ideally with diamond silhouettes or cutouts)
• 2 clip-in hair extensions (one red, one black)
• 1 black camisole
• 1 red short-sleeved hoodie layered over camisole
• Copious amounts of black eyeliner, red eye shadow, and maroon lipstick
• As needed: Foundation (think “ghost-tinted”)
• As needed: Sugar, spice, and (not) everything nice

*          *          *

My alarm rouses me all too early that first Thursday morning of Comic Con. Blearily I roll out of bed and spend two hours perfecting my ensemble. After one last look in the mirror – Is that me? – I rush down the steps of my apartment building and take a deep breath, steadying myself for the journey downtown. I open my door and defiantly lift my chin, internally challenging passersby to throw me a dirty look or untoward comment. I won’t even react. Try me.

I have apparently forgotten that this is New York City. I receive nary a raised eyebrow – no rude glances, no inappropriate wisecracks. I relax, tension ebbing with every step, until a yell rings out over the clamor of car horns and stops me in my tracks.

“Harley Quinn! You’re Harley Quinn!” I turn to the source of the call – a young man in an Oxfam shirt is waving cordially. “Right?” he asks. I am delighted to have been recognized; I practically skip as I go to shake his hand.

“That I am, sir!” No sooner have the words left my mouth that I wonder if this how Harley would greet admirers. Most likely she would say something along the lines of, “Yep, Harley Quinn, M.D., pleased ta meet y’acquaintance!” I shrug to myself. Easy there, Meryl Streep. You’re not method acting. “It’s Comic Con!” I explain, proudly brandishing my badge. “It’s my first time!”

“Aw, nice! My buddy went last year and told me it was insane.” An Oxfam-er beside him raises his eyebrows and nods in agreement.

“I’m actually doing my thesis on Harley Quinn. I’m looking at her as a prism through which audiences can situate themselves along various non-normative spectra.” My words trip out of my mouth before I can stop them, though I had promised myself earlier that I wouldn’t volunteer this information during the convention for fear of othering myself – I want my data collection to be unadulterated by ingroup/outgroup dynamics. That’s okay, Lauren, just don’t say it again.

“Yo, that’s so cool, seriously!” one of the men laughs while the other offers me a high-five.

“Thanks, I appreciate it! I’m pretty nervous about it, honestly. I don’t know much about her, or about… any of this. Comic books, DC… not quite my scene,” I confess.

“Don’t be nervous!” Oxfam-er 1 scans my outfit. “You’ll do great! I mean, you look just like her. I immediately knew who you were.” Oxfam-er 2 nods again, his eyes darting between the black and red hair extensions clipped into my pigtails.

I thank them, and with a quick, “Wish me luck!” I race to catch my subway. I break the unofficial rule of polite solitary stoicism on the train, involuntarily smiling to myself as I squeeze into the subway car. As the train pulls away, I stand shoulder to shoulder between the meticulously tailored suits of business men and women who are surely doing their best to ignore the outrageously outfitted young woman beside them grinning at nothing and no one in particular.

*          *          *

She lounges against a blurry cityscape, perhaps standing in front of a window overlooking Gotham. She uses the dreamlike urban variegation of streetlamps and headlights as a background against which to strike a Playboy-esque pose for the viewer. She may have just stolen some intimate moments with the Joker; his long purple coat – ruched to accommodate her small arms – covers her shoulders, but little else. She appears sewn into her red and black latex pants, on which are stamped her usual diamond motifs. A flawless, flat stomach tapers down from bulbous, balloon-like breasts that shine so brilliantly they appear to have been buffed and polished. Viewers may well wonder how she manages to hold herself with such poise, considering the effort it must take to keep her bust from upsetting her balance – each breast is (at least) the size of her head. Her hair is mussed, with unruly bunches barely bound by red and blue bows that match the colored ends of the opposite pigtail. Limpid blue eyes meet the viewers’ through wayward wisps of silvery strands. Her face seems almost incongruously young, and I have trouble reconciling her “come hither” expression with the childlike features proffering it.

I call this one The Sexpot.

Alex Malveda

Alex-Malveda.deviantart.com

*          *          *

“It is to laugh, huh, Mistah J?”

This is Harley Quinn’s first ever appearance. She sits on a desk, legs crossed, clad head to toe in her classic jester’s costume: a bodysuit with alternating red and black panels adorned with sporadically-placed diamond-shaped silhouettes. Her shoes are small, flat boots; gloves, one red and one black, lined with puffy white cuffs; hat, a dual-pronged jester’s hat reminiscent of those of the classic harlequins found in the Italian commedia del’arte vein. Strikingly, her face is completely painted white, her lips a wide black stain on a beautiful, heart-shaped face. Though her face is the only area of exposed skin – a flash of paleness standing in stark contrast to the rest of her costume, drawing attention to big blue eyes outlined by a large black eye mask – it too conceals, as her skin is entirely painted white.

Quinn is lithe – athletic – clearly capable of the kinds of acrobatics her costume could easily afford her. She might be right at home in a masquerade, except for her voice. Friendly, high-pitched, expressive, and decidedly feminine, the explosiveness of her Brooklyn accent is tempered by the lilting pitches of her exaggerated vocal theatricality. Her movements are predictably nimble, her swinging shoulders lending her gait a playful, subtle sensuality, her hips as round as her vowels.

The only time Quinn does not sustain this natural grace is when the Joker is tossing her, assaulting her, or otherwise physically accosting her. For example, within a minute of this introduction to the viewer in Episode 122 (“Joker’s Favor”), the Joker brusquely pushes her aside, almost toppling her from her perch on his desk as he rifles through papers. The is just the first (but certainly not the last) instance in which she is treated with the same level of care and compassion he reserves for objects that currently obstruct his way.

Quinn spends the rest of the episode – and indeed, much of the series – doting on the Joker, assisting in his plots to wreak havoc and/or foil Batman and the Gotham Police Department, and generally stepping in when the Joker’s schemes call for an attractive woman to act on his behalf or advance his plans in some capacity. For example, throughout the course of “Joker’s Favor,” Quinn spends time cutting the Joker’s hair (later in the episode, we discover she has been considering applying for beauty school), picking up the Joker’s latest villain at the airport, crashing a police ball and releasing a paralytic gas so the Joker can pin a bomb to the Commissioner Gordon’s chest, and facing down Batman with a knife. She performs many of these actions in a plainclothes disguise, revealing to the audience her natural physical features in the process: pale pinkish-tan skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair.

