Harley Quinn: The Clown Princess of Crime as a Paradigm of Particularly Palatable Queerness

Introduction: Harley Quinn: Is she a feminist icon? A competent psychiatrist fallen tragic victim to severe mental illness? Villain(ess) extraordinaire? The Joker’s girlfriend? Champion of the LGBTQ community?

Or does she, throughout her myriad iterations, rather claim a small piece of all of those identities, exhibiting the nuanced liminality that is the practiced territory of characters so complex, so enduring, and so popular that they transcend their own medium and permeate into more mainstream pop cultural consciousness?

In this class, we will examine Harley Quinn as an unlikely proponent of a peculiar phenomenon: the acknowledgement and celebration of queerness in many of its varied psychosocial configurations. We will critically engage with the character as a prism through which audiences could — and can — situate themselves within a particularly palatable manifestation of the third wave feminism movement and its emergent principles.

Students are encouraged to follow this fascinating character from her origins as a silly, sexy sidekick to her breakthrough into blockbuster cinema and beyond. Using a feminist lens, we will undertake an intense character analysis of Harley Quinn and trace her metamorphoses across multiple media.

 

Week 1: Enter Harley Quinn: And Introduction to the Clown Princess of Crime

  1. Watch Batman: The Animated Series (1992), Season 1 Episode 22 (“Joker’s Favor”) & Season 4 Episode 21 (“Mad Love”)
    • These serve as the world’s introduction to the character of Harley Quinn; the first episode listed is from the 1992 series in which she makes her first ever appearance anywhere, while the second episode listed delves deeper into her backstory, revealing the origins of her relationship with the Joker and Batman. While perhaps not the most worthwhile episodes of which to undertake a lengthy critical analysis (as there have been several episodes of other television shows, movies, and graphic novels that have since more fully developed Harley’s psychobiography are are widely understood to be the more definitive references), these episodes are nonetheless important to watch as the foundation upon which this highly variable character has manifested over the years.
  2. “Harley’s Haven” (harley-quinn.com)
    • Students are encouraged to freely explore this delightful website, ideally devoting at least fifteen minutes to clicking the various sections and exploring a fan’s account of Harley Quinn’s past and present both within the realm of certain franchises as well as her position as an object of fascination and curiosity in contemporary culture. This website — over a decade old, and created by a self-described Harley devotee — will also serve as a somewhat primitive, but still wholly relevant precursor to the fan-created online communities that we will explore in greater detail in Week 8.
  3. The Joker: A Visual History of the Clown Prince of Crime, by Daniel Wallace
    • This is a visual encyclopedia — a large book that students are invited to peruse all semester that can only serve to supplement their understanding of the Joker. this book will allow students an easily digestible introduction into Batman’s most infamous archenemy. Furthermore, as how characters are visually represented on page and screen are so crucial to their interpretation across various communities, it is important to make note of the shifting visual conceits and the ways in which certain physical characteristics of the Joker have changed over time. Students are asked to make note of this complex metamorphosis and continuously use these notes to undertake a similar analysis of the stylistic evolution of Harley Quinn, as unfortunately no such visual history/encyclopedia exists for her.
  4. Batman: Harley Quinn and Batman Adventures: Mad Love
    • Batman: The Animated Series creator Paul Dini also contributed to these two seminal, award-winning graphic novels on the “clown princess of crime.” These are the kinds of works to which the syllabus alluded earlier: comics that serve as the true accounts of Harley’s origins, detailing her professional psychiatric career, its subsequent derailment by the increasingly-severe symptoms of her mental illness(es), and the development of her romantic relationship with the Joker.
  5. Two articles detailing Harley Quinn’s backstory
    • “The Hidden Story of Harley Quinn and How She Became the Superhero World’s Most Successful Woman,” by Abraham Riesman http://www.vulture.com/2014/12/harley-quinn-dc-comics-suicide-squad.html
    • “The Oral History of Harley Quinn,” by Catie Keck http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2016/08/harley-quinn-oral-history
      • These articles are two slightly different takes on a near-comprehensive history of Harley Quinn, the first being more of a standard research piece with the latter functioning as an “oral history” comprised entirely of interviews. These are both worthwhile pieces, as they provide a relatively succinct version of a 20+ year-old, uniquely stratified history while also providing insight into the minds of the creators and actors who engendered Harley.

