The Four Color Media Monitor

Study Breaks has a gushy article claiming Harley Quinn is an "icon":

What makes Harley Quinn such an iconic comic book character? She’s crazy, fun and most of all — relatable. She’s amassed a lot of recognition as a female supervillain turned superhero, and in a male-dominated world, that’s a pretty tough feat to accomplish. Originally meant for only one episode of “Batman: The Animated Series” as the Joker’s sidekick, Harley Quinn has since played a significant role in the world of comics for almost three decades and moreover, has given women in comics the liberty to not be perfect — which is probably one of the most iconic feminist statements of them all.

This is almost uproarious. A woman who's made use of potentially lethal violence for the sake of crime is relatable? Certainly funny is how they deny the whole Mary Sue mentality that's led to characters with little or no flaws, which has only led to some of the worst writing this side of fanfiction:

Tara Strand explains in Vulture that “Feminism is about showing women as fully fleshed out human beings, and that’s what Harley is.” Strand points out that Harley “doesn’t make choices that are smart or good for a woman, but she gets to make those choices.” A big problem with feminism today is the pressure to always be strong, be independent, be intelligent and be 110% all the time. These are unfair expectations for anyone.

I'm afraid this isn't very accurate, if we take products like Captain Marvel, the Muslim Ms. Marvel and maybe even the recent Squirrel Girl renditions as examples. The way they've been depicted, they're Mary Sues, with no character flaws and almost no difficulties or obstacles faced in battles against supercrooks. That's what makes Brie Larson's cinematic adaptation such a joke. Besides, if you're going to describe these matters as "feminist", at least clearly define what kind of feminism it's supposed to represent. In any case, why is a character who'd been emphasized as a crook for many years such a big deal? And the way feminism is managed today, its subjects are anything but strong, independent and intelligent if, say, they reject the opposite sex for romance and marriage, consider child-bearing bad, or more precisely, push the notion of "toxic masculinity".

Nobody expects you to be perfect at all times, but the way this article's written, you'd think this was a contradiction of what feminism is calling for.

Trying so hard to go against the patriarchal narrative will just have women playing right into the trap that ultimately ends in crashing and shutting down. Men are allowed to be screwups, drunks, crazy and dependent. Why? Because they’re humans — but so are women. Harley is one of the women in comics who embodies that, which is why she has rivaled Wonder Woman as a top feminist character: “Wonder Woman sort of represents perfection, whereas Harley represents everybody else.”

Since they mention drunks, here's an interesting moment from the time Kurt Busiek - who since seems to be rejecting his past work at Marvel/DC - was writing the Avengers for at least 4 years: he came up with a storyline where Carol Danvers, then going by the codename Warbird, became an alcoholic, and had to take leave from official duty to deal with it through programs like Alcoholics Anonymous. But that's hardly the kind of focus we're finding now in comicdom or moviedom. It's laughable to say men are allowed to screw up but not women, or at least act as though recent feminist-pandering stories aren't making the mistake of avoiding serious hurdles.

Wonder Woman has always been a staple of female empowerment — tough, powerful, righteous and beautiful. She never needed a man but could have one when she wanted one. She was never a damsel in distress, never willingly strayed from her values and often had to rescue her male colleagues. Now, there isn’t anything wrong with that; Wonder Woman motivated young girls to have strength, be brave and be courageous, and she showed young boys that girls are just as capable of handling difficult situations. However, these standards are not always healthy to project on a young girl or woman of any age.

The intense pressure of always having to prove yourself to your colleagues just because of your gender is wrong. Not only does that thinking create a divide through double standards, but it also creates intense mental stress and promotes unhealthy thinking. That’s why Harley Quinn is so important for women in comics and in general. She balances out someone as righteous as Wonder Woman. She’s loud, unapologetic and perfectly imperfect. She’s an antihero who embraces her mental distortions, and instead of denying or suppressing them — which ultimately causes them to deepen and worsen — she works through them to become her own boss, which encapsulates the whole idea of feminism.

Gee, when was a criminal who could commit murder like the Joker, and whose new film has an emphasis on baseball bats, somebody to be considered "righteous"? And when was this supposed to be viewed as the whole idea of feminism - to be mentally disturbed? This doesn't sound like a good role model at all, yet it does serve as an example of how far educational standards have fallen in the US, where mentally ill has become acceptable on the left. I find the writer's assertion HQ's crooked mentality is even remotely appropriate revolting. Besides, who says you have to prove yourself to your colleagues the way she puts it?