Quinn’s appearance – one of classic, all-American attractiveness – is not surprising, as it fits directly into prevailing contemporary beauty standards. What is surprising, however, is the degree to which the writers infuse Quinn with a self-assured, explicit sexual drive (especially given the television show’s young audience). Her sexuality is complex and multifaceted, and the interpretation thereof is irrevocably tethered to her corporeal presentation and practices. Her body is the foundation from which she draws much of her power as a super-villain, as her literal (and figurative) flexibility[32] and resiliency^[33] are the closest things Quinn has to “superpowers.” Unlike characters like LiveWire and Super-Girl, Quinn does not possess supernatural abilities; unlike characters like Batman and Ivy, Quinn does not have access to the kinds of resources that would confer some advantage in espionage or combat.^[34] Instead, Quinn must be a gymnast, relying on her considerable kinesthetic talents (as well as her intelligence) to render herself competitive. In this way, her body is one of her main weapons of choice, and her livelihood depends on her faith in her own abilities to wield and manipulate this unconventional weapon accordingly.

This confidence extends to a sexual boldness that often emerges in Quinn’s interactions with her partner. The Joker, however, cruelly rebuffs Quinn’s advances at every turn. In Episode 421 (“Mad Love”), she tries to cheer up the Joker by approaching him in a slinky red slip. As he rants about Batman, he acknowledges neither her presence nor the romantic, dainty tune she is humming. She screws up her face in frustration and decides to try a different tack: She gracefully hoists herself on the table, crawls over his blueprints, and politely clears her throat. “Go away, I’m busy!” he spits, dismissing her with his usual incivility. “Come on, baby!” she pleads as she positions herself on an invisible seat, arms outstretched to grasp unseen handlebars. “Don’t you want to rev up your Harley?” Amused by her pantomime, she cries, “Vroom vroom,” a few times before yelping in surprise as the Joker knocks her face-first from the table. She lands on the floor with a sharp exhalation of pain, falling out of view. Body still hidden, her hands then creep into frame. “Oh, baby!” she teases, presenting a flat rubber balloon. “I got the whoopee cushion!” She gives it a slap and air trips out, the force of the raspberry disturbing the Joker’s hair. He tenses, gruff as he lectures her about how his previous interaction with Batman was profoundly unsatisfying. After lashing out in anger, he moans about the infeasibility of one of his favorite ideas – a plan called “The Death of a Thousand Smiles.” Quinn slinks up behind him, slipping her arms around his chest and with a suggestively sibilant, “I know how to make some smiles, puddin’.” Moments later, the Joker slings her into the dark alley outside.

In Episode 423 (“The Creeper”), she surprises her puddin’ with a literal pudding pie. As he enters their hideaway, she rises from the mound of goop, cream clinging to her curves as it creeps down her body. She performs a breathy, “Happy Anniversary, Mistah J” a la Marilyn Monroe’s “Happy Birthday, Mr. President:”

Happy Anniversary, Mistah J!
You’re really swell and okay!
It’s seven years to the day…
Take the night off, let’s play!

After kicking a dollop of cream onto the Joker’s shoulder, Quinn tries to entice him into the game with a sultry, “Want to try my pie?… I’m sure you’ll want seconds!” Unsurprisingly, he cannot be bothered, and once more sends her flying through the door onto the sidewalk. She lands in a gooey lump by her pet hyenas, and her face wilts in exasperation as her pets lick off the gobs of pie coating her jester hat.

Quinn’s sexual drive is not limited to the Joker; she even has a moment in which she flirts with Bruce Wayne. In Episode 325 (“Harley’s Holiday”), she is proclaimed “sane” and allowed to leave Arkham Asylum. After running into Wayne in a department store, she almost recognizes Batman’s alter ego, asking him, “Hey, don’t I know you?” Wayne demurs, but holds up her hand to cover his eyes (to mimic Batman’s cowl) and persists, “Something about that chin…” A start, then she exclaims, “I know! You’re Bruce Wayne, the boy billionaire!” She briefly inspects his ring finger, then twirls herself into his arms. “Unattached, I see!” At the end of the episode, after a series of misunderstandings and hijinks find Batman leading Quinn back in Arkham once more, she asks Batman why he had been trying to help her all day. He confides that he “had a bad day too, once,” to which she replies, “Nice guys like you shouldn’t have bad days.” She rises to her tiptoes and gives Batman a quick peck on the lips. She turns to re-enter her cell, closing her eyes and smiling in satisfaction, but she decides to be bolder still: She spins back to Batman and kisses him deeply, one hand on each side of his face as she moans softly. She breaks their embrace with a flourish and a shy, “Call me.”^[35]

Though Quinn makes unequivocal sexual advances towards both the Joker and Batman/Bruce Wayne (as well as other men on rare occasions),^[36] and she begins the series wholly devoted to the Joker, Quinn grows closer to the botanist super-villain Poison Ivy as the series progresses. The women first cross paths in Episode 228 (“Harley and Ivy”) during Quinn’s first solo criminal outing.^[37] They are both robbing the same museum, unbeknownst to each other until Ivy accidentally trips the museum’s alarm. Scrambling to evade the police, they are forced to work together to escape. What begins as a tense argument gives way to hasty, but pleasant introductions as they scamper around the museum and ultimately out the door. As the pair leaves the scene in triumph, Quinn reclining in Ivy’s car as the two speed away from their pursuers, Ivy celebrates: “This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

The audience watches the women grow closer as they retreat to Toxic Acres, an abandoned chemical plant where Ivy maintains her lair/home. We see Quinn squirming as Ivy attempts to administer a shot. “I hate shots,” wails Quinn as Ivy prepares the inoculation. “You won’t last ten minutes here in Toxic Acres without my antidote!” warns Ivy, losing patience. Quinn finally complies, and, nursing her arm, admits, “You’d think living with Mistah J I’d be used to a little pain.” Ivy scoffs. “Why do you put up with that clown?” she asks, voice dripping with disdain. “I know he can be a bit rough sometimes, but my puddin’ loves me, really!” Quinn protests. Ivy refuses Quinn’s rationalizing and resignedly plops herself on a mossy chaise as if to emphasize her incredulity: “Uh-huh. You’re just one big, forgiving doormat, aren’t you?” With a knee-jerk defensiveness, Quinn bawls, “I am not a doormat!” A beat, then a sincere, “Am I?” Ivy, all sass and savvy, gently chides, “If you had a middle name, it would be “Welcome.” Harley deflates in shame, and Ivy comes quickly to her rescue, encouraging, “But cheer up, kid! You just need some lessons in good ol’ female self esteem. In other words, let’s play with the boys on our terms.”