 

Week 2: Sexy Supers, Femme Fatales, & Damsels in Distress: A Brief Foray into Female Representation in Comics and Their Adaptations

  1. The Supergirls : Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy, and the History of Comic Book Heroines by Mike Madrid; Chapters: “Goddesses of Tomorrow,” “Sex and the Single Superheroine,” “Heroine Chic”
    • This title provides students with a useful introduction to the history of female characters (almost exclusively superheroes, unfortunately). In Mike Madrid’s respectful, but appropriately critical history of the myriad and ever-evolving ways women have been depicted in graphic novels, we will pay particular attention to the chapters that are most relevant to our purposes: In “Goddesses of Tomorrow,” Madrid lays out the broader critical foundation upon which he will layer his nuanced history. In “Sex and the Single Superheroine,” Madrid examines how the movement(s) encouraging female liberation and sexual openness have affected the way unattached female superheroes have been portrayed over the years. (This chapter also contains the only brief mention of Harley Quinn.)
  2. Three articles take on feminism in the comic-book-movie industry:
  3. “Tropes vs Women in Video Games” Playlists on “Feminist Frequency” Youtube channel, created by Anita Sarkeesian
    • In these videos, Anita Sarkeesian turns a discerning critical eye on the tropes that often characterize female representation in video games. There are two season of videos; students should watch at least one or two videos — particularly those on topics most relevant to Harley Quinn and the Batman gaming universe — and are furthermore encouraged to browse gameplay videos in which Harley in prominently featured (e.g., Arkham Night, etc.) (Students unfamiliar with Sarkeesian may at least be familiar with the controversial gaming phenomenon in which she became embroiled: Gamergate.)
  4. Watch Batman: The Animated Series (1992), Season 1 Episode 46 (“Almost Got ‘Im”) & Season 1 Episode 56 (“Harley & Ivy”)
    • In these episodes of the original series, viewers are able to witness Harley as more than just the Joker’s “henchwench.” In these videos, she interacts with other women to a far greater extent (often to the Joker’s chagrin). In Episode 56, Harley meets Poison Ivy for the first time, introducing into the canon a friendship that would become undeniably contentious and irrevocably compelling in turn. Students are encouraged to use these videos as an opportunity to practice applying the Bechdel Test to Harley’s stories across media strata.
  1. “Smart, Nice and Sassy: ‘Good Girl’ Role Models Make Boring Heroes,” by Juliet Kahn http://comicsalliance.com/female-heroes-good-girl-role-models/
    • This is a short article in which the author introduces a trope, the “Good Role Model for Girls,” which she argues takes many of the ostensibly “strong female characters” introduced in the early 1990s (as part of the nascent third wave feminism movement) and positions them as flawless, incorruptible, over simplistic “role models” to act as a “panacea” for a mainstream comic industry that hitherto had been decidedly lacking in substantial female characters. Harley is mentioned towards the end of the article as an example of a fan favorite that bucks this trend (due, Kahn argues, to the complexity and fallibility that are hallmarks of her character).

 

Week 3: The Princess and her Puddin’: Harley Quinn’s Relationship with the Joker

  1. The Joker: A Serious Study of the Clown Prince of Crime, Chapter: “Kiss with a Fist”
    • In this collection of academic works on the Joker, students are encouraged to probe deeper into the DC Universe as it intersects with our present reality. We introduce this anthology by reading one of the only academic works ever written on Harley Quinn. (It is telling that, as one of the only such articles focused on Harley, it is nevertheless linking her inextricably to the Joker.) In this chapter, Tosha Taylor interrogates the “gendered power struggle” of the villainous couple, utilizing common feminist critiques of rape/domestic violence culture to place their relationship in the larger context of misogyny, female agency, and female representation in the comic community.
  2. The New 52 Series: Harley Quinn, Volume #1 (Hot in the City)
    • (See Week 7)
  3. Watch Batman: The Animated Series (1992), Season 2 Episode 7 (“Harlequinade”)
    • In this episode, viewers witness one of the most famous “classic” interactions between Harley and the Joker; she attempts to kill him, only barely failing. The speed with which the Harley and Joker process one another’s not-insignificant betrayals and literally and figuratively leap back into one another’s arms substantiates the claim advanced by many scholars and fans — that their relationship is one of toxic codependency.
  4. Three articles examining the domestic violence that characterizes the relationship between Harley and the Joker.

