I am interested in using a feminist lens to undertake an intense character analysis of Harley Quinn (aka, Dr. Harleen Quinzel), a supervillain in the DC comic book universe. She was created in 1992, and since her inception as a cartoon character in Batman: The Animated Series she has appeared in countless comic books, video games, and films (including the recent Suicide Squad), becoming a fan favorite. As a psychiatrist who later develops schizophrenia – a working clinician attempting to reconcile her own escalating mental illness with her professional duties even as she begins to identify more with her patients than with her colleagues – she has a complex backstory that is too frequently dismissed in favor of her more ubiquitous, grossly reductive label: the Joker’s girlfriend. Furthermore, she is often (but not always) portrayed as an oversexualized, battered puppet, as much a victim of the Joker’s cunning as she is the brilliant psychiatrist who originally treated and analyzed him. In this way, she is a constantly shifting figure – almost a barometer for the prevailing (anti)feminist sentiments of any given work, and a powerful statement on the double standard facing female characters who must manifest countless traits (sexy, strong, weak, mature, infantile, battered, empowered, intelligent, foolish, vulnerable, naive, calculating, etc.) somehow simultaneously.
In order to undertake this multifaceted analysis, will use previous scholarship examining the origins of the comic book genre as well as its evolution through the decades. I will investigate how the comic book “universes” have permeated popular culture and, having emerged from their subcultural niche, how prominent characters like Harley Quinn now more than ever inform/are informed by prevailing conceptions of femininity, sexuality, and heightened or fetishized subversions thereof. Studying Harley Quinn is also a singular opportunity to assess current attitudes toward and understandings of mental illness; therefore, I will also incorporate relevant scholarly articles or passages from The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Finally, I will have access to a wealth of comic books, television shows, zines, movies, video games, and other media from which to cull more information and thus create a psychobiography. In summary, I will attempt to present an appropriately nuanced portrait of a complex character and map her metamorphosis in popular culture against shifting sociocultural schemas.