The pair go on to break into Gotham’s Peregrinators Club. Ivy enters first, shocking the men with her mere presence (muffled complaints such as, “A woman… Here?” can be heard from the dumbfounded male audience). The chairman asks Ivy if she is taking part in “some kind of joke. Ivy, indignant, reprimands, “The joke, my dear chairman, is this obsolete, sexist mockery you call a men’s club. Now I ask you, what kind of adventurers refuse to admit women?” There are strident objections from her audience (“This is ridiculous, what does she know?”) as Quinn surreptitiously creeps around the men, dropping green pods every few chairs. Ivy continues, “Still, if it’s excitement you boys crave…” She throws one last, large pod on the ground, which cues each pod to erupt with vines that promptly ensnare the helpless men. Ivy slips one arms around Quinn’s shoulders and gloats, “That should keep you big, strong men busy while we weak little girls loot your trophy room.” Quinn is agog and praises Ivy with a reverent, “Gee, Red, you got style!” Ivy agrees as they leave the room, oblivious to the tumult behind them.

Importantly, Quinn only teams up with Ivy after the Joker has fired her earlier in that same episode. After Quinn and the Joker barely escape an encounter with the Dark Knight, the Joker is dissatisfied with what he considers to be Quinn’s subpar performance (which is ironic, considering she does all of the maneuvering and outwitting that ultimately separates them from Batman during the high-speed chase). Back at their hideout, the Joker berates Quinn with a sarcastic hypothetical: “Maybe I should just let you run the gang. Maybe you’re a better crook than the rest of us put together!” Quinn stands up for herself, arguing, “Maybe…” and finishing with a considerably more feeble, “…Not.” The Joker backs Quinn into a corner, growling through gritted teeth, before he literally and figuratively throws her out on the street. Outside, Quinn is defiant: “Fine, I’ll show you, you’ll be sorry! I’ll throw a big heist and I’ll be laughing at you! Hah, hah – you hear? Laughing!” She walks a few paces, resolute, before her spine curves and her head falls. Turning back over her shoulder one more time to glimpse the hideout, she whimpers, “I miss him already,” before she glumly continues on her way. This is a very different Quinn than we see later in the episode, arm and arm with Ivy, relishing their successful holdup.

In turning Quinn on to the virtues of “good ol’ female self-esteem,” Ivy acts as Quinn’s unofficial feminist sherpa, introducing Quinn to second-wave sensibilities and vocabulary.^[38] As illustrated in the scene in which they crash the Peregrinators Club meeting, Quinn seems to admire this “style,” though never quite adopts it as her own. For example, later in “Harley and Ivy” the two women have chained Batman to a platform weighed down by an ironing board, a sewing machine, a refrigerator, and other such household objects. Ivy taunts Batman, “Here we have the typical male aggressor fittingly imprisoned within the bonds of female domestic slavery.” Quinn adds, “And frankly, folks, he’s never looked better.” Ivy continues, “Admit it, darling: You didn’t think two women were capable of bringing you down.”  Batman deadpans, “Man or woman, a sick mind is capable of anything.” Ivy is unmoved. “A very enlightened statement, Batman. We’ll carve it on your headstone!” Quinn, out of her element in such an exchange, simply adds, “Aloha, sucker!” before kicking Batman into the toxic water. The episode finishes with Quinn, Ivy, and the Joker imprisoned back in Arkham. We see the Joker in a straightjacket isolated in a cell, mumbling to himself, “That’s it. Next time I start a gang, no women.” He pushes his head through the bars and calls down to Quinn and Ivy, who are in working in the prison garden. “Do you hear me? No women!” Quinn lifts her face to hear him and smiles. “I think we can still work it out,” she admits. She turns to Ivy for validation. “Don’t you?” Ivy’s face is out of frame, but one can only imagine her incensed expression as she throws a spade-ful of dirt towards her friend; it hits a stunned Quinn squarely in the face as the screen fades to black.

In this way, Quinn and Ivy remain a duo whose dynamism stems from their complementarity. Ivy draws upon her intellectualism to rationalize her criminal raison d’etre, taking advantage of both her (relative) command of feminist tenets as well as her extensive botanical knowledge to exact crimes in which plants are both weapon and prize. Viewed through the lens of Ivy’s Weltanschauung, plants are a metaphor for femaleness: creatures that are beautiful, but also strong (often poisonous if mishandled or ignored), underestimated in their complexity, and procreative. Quinn, however, has no such overarching criminal philosophy; she simply wants to please the Joker and/or have fun. As such, she and Ivy counterbalance the other’s personality and priorities: Ivy shows Quinn that there is more to criminality, love, intimacy, and womanhood than Quinn may have been previously aware, and Quinn shows Ivy the devil-may-care, carefree fun to be had when not every action or decision must conform to a kind of feminist deontology.

For all of their differences, the women do, however, bear one striking similarity: Neither tolerates demeaning sexist innuendo from strangers. This is especially ironic, given Quinn’s history of abuse with the Joker, though she does not seem to notice any inconsistency on her part. In one instance, Ivy sees the ferocity with which Quinn lashes out against lecherous men as an auspicious sign of Quinn’s shifting attitudes regarding her own mistreatment: As they flee the scene of a crime in Ivy’s car, Quinn is forlorn. “I remember when I would go driving like this with Mistah J,” she reminisces. This is not the first time in the episode Quinn bemoans her lost love to an aggravated Ivy. “‘Mistah J, Mistah J,’” Ivy repeats, shifting her usually smoky voice to match Quinn’s tuneful delivery. “Oh, change the record, Harl!” Ivy snaps. “You want to be some wacko’s victim the rest of your life?” As they pull up to a stoplight, they stop beside a car with three young men. The men proceed to harass the women, howling and cajoling in turn before Ivy interrupts them. In the driver’s seat beside Ivy, Quinn cannot hide her antipathy, but Ivy keeps her voice dispassionately dulcet. “Excuse me, boys,” Ivy purrs, “didn’t your mommies tell you that’s not the nice way to get a lady’s attention?” One man goads the women, “Oh, and what are you going to spank us?” The other men titter stupidly as the man slaps his backside. Quinn can stay silent no longer: “That’s right, pigs! And here’s the paddle!” She pulls out what appears to be a bazooka and shoots a massive projectile into the other car, giving the terrified men just enough time to leap from their car and run to safety. The women drive away, and Quinn and Ivy share a meaningful look as the men’s car explodes in a fireball behind them. Ivy is impressed, conceding, “There may be hope for you yet!”