On the flip side, the Marvel Universe has always been the opposite of the DC Universe. A similarity, however, is the strides they made in the superheroine revolution. April 24 is the projected release of the highly anticipated “Black Widow” movie. She isn’t the first superheroine to have her own film. In 2004, “Catwoman,” starring Halle Berry, was the highest-grossing female-led superhero film. “Wonder Woman” was released in 2017, out-grossing “Catwoman,” and in 2018, Captain Marvel” made her debut. Black Widow has always been a vital member of the Avengers, although she never gets the same recognition as Wonder Woman in the Justice League, despite being an original member.

As far as women in comics go, Black Widow’s origin story is similar to Harley Quinn’s: very real, incredibly sad and although not completely relatable, can still be empathized with. She was an orphan in the Soviet Union and rumored to be a descendant of the deposed Romanovs. Trained and recruited by the KGB, she was kidnapped, brainwashed and fought in the army. She lost her lover and baby during WWII, and was subsequently inducted into the Black Widow program, which surgically prevented her from being able to become a mother ever again. Black Widow survived more mentally and physically than half of the Marvel Universe. And she did it without powers.

There's a difference: BW's initial adherence to the crooks of the Soviet Union and later defection to the west was handled far more plausibly than HQ's "street-level" premise. Besides, are they aware some left-wing feminists have no issue with abortion?

Also, to say BW has no powers is to obscure that she did use sophisticated gadgetry, like gimmicks to stick to walls not unlike Spider-Man, lock picks, hidden weapons (in a 4-part Marvel Fanfare story from 1983, she had a bow-and-arrow hidden under a form of fake skin covering on her back), and there's also her swinging ropes and stinger-rays she could wear on her wrists.

Black Widow was supposed to have a movie years ago, yet production kept pushing back the dates, focusing on the phases and finishing up the story arc of “Avengers: Endgame.” Because of Tony Stark’s ultimate sacrifice, she even received the short end of the stick with her death during the movie. All the mental manipulation, her troubled past and determination to make right all her past wrongs is what drove her to give her life for the people and world she loved. And even though Tony Stark is a lovable character, let’s be honest: He didn’t suffer nearly as much as Black Widow did. The point is, Black Widow deserved a movie long ago.

Tony didn't suffer from that shrapnel embedded in his chest for many years, too dangerous to remove at ease since it was close to his heart? He had to use a high-tech pacemaker to prevent being consumed by the effects. There may be a difference between mental and physical, but still, it's significant.

This is why Harley Quinn and Black Widow are the ideal women in comics to help propel feminism to the next level. Harley Quinn fan Elise Archer puts it best: “I don’t want to be condescended to with strong, independent female characters who don’t have any flaws and are just kinda perfect and sane and never make bad relationship choices … For me, the freedom Harley’s been given to be a f–k-up is much less misogynist than all these other hackneyed stories thrust on female characters again and again.”

Ordinary girls, doing extraordinary things while facing modern-day trials and tribulations; those are realistic role models.

Let me get this straight: if they're strong and independent, they're not flawed, neither in personality traits nor in combat? I fail to see how this makes sense. Colossus from the X-Men became strong and independent in his own way, as Prof. Xavier drew him out of the communist mentality when recruiting him to his team, so what's the point here? I don't see it. Whatever the writer of this idiocy is saying, it's just so wrongheaded and stupid. Besides, the movie's just tanked at the box office, and as the Federalist explains, it wasn't even men who led to its failure (they comprised 54 percent of audience attendance), but rather, a jumbled plot and insufficient focus on the cast members who should've gotten the majority of the spotlight. Feminists might want to start asking if it's a good idea to tout a deranged villainess so noticeably as an alleged role model, because the way HQ was depicted in the past - and likely still today - is so troubling, it could cause embarrassment for their whole ideological movement. There are impressive role models to be found in fiction. But HQ is decidedly not among them.

Labels: dc comics, golden calf of villainy, Iron Man, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, msm propaganda, violence, women of dc, women of marvel