 

Week 4: Pathology on the Page: Representations of Mental Illness in Comic Books and Their Adaptations

  1. The Joker: A Serious Study of the Clown Prince of Crime, Edited by Robert Moses; Chapter: “Lady Haha: Performativity, Super-sanity, and the Mutability of Identity”
    • We return to last week’s scholarly anthology on the Joker, instead turning our attention to one of the articles discussing the eponymous character and the ways in which he manifests a peculiar brand of insanity. Through this chapter, students should begin to conceptualize the Batman v. Joker, good v. evil dichotomies as instead continuums along which notions of morality, responsibility, and authority occupy complex, often untenable positions. This chapter serves as part introduction to the Joker as represented in graphic novels, film, and television, part interrogation of the very principles that ostensibly characterize both the Joker and Batman and underscore their protracted interactions over the long narrative arcs of comic books and related media.
  2. Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability, by Robert McRuer, Chapters: Introduction and “Composing Queerness and Disability”
    • In his groundbreaking Crip Theory, Robert McRuer coalesces disability and queerness in as to provide a unique heuristic approach by which readers can acquire new understandings of the ways in which these two constructs influence one another. Drawing upon McRuer’s critical strategies, students are encouraged to position Harley Quinn in her universe as a manifestation of a distinctly digestible type of “difference” and analyze how various artists and authors have chosen to exhibit these understandings of Harley as an endearing “other” in their work.
  3. The New 52 Series: Harley Quinn, Volume #2 (Power Outage)
    • (See Week 7)
  4. Watch Batman: The Animated Series (1992), Season 2 Episode 16 (“Harvey’s Holiday”)
    • This is a nice break from an otherwise incredibly dense week! It depicts Harley Quinn being released from Arkham Asylum, attempting to navigate her way in the “real world” to which she is now so unaccustomed. It is widely regarded as one of the funniest episodes of the series and is a classic example of Harley’s personality and how the multiple dimensions therein render everyday life and socialization in the outside world difficult for the character.
  5. “The Madness of Arkham Asylum,” by Paul Lytle, found in Batman Unauthorized: Vigilantes, Jokers, and Heroes in Gotham City, edited by Dennis O’Neil with Leah Wilson
    • Arkham Asylum has long been considered one of the foremost representations (inaccurate and exaggerated, or otherwise) of mental illness and psychiatry in graphic novels. In this chapter, Paul Lytle examines the unhealthy, criminal eccentricities of the asylum’s residents and appropriately contextualizes it within the larger moral framework of the Batman universe as a whole. As Harley Quinn is both an employee and a resident of the asylum in turn, readers should develop an understanding of the typical presentation of the hospital and its staff in both comic books as well as video games and understand how it in part comprises the uncomfortably ambiguous moral fabric that forms the foundation of the Batman universe.

 

Week 5: Dark Knights and Killer Clowns: Norm Subversions Inherent In Supervillainy/Superheroism

  1. Two articles about the Joker and moral relativity that argue for a similar premise
    • The Joker: A Serious Study of the Clown Prince of Crime, Edited by Robert Moses; Chapter: “The Joker, Clown Prince of Nobility,” by Ryan Litsey
    • Vader, Voldemort, and Other Villains, Edited by Jamey Heit, Chapter 11 (“No Laughing Matter”), by Jamey Heit
      • Both of these works present the Joker as a Nietzschean figure, unabashedly following his own peculiarly aligned moral compass and delighting in the chaos subsequently sewn. Ryan Litsey uses the video game Arkham Asylum to describe the Joker as a Nietzschean “Superman” having risen above his own psychic war, achieved a godlike understanding and radical acceptance of his own psyche, and refocused his energy on warring others. Jamey Heit portrays the Joker similarly, proclaiming that as a figure of utter amorality, he may not be as “insane” as he appears — that he rather subverts culturally determined tenets of morality so adroitly as to have bested his adversaries “at their own game.”
  2. The New 52 Series: Harley Quinn, Volume #3 (Kiss Kiss Bang Stab)
    • (See Week 7)
  3. “Why do Supervillains Fascinate Us? A Psychological Perspective,” by Travis Langley https://www.wired.com/2012/07/why-do-supervillains-fascinate-us/
    • In this article, Travis Langley speculates as to why the general public is so enthralled by supervillains. Drawing upon formally codified scientific theories as well as common sense understandings of psychological tendencies, Langley takes the reader down the list of phenomena and notes each psychologist who proposed these theories, linking each to the issue of the peculiar popularity of extreme characters.
  4. “How Suicide Squad Went from WWII Military Heroes to Today’s Silver-Screen Villains,” by Tim O’Neil http://www.avclub.com/article/how-suicide-squad-went-wwii-military-heroes-todays-240055
    • Tim O’Neil charts the birth and evolution of the “Suicide Squad” as a narrative conceit, linking the advent and each subsequent manifestation of the squad to its appropriate sociohistorical context. In examining this timeline, students should attempt identify ways in which classic labels and denotations of hero/antihero/villain shifted to accommodate the supervillains of the squad as central players in each graphic novel.