Despite their disagreements over the Joker, the pair clearly influences each other. For example, in looting the Peregrinators Club trophy room, Ivy ventures outside of her usual criminal enterprise and partakes of ill-gotten gains having nothing to do with the botanical bounties she typically seeks (e.g., rare plants, plant toxins, etc.) And though Quinn does not ever fully embrace Ivy’s beliefs as her own (indefinitely distancing herself from the Joker proves too great an obstacle), it is difficult to imagine Quinn would have accomplished everything she does in “Harley and Ivy” as well as subsequent episodes (breaking up with, trying to kill, or otherwise retaliating against the Joker, starting a path towards living independently and crime-free outside of Arkham, etc.) without Ivy’s presence and support in her life.^[39]

This influence is so pronounced and the women’s bond so strong that many argue that Ivy’s power throughout Quinn’s larger story extends beyond simply acquainting Quinn with Ivy’s ideological conceptions of feminism and empowerment. Indeed, much has been made of Ivy and Quinn’s unique relationship and the sexual undertones in her interactions with Ivy at their hideout:^[40] The duo always wear underwear when at home together, their shirts barely reaching the top of their thighs. Additionally, Quinn and Ivy continue to live together in later episodes (see Episode 420, “Girls’ Nite Out”), even when circumstances do not indicate it is a necessity; they seem to genuinely enjoy each other’s company.

Furthermore, as Ivy hears more of Quinn’s “moaning,” she gets increasingly upset that Quinn is not getting over the Joker. In “Harley and Ivy,” Ivy often fusses at Quinn as the latter mopes over her relationship. Over dinner one night, Quinn has fashioned the vegetables on her plate into a cartoon face vaguely resembling the Joker’s. As Quinn pushes her food around and stares down into her puddin’s makeshift zucchini eyes, she laments that she “doesn’t feel like [her] old perky self.” Ivy angrily brings her fork down on the steamed chard serving as the Joker’s hair and scolds Quinn. “Will you stop? I can’t believe you’re still mooning over that psychotic creep!” Ivy’s frustration, of course, can easily be interpreted as jealousy.^[41] In fact, a proud feminist espousing “enlightened” views of womanhood might very likely extend her philosophy to include a kind of sexual liberalism, casting as extremely feasible the possibility that Ivy introduces Harley to the potential for same sex and/or polyamorous relationships.^[42] Considering Quinn’s healthy sexual drive, the near-certainty that the Joker fails to meet her sexual and emotional needs, and the fact that Ivy and Quinn are often confined in the same space together (in their hideout or at Arkham when the Joker is free, such as in Episode 407, “Joker’s Millions”), it is not unreasonable to posit that a relationship transcending friendship develops between the two of them.

Their relationship is multifaceted – a study in ambiguous affection and implied sexuality – which renders what otherwise might be an uncomfortable closeness instead more agreeable for those ill at ease with queer manifestations of intimacy. This queerness^[43] is particularly palatable because it conforms to an antiquated narrative long since used in fundamentalist religious circles to explain away or dismiss homosexuality. These groups argue that abuse – usually sexual in nature, and often occurring during childhood – somehow discourages typical psychosexual development and instead propels individuals to seek solace in same-sex relationships; these individuals presumably believe they will not encounter the same trauma they experienced at the hands of their differently-gendered partner (or parent).^[44] (Though this is beyond the purview of this essay, it bears mentioning that this connection between childhood sexual abuse and homosexuality has been investigated and been found to be based on untenable evidence and specious conclusions.)^[45]

Quinn’s relationship with Ivy fits this discredited narrative. Indeed, in this way, her sexuality is not a threat to those who might otherwise be discomfited by viewing a same-sex relationship – particularly in a children’s show. Instead, the women’s increasing attachment to one another becomes a predictable development in the story of a survivor of severe domestic violence and not the expression of an individual with a complex, indefinable sexuality who is equally as comfortable with same-sex relationships as she is with those of the opposite sex.

In this way, though Quinn’s possible queerness is empowering in its very existence, the subtlety with which it is presented may in fact further obscure and mystify an already marginalized community. Indeed, the cliché of the “invisible lesbian” is a well-known phenomenon in cultural criticism circles. For instance, TVtropes.org (an extensive “pop cultural wiki” that catalogues the most common clichés in television and other media) lists “Hide Your Lesbians” as one of the many tropes related to queer characters onscreen. Its description is particularly apt in encapsulating Quinn and Ivy’s problematic narrative (or lack thereof):

…Lesbians? Forget ever giving them a resolution – at least onscreen. Heck, the plot won’t even say that there is a relationship, so that technically, anyone arguing that there isn’t one is not wrong. They may live together… they may sleep in the same bed; but [the writers] will not say that [the would-be lesbians] are a couple “that way.”

Canon homosexuality, except in the genres that focus on it specifically, is rare and sometimes restricted to subtext… This is also referred to as queerbaiting when it’s done for the purpose of catching as many fans as possible while still remaining firmly in technically straight territory.

[Queerbaiting] happens most often in series aimed at kids or teenagers – and… most often to female characters. One of the reasons for that is a Discredited Trope: the idea that lesbianism was a form of asexuality. It was believed that the average lesbian wasn’t actually attracted to women but was instead irrationally afraid of men (and therefore sex in general…), usually because she had been hurt by a “bad guy.”^[46]

Finally, it is telling that, in her essay on whether or not Quinn’s backstory as an ambiguously queer character will cast off its shroud of subtext in favor of a more openly queer storyline in Quinn’s Suicide Squad spinoff, Tosha Rachelle Taylor refers to Quinn’s history as “crypto-queer” (“crypto” being a prefix denoting something secret, hidden, or unacknowledged).^[47]

In Quinn’s case, the “Hide Your Lesbians” trope is also related to the phenomenon of “bisexual erasure” (also known as “bisexual invisibility”), defined as “a pervasive problem in which the existence or legitimacy of bisexuality (either in general or in regard to an individual) is questioned or denied outright.”^[48] Quinn’s membership in a media that so discounts the validity of bisexuality precludes any kind of nuanced understanding of flexibility in Quinn’s sexual preferences and practices. Unfortunately, bisexual erasure – especially in the 1990s, during which Batman: TAS aired – was also a product of the larger lesbian community’s hostility to those women who engaged in sexual relationships with individuals across multiple gender identities and/or to those women who refused to assume the label of “lesbian.” In Sharon Dale Stone’s 1996 essay “Bisexual Women and the ‘Threat’ to Lesbian Space: Or What if All the Lesbians Leave?” the author describes current attitudes among lesbians towards bisexuality:

It is wrong, I am persuaded, to categorically dismiss bisexual women as inherently untrustworthy – a threat to lesbian space. Nevertheless, many lesbians – and lesbian feminists in particular – continue to vilify bisexual women. A few years ago, for example, Marilyn Murphy argued that because they freely choose to sleep with men, bisexual women are the only true heterosexuals. In this manner, Murphy defined the attraction a bisexual woman experiences toward other women as irrelevant and argued that these women are not competent to know and define their own sexual/sensual responses. This is insulting to the integrity of bisexual (and heterosexual) women.^[49]

Besides being denigrated, bisexual women were also left unacknowledged. In Elisabeth Daümer’s 1992 essay “Queer Ethics; Or, The Challenge of Bisexuality to Lesbian Ethics,” the author argues, “Due to its problematic political and social position between two opposed sexual cultures, bisexuality has often been ignored by feminist and lesbian theorists both as concept and a realm of experiences.”^[50] Furthermore, though both lesbians and bisexuals are more visible now than they were in the 1990s, they still suffer from issues of underrepresentation in the media, as confirmed in a 2012 BBC report on the prevalence of LGB characters that found “little portrayal of lesbian women, and hardly any representation of bisexual people.”^[51]

In this way, though Quinn’s homosocial and homosexual development may be mired in troublesome tropes or problematic narratives, a legacy of lesbian and bisexual exclusion and abrogation nevertheless makes a portrayal like Quinn’s particularly crucial for its adaptive potential as an affirmation of queer identity. Newer works – especially the Harley Quinn comic series – have capitalized on her beginnings in Batman: TAS to inform a portrayal of Quinn as an explicitly queer character. These developments are necessary, as explained by “gay indie comic creator Brian Andersen:” “Of course, there were often allusions to queer characters in the comic books I read as a kid, but these allusions never connected with me. Allusions are all well and good, but I needed — I need — something more concrete.”^[52]

*          *          *

I reflect on the enormity of the event as I surf the crests of attendees milling about the convention center. Only the most determined fans buoy themselves upon the froth of these countless communities crashing into one another, sharing the same crowded space. The tide bears me into “Artist’s Alley,” where hundreds of illustrators, colorists, and more exhibit their work while admirers ogle stylized portraits of their favorite characters. I am transfixed by a woman across the alley brandishing what appears to be a real lightsaber, wracking my brain for a plausible scientific explanation for such an article, when my reverie is interrupted by a young man in my periphery.

“I like your Harley!”

Grinning appreciatively, I look up to meet the eyes of the artist who has paid me this compliment. “Thank you!” I cast my gaze across the colorful collage of illustrations that bedeck his booth. “I like yours, too! That one’s great.” I gesture to a cartoon portrait of a white, blonde woman wearing a cross between a French maid and a jester costume. She towers over a green-haired man in a gold shirt layered under a purple pin-stripe suit who is propped uncomfortably on the floor before her. This woman, complete with impossibly large eyes and impressively bouffant pigtails, has just delivered a staggering blow with the rolling pin she clutches in hands still trembling in outrage. I can only imagine the force of the immediately preceding smack! that has left the man at her feet pigeon-toed in pain, one finger raised in feeble protest, backside still lifted by flattened knees – as if, facilitated by Looney Tunes-style physics, he had been so quickly felled by the impact so as to send his torso crashing to the ground in advance of his still-pathetically-elevated butt. A small speech balloon reading simply, “Ow…” slithers and blooms from his head, accompanied by stars and squiggles to communicate his concussed daze, details barely noticeable under the woman’s all-caps caterwaul: “YOU’RE SEEING ANOTHER PSYCHIATRIST?!?”

The artist barely glances at the tableau; he already knows the illustration I am indicating. It is clear he has been fielding compliments on that one all day. I readjust my possessions, shifting my backpack so as not to catch on my painstakingly-pinned pigtails so as not to smear my precisely-painted lips so as not to stain my scrupulously-coordinated costume. I free up the hand holding my already-bulging bag of portraits – each of a strikingly similar woman to the one who glowers before me – and inspect the ball of bills that, to my dismay, has been rapidly shrinking over the course of the afternoon. I weigh my options: Hold on to my money for as long as possible, or surrender to the overpowering urge to purchase just one more addition to my curiously-curated collection of this cartoon muse. I sigh and unfurl my cash.

A feeling of exhaustion suddenly overtakes me; I have been perusing art in this noisy hall for hours, and the overstimulation has begun to take its toll. I watch as the lightsaber-wielding Jedi and her similarly-garbed gang exit the hall, laughing, and I must dig my heels into the hard concrete beneath me to keep myself from following them out.

Abraham Lopez

ArtistAbe.deviantart.com

facebook.com/ArtistAbeLopez

*          *          *

Suddenly, there she is, her usual mask-encircled eyes environed instead by a liberally-applied layer of kohl lightly bleeding down her pale cheeks. Her outfit is familiar – the “Daddy’s Lil’ Monster” raglan, the “PUDDIN’” choker – that is, until her garb seamlessly melts into blue robes draped majestically over her left shoulder. She tenderly cradles her “GOODNIGHT” bat that leans against her shoulder. It is out of her grip but not far from it, as if she has indulged herself the briefest of breaks between bashing bad guy skulls and wreaking her particular brand of bedlam in order to pose, expressionless, for this portrait. Her dip dye pigtails – bubble gum pink and Day-Glo blue – are teased into spectacularly tumescent tufts of color that almost distract from the golden halo circumscribing her head. Her portrait is printed on a prayer candle on a bookstore shelf situated between similarly depicted paragons of pop culture and politics; she rests beside candles honoring “Saint Bob Dylan,” “Time Lord Dr. Who,” Frida Kahlo, Virginia Woolf, Margaret Sanger, “Saint Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” Oliver Sacks, Princess Leia, Beyoncé, “Saint Bernie,” Sigmund Freud, and “Saint Kanye.” Some of these candles display the official “feast days” of or invocations to their particular prophet, though Her Holiness, this Madonna of Madness, bears no such benediction save for her moniker printed at the candle’s base. I wonder what community or philosophy this newly christened “Saint Harley Quinn” would claim as her patron cause (celebre), and what her patrons pray for as they prostrate themselves before her crimson pout. Our Lady of Irony, perhaps?

            I call this one The Icon.

Artist Unknown

Found at The Strand Bookstore in New York City

*          *          *

“Did you see Suicide Squad?”

“What’s your favorite version of Harley?”

Though I am the one conducting informal interviews of the visual artists I meet, the interviewees inevitably turn these questions on me they finish elucidating their answers.

The first question warrants my quick, “Yes, and I had problems with it, too,” while the second question leaves me uncomfortable. Usually I submit an uneasy, “I don’t know yet. I’ve just begun my research.” Sometimes, if I am in the middle of a truly engaging exchange, I attempt to justify and dismiss my tepid answer: “I’m really a Star Trek fan, so while I’ve always wanted to attend Comic Con, I’m a little out of my element here.” Inevitably, I tell them I am working on a thesis on Harley Quinn. They start to open their mouths, but I already know their question, and I answer in the same way every time: “I’m-looking-at-her-as-a-prism-through-which-audiences-can-situate-themselves- along-various-non-normative-spectra.” It flows off my tongue as rapidly and unconsciously as my own name.

“Wow, that’s amazing!” They all seem sincere. Far from othering me, revealing my thesis seems to have endeared me more to my interviewees. Often, they seem almost touched. Eventually, our conversations turn towards their work. The artists thoughtfully explicate their pieces – how and why Harley is depicted – but there is a giddiness that underlies their answers. One artist confesses how nice it is to have her vocation taken seriously. Standing in the convention center surrounded by an endless ocean of attendees, creators, and panelists, it is hard to fathom why anyone wouldn’t.

Figures released in the days following the convention would estimate attendance over the four-day period at 180,000 people – the highest ever in New York Comic Con’s ten-year history.[53]

*          *          *

“Excuse me, can I take your picture?”

I feel a timid hand on my shoulder – the man is politely requesting I move, obviously addressing someone else. I spin, eager to photograph whatever spectacle he sees. Is it the towering Iron Man on my right, palms and eyes aglow, magnificent in red metal welded to golden mechanical joints? Or is it perhaps the Amazonian warrior glinting in armored heels on my left, leaning against a bloody spear extending several feet above her head? Maybe the life-sized teddy bear whose fur had tickled me as it lumbered past, now lounging with its cuddly compatriots a few (giant) paw-steps ahead of me? I stay in place and pivot to the gentleman behind me, preparing to track his gaze and adjust my position depending on the creature that had captured his attention. I find myself face to face with wide brown eyes looking expectantly at… me.

I blink, confused. His smile widens, encouraging me. I continue to gape stupidly for a few moments until the smallest of movements catches my eye: a young girl is clutching the man’s hand, her dark ponytail swinging as she shyly steps back. A printed Harley Quinn winks at me from her shirt, daring me to react. Something clicks deep within me, and I oblige.

“Oh… hi! Of course!” I bend my knees to reach the girl’s height and put one arm around her. The man backs away, phone at the ready, and tells us to smile. I tilt my head instinctively, my black pigtail slipping onto the girl’s slight shoulder. A half-second too late, I wonder if I should assume a fiercer pose, as the other cosplayers do when assailed by parents and paparazzi; he takes the picture, my expression surely conveying about as much danger and intrigue as would be found on Paddington’s colossal cousin in the corner of my eye, whose gargantuan paws are fumbling in vain with his iPhone.

I turn to the girl. “Is this your first Comic Con? Are you having fun?” She nods emphatically, her eyes now fixed on mine, as if she is having trouble processing the moment. “I like your shirt!” She glances at her winking Harley and looks back at me; I wink conspiratorially.

The man drops his phone into his pocket and approaches me, beaming. He gives me an earnest thank you as he ushers the girl away. I watch as they descend the steps and exit out the front doors of the convention hall, hands still clasped. She is positively bouncing, talking excitedly all the way.

I stare after them for a long time. For the first time, I have no instinct to follow them out.

*          *          *

I was determined to understand her essence. I wanted to cut to the quick of this character – to understand her roots, to digest her seemingly simple psychobiography so as to produce a (the) definitive characterization. Which one was the authentic, the accurate Harley Quinn? She could not – must not – be all things, because then, in my eyes, she was nothing – a caricature whose lines were literally and figuratively redrawn to conform to her current storyline.

But she was – is – all things. But that doesn’t make her nothing; it makes her something – an exquisite amalgam of disparate, seemingly inconsonant traits that somehow (often sloppily) coalesce to form the jumble of hopes, fears, choices, regrets, and incoherencies that typify participation in/engagement of the human condition. And thus, I realized that, in the attempt to maintain the popularity of an iconic female character, her newer arbiters instead create a realistic, relatable one. As a result, Harley Quinn is a woman of manifest queerness who, over the course of decades, has struggled to maintain physical and psychological consistency across multiple media; who speaks volumes simply by means of persevering, of identifying, of existing. Certain traits remain fixed; others are fickle features liable to evolve to achieve contextual compatibility with new settings and stories. She is more than the sum of her parts, and in her constant co-opting, she has become a mosaic comprising all of these appropriations as opposed to an embodiment of any one characterization in its entirety.

*          *          *

On the last day of Comic Con, I can’t bring myself to dress up. I am exhausted, brimful of quotations, Harley trivia, and, most surprisingly, a calm contentment. I feel I have nothing to prove. Banished is the manic energy with which I was driven to somehow compensate for my inexperience in Harley’s world. My costume, which I originally envisioned as a perfect compromise between so many of her depictions, now seems… too limiting. It had been a stopgap measure – a means of sartorial equivocation until I knew which version of Harley was the real Harley. But now, left with more questions than answers and an increasingly umbral One True Harley, my costume feels prosaic – inadequate. A surprising nostalgia wells up in me as I neatly fold and stow my leggings.

Gone is much of the role play, paper mache melee of the days before. Sunday is the day the convention ends early. Artists and media paraphernalia purveyors get their last few hours of selling in before they dismantle their booths and set off back to their homes (often in other states, or even countries). Among those of us who attended all four days, the mood is celebratory and relieved. We did it! We made it! Panels are relaxed and introspective. I pick up some final few Harley posters and some of the artists recognize me even without my war paint.

When the convention finally draws to a close, we are all flush with a jolly exhaustion, like children deeply and truly tuckered from meeting their favorite characters at Disney World. Surrounded by both plainclothes attendees and kindly chimeras festooned with swag bags, we make our way out the glass doors for the last time, still chattering happily as we pour into the sunset.

*          *          *

“I like your Harley!”

It took me a shamefully long time before I realized that I had, in effect, misheard him – misheard all who had shared this sentiment throughout the convention. They were saying something else entirely.

I like your Harley.

*          *          *

She dangles from an unseen platform, her body looped around a rope to which she tightly clings. Her classic bodysuit reveals an athletic frame, with thighs thick and muscular –an acrobat. Her arms tuck into her torso, pressed against what appears to be a modest bust. Though her hands remain unseen, she clearly holds a bouquet of balloons; they float just above her, inflated faces of clowns and cats and crying babies mingling with cartoonish cameos of the two most important men in her life. These balloons hover just above her mop of buoyant blonde hair, jester’s cap nowhere to be found – perhaps having fallen in a tricky ascent. Her face is painted its usual white, complete with dark lipstick and a black eye mask. She bites a maroon lip while negotiating her precarious balance, pale blue eyes wide as she gazes at something to the right of the viewer. She may be confused or anxious, but she is also excited, as a slightly upturned corner of her lip subtly belies any fear or trepidation. There is innocence – insecurity – but also strength and confidence. She looks as if she is taking a short pause – allowing herself a breath as she collects her thoughts and formulates her plan – before climbing or leaping or flipping out of frame, releasing her balloons, and landing in the next adventure.

This one is my favorite; I call it simply Harley.

Mark Dos Santos & Julio Real

MarkDosSantos.com

 

__________________________________________________

Endnotes

^[1] Though no definitive sources exist that record these measures, the top six articles found following Google searches similar to “comic book characters that originated outside of comics” rank Quinn as the top example of this unique phenomenon as a result of her popularity and/or current ubiquity (see “Comic Book Characters That Debuted Outside Comics;” Conley; Godfrey; Paul; Paur; and Siegal, Lucas, and Marston). For further reading on the principles of canonicity in the domain of graphic novels, see Cook.

[2] See Cook and Crippa & Hallack.

[3] It should be noted that even this article appears in the context of a larger book otherwise devoted to the Joker (see Taylor, “Kiss with a Fist…”)

[4] “Non-normativity” refers to that which exists in opposition to the “normative,” which supports or perpetuates dominant norms, narratives, identities, or dynamics (i.e., in the way that “heteronormativity” is the privileging of heterosexual – and thus, heterosocial – institutions, relations, modes of behavior, and ways of being so as to maintain an understanding of the false equivalency of “normative” with “normal”).

^[5] Indeed, her costume could be counted as a facet of her character that reflects her choices and preferences, for it has evolved so often and so drastically across her larger transmutative process. It varies widely in its relative measure of “provocativeness” (i.e. amount of skin bared), which also influences its degree of practicality as activewear. (This “sexy versus practical” debate afflicts almost all discussions of female costumes in graphic novels.)

^[6] This is a play on the Latin phrase corpus delecti, the legal term referring to a crime’s material evidence.

^[7] This references a phrase coined by mid 20th-century comedian Dewey “Pigmeat” Markham and made popular by Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, a variety show that ran in the United States from 1968 to 1973.

^[8] For one such example, see Episode 228 (“Harley and Ivy”), in which Quinn launches a projectile at a car of cat-callers. This moment is described in greater detail later in this piece.

^[9] She is, it should be noted, permitted to exhibit her intelligence and alliterative skills when it serves to glorify the Joker. This is seen in “The Laughing Fish” when she introduces the Joker as “that Caliph of Clowns, that Mogul of Mountebanks…”

[10] A video game in which Harley is featured.

[11] A series of graphic novels in which Quinn is featured.

[12] Of Game of Thrones fame.

[13] Of Dr. Who fame.

^[14] See Fontaine.

^[15] Immediately after this, Quinn speaks up from behind Batman: “’Scuse me! The teeth were my idea.” She grabs the nearby can of nitrous oxide, spraying it in Batman’s face as she cries, “So’s this!” Though Quinn admits that the denture hint was her idea, the Joker’s domination over all aspects of his gang (Quinn included) throughout the series supports the assumption that he not only demanded a clue for Batman as part of the plan, but also approved of Quinn’s idea. (It is also possible Quinn, out of devotion to her partner, took credit for the idea when she noticed the Joker’s visible agitation upon being mocked.) Furthermore, the ingenuity of the clue is immaterial to the revelation that the Joker typically leaves clues for Batman, a practice that makes clear his desire for Batman to find him as he enacts his schemes.

^[16] Another such clue can be found in “The Laughing Fish:” The Joker attacks one of his victims in part by using a fish, the species of which is “not native to Gotham’s cold waters.” This clue leads Batman (and an officer in Gotham’s police department) to conclude that the Joker must be purposefully directing them to the Gotham City Aquarium, where the Joker and Quinn are indeed lying in wait.

^[17] See Fontaine.

^[18] Even in this instance, she has trouble conceptualizing herself as independent from her puddin’ and his criminal enterprises. When pilfering the three million dollar diamond, she squeals, “Ooh, Mistah J will just plotz when I give him… No, I’m keeping it for myself! … Maybe.”

^[19] This is a reference to the 1955 television show The Honeymooners, in which Ralph Kramden would often finish the episode by telling his wife, Alice, “Baby, you’re the greatest!” The series is well known for Ralph’s constant (presumably empty) threats of physical violence to his wife.

^[20] This is also known as “battered woman syndrome; some even consider it a variation of “Stockholm syndrome.” Though there exist arguments against accepting these constructs as explanations for continued abuse, their relative strengths and weaknesses are beyond the purview of this article. As Quinn was created in 1992, it is reasonable to assume that her creators were familiar with this syndrome. For more on the controversy surrounding the syndrome, please see: “Battered Woman Syndrome” and Dutton.

^[21] See Wagner.

^[22] See “Battered Women Who Strike Back;” Hempel, Newman, & Grauerholz; and Schneider.

^[23] This is but one example of Quinn’s genuine empathy that often complicates or outright thwarts the indiscriminate violence of the Joker’s plans. Furthermore, though she agrees that he is a psychopath, she is often offended, shocked, and angered by the Joker’s apparent lack of consideration for her health, happiness, and safety, and can respond with violence when provoked (for examples, see Episode 407, “Joker’s Millions,” and Episode 312, “The Trial.”). Her ire, however, never lasts for long; she is apparently incapable of holding a grudge when it pertains to her “puddin’.” Additionally, on the rare occasions when Quinn does physically strike the Joker, the violence fails to reach the intensity of the Joker’s abuse; the blows are milder – cartoonish and slapstick – so much so that the Joker has the physical wherewithal to talk within the “assault.”

^[24] See Barnett, Martinez, & Keyson; Follingstad; and Johnson & Ferraro.

^[25] As Batman explains to the Joker later in the episode, “She almost had me, you know. Arms and legs chained, dizzy from the blood rushing to my head. I had no way out other than convincing her to call you. I knew your massive ego would never allow anyone else the ‘honor’ of killing me. Though I have to admit she came a lot closer than you ever did… puddin’.”

[26] For further material that addresses the knottier aspects of the clown pair’s relationship in the larger DC Universe (i.e., beyond Batman: TAS), I recommend the following sources: Tosha Taylor’s article Kiss With a Fist: The Gendered Power Struggle of the Joker and Harley Quinn is one of the only scholarly articles in existence to mention Quinn, let alone prominently feature her; it investigates how gender informs the duo’s physical and philosophical interplay. Additionally, I recommend the Youtube channel ShippersGuideToTheGalaxy’s “Joker and Harley Quinn Mad Love Or Just Mad?” and “Harley Quinn Abuses the Joker?” as trenchant explorations of the Joker/Harley fan community and the criticisms with which such “shippers” often contend. (Those who “ship” a couple embrace/promote a relationship between two characters that may exist within or without explicit canonical support.)

[27] Ash (a human) and Pikachu (a pokemon) are characters in the Pokemon universe.

^[28] This is a particularly interesting observation, as Looney Tunes and Batman: TAS were both produced by Warner Brothers Entertainment Inc. Furthermore, Looney Tunes episodes were rebroadcast throughout the 1990s – possibly even on the same channel as Batman: TAS when “Mad Love” aired.

^[29] See “Crazy or ‘Crazy’? [sic] A Harley Quinn Annoyance;” Crippa & Hallack; and Goodfriend.

^[30] Though she primarily seeks the Joker’s attention, the antics in which she engages in episodes such as “Harley’s Holiday” and Episode 420 (“Girls’ Nite Out”) establish that she very much enjoys being the center of attention even when the Joker is not present.

[31] In Episode 420 (“Girls’ Nite Out”), Livewire confronts Quinn, her voice hoarse with anger: “Are you out of your mind?” Quinn takes a moment to seriously ponder her answer. Her face puckers in concentration before she smiles serenely and replies with an unperturbed, “Yeah.”

[32] Precisely because she does not share some of the Joker’s stranger physical attributes (when not in costume, her skin is not bleached white, her hair is not dyed green, etc.), much of her power stems from her invaluable ability to, by virtue of her “normal” appearance, insert herself into plans and situations that warrant an inconspicuous agent.

^[33] Her physical and emotional resiliency are powers in and of themselves, as she is the recipient of endless abuse from the Joker and still manages a full recovery after each traumatic episode.

^[34] In Episode 420 (“Girls’ Night Out”), we see this discrepancy firsthand. Ivy, Livewire, and SuperGirl use their superpowers/resources to battle one another, leaving Quinn at a disadvantage that is often emphasized for comedic effect. Episodes such as these make even more apparent how “othered” Quinn is in the larger landscape of Batman villains and heroes.

^[35] As this is the last episode to feature Quinn in Season 3 of the television show (before the transition to the new network/aesthetic of The Adventures of Batman and Robin for Season 4), one could argue that this episode was originally how Quinn’s story was slated to “end,” which could explain why she is no longer with the Joker and why Leland confirms that in a short time Quinn will “be ready to reenter society for good.”

^[36] These other instances include the sexual advances she makes towards the Boxy Bennett and the Creeper. However, these should not be considered genuine, as they are merely attempts distract and/or convince the men of her good intentions.

^[37] Technically, Quinn commits her first criminal excursion alone as Dr. Harleen Quinzel when the latter pilfers the clothes that would comprise her Harley Quinn costume from the costume shop. However, as she accomplishes this mission just before she becomes Harley Quinn (and it is done in order to break the Joker out of Arkham), it does not quality as Quinn’s first criminal expedition.

^[38] For a description of the tenets of second-wave feminism, see Rampton.

^[39] Indeed, in “Harley’s Holiday” (the last episode to feature Quinn in Season 3, see Footnote #31), it is not the Joker, but Ivy who is waiting to welcome Quinn back to Arkham. Ivy holds a potted flower – presumably a kind of “homecoming” gift for Quinn. Importantly, in what could have been both Quinn’s and Ivy’s last appearance in the show, Quinn’s last line (“Eh, what are you looking at?” to Ivy’s wry smile after watching Quinn kiss Batman) is directed towards Ivy.

^[40] See Taylor’s “Harley Quinn’s Crypto-Queer History…”and “Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy: Friends or Lovers?”

^[41] Quinn also has moments of jealousy, though these do not pertain to any of Ivy’s would-be male suitors, but to the female villain Livewire (with which Ivy shares some suggestive lines). When Livewire joins Quinn and Ivy for an ATM raid/clandestine shopping spree, Ivy admires Livewire’s abilities, telling her, “I really like the way you handle your powers.” During the heist, after Livewire has consistently humiliated Quinn, Quinn asks Ivy, “When did we become ‘the gang?’” Later in the episode, Livewire is staying with the two women in their hideout, the three having just returned from a very public argument in a nightclub. Livewire pays Ivy a backhanded compliment, and Ivy asks her, “You’re not going to get all hissy and rude again now that we’ve kissed and made up?”

^[42] In making a claim for Ivy’s queerness her essay on Quinn’s “crypto-queer history,” Tosha Rachelle Taylor points out that the vanity plate on Ivy’s car reads, “Rosebud” (see Taylor’s “Harley Quinn’s Crypto-Queer History….”) Though this could be interpreted as a Citizen Kane reference, as Ivy may be familiar with classic movies (note the Casablanca reference later in that scene), Taylor also points to “rosebud” as a nickname for the clitoris – a euphemism that has emerged from a contested claim regarding William Randolph Heart and his lover (see Thomson).

^[43] Queerness is a multifaceted term denoting several complex sexual, psychological, and social phenomena. As the term “queer” has a legacy of derogatory misuse and subsequent more positive re-appropriation by the theretofore slandered community, it is important to establish both a working definition for the term as well as its application in the context of this piece. According to a glossary compiled by multiple academics and accumulated in the University of Wisconsin at Madison’s LGBT Center, “queer” is “an umbrella term representative of the vast matrix of identities outside of the gender normative and heterosexual or monogamous majority… [and] an umbrella term denoting a lack of normalcy in terms of one’s sexuality, gender, or political ideologies in direct relation to sex, sexuality, and gender” (see “Trans, Genderqueer, and Queer Terms Glossary”).

^[44] For examples of these claims, see amicus curiae briefs for Donald Welch, Anthony Duk, Aaron Bitzer v. Edmund G. Brown et. al filed by the American College of Pediatricians and Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays And Gays; Johnston; Nicolosi; Satinover; Sprigg, Peter, & Dailey; Throckmorton.

^[45] See “10 Anti-Gay Myths Debunked” for Southern Poverty Law Center’s thorough, multi-sourced refutation of this causal link.

^[46] More of TVtropes.org’s queerness-related clichés that hold particular relevance to Quinn’s story in Batman: TAS or her other adaptations are as follows: “Adaptational Sexuality,” “Ambiguously Bi,” “Bait-and-Switch Lesbians,” and “Depraved Bisexual.” For more information (including the article on “Hide Your Lesbians”), see “Queer as Tropes.”

^[47] See Taylor’s “Harley Quinn’s Crypto-Queer History…”

^[48] Quote from “Erasure of Bisexuality;” see also Yoshino.

^[49] See Stone.

^[50] See Daümer.

^[51] See “LGB Consultation: Diversity & Inclusion: Report on the Portrayal of LGB People.”

^[52] See Andersen.

[53] See MacDonald and Reid.

 

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