 

Week 6: A Liminal Criminal: Harley Quinn as Both Villain and Hero

  1. The New 52 Series: Harley Quinn, Volume #4 (A Call to Arms)
    • (See Week 7)
  2. Three articles that each advance it’s own theory as to the degree of Harley’s inherent villainy “
  3. “Harley Quinn, Just the Nice, Fun-Loving Psycho Next Door,” by Robert Ito http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/07/movies/harley-quinn-suicide-squad.html?_r=0
    • In this article, author Robert Ito wonders as to whether Harley’s unprecedented ascent into mainstream popular culture is positively correlated with and directly related to her “taming” (i.e., her general turn away from perpetrating evil deeds). This so called “redemption” as a kind of antihero, as Ito argues, reincarnated Harley in the eyes of many fans as a true feminist icon — a woman with a complex backstory who exhibits of all of the psychological nuance that should accompany such an icon.
  4. The Joker: A Serious Study of the Clown Prince of Crime, Edited by Robert Moses; Chapter: “You Complete Me”
    • As we again take advantage of the Joker as a lens through which larger sociocultural philosophies (and especially their inherent contradictions) are examined, students are urged begin to conceptualize the Batman v. Joker, good v. evil dichotomies as continuums along which notions of morality, responsibility, and authority occupy complex, often untenable positions. Both of these chapters serve as part introduction to the Joker as represented in graphic novels, film, and television, part interrogation of the very principles that ostensibly characterize each figure and underscore their protracted interactions over the long narrative arcs of comic books and related media.

 

Week 7: “Crypto-Queer” in Comics: Harley Quinn’s Relationship with Poison Ivy/Queer Representation in Comic Books and Their Adaptations

  1. The New 52 Series: Harley Quinn, Volume #5 (The Joker’s Last Laugh)
    • The New 52 Series is the relaunch of many of DC’s most popular characters — Harley Quinn included. She is revamped as a young, intelligent, endearingly eccentric woman attempting to sever ties with the Joker and her former violent tendencies. She resettles on Coney Island, spending much of her time trying to put her life back together by fighting for “good,” spending time with Poison Ivy, occasionally dating a new male love interest, and allowing herself the kind of independent fun she could never have experienced while being involved with the Joker (e.g., she joins a roller derby). In this way, the New 52 has established the foundation upon which the future of much Harley story arc and character development will be based. They are easy reads (most volumes contains a few issues of the series as well as a few one-off comics in which Harley in the featured player), and reading the entire series throughout the semester will help students understand how Harley’s past informs her present and future in the entertainment industry.
  2. Three articles surrounding Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy’s relationship
    • “Harley Quinn’s Crypto-Queer History in Comics Could be Coming to the Big Screen,” by Tosha Taylor http://www.afterellen.com/movies/488815-harley-quinns-crypto-queer-history-comics-coming-big-screen#vvWD5XoqQLIw7rku.99
    • “Will Harley Quinn be Queer in New Suicide Squad Movie?” by “Lady Geek Girl” https://ladygeekgirl.wordpress.com/2016/04/16/will-harley-quinn-should-be-queer-in-the-suicide-squad-movie/
    • “Why Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy’s Relationship Matters,” by Kit Simpson Browne; http://moviepilot.com/posts/3571372
      • These articles exuberantly elucidate Harley Quinn’s implied (and now explicit) queer identity through her supportive friendship and loving romance with Poison Ivy, a pairing which is now a fan favorite. Ranging from Harley’s past status as a theretofore de facto closeted bisexual to her present half of an established couple of “girlfriends without the jealousy of monogamy,” these authors use extensive visuals from comics depicting classic moments in the Harley-Ivy relationship to analyze her sexuality, speculating as to Ivy’s place (or lack thereof) in Harley’s upcoming spinoff movie while simultaneously praising this new canon development. They vehemently maintain the importance of this character in the DC Universe (and the larger comic book industry in general).
  3. The New Mutants: Superheroes and the Radical Imagination of American Comics, by Ramzi Fawaz, Chapters: Introduction (“Superhumans in America”) and Chapter 7 (“Lost in the Badlands”)
    • In his examination of the concept “queerness” as manifest in classic graphic novels, Ramzi Fawaz provides a timely exploration of a complex phenomenon: how depictions of atypical expressions of gender, sexuality, race, class, and citizenship established a uniquely agreeable process — a kind of “othering” — in the superhero genre. Fawaz takes advantage of queer theory as a mechanism through which normative boundaries were pushed and fringes were examined. Though Harley Quinn is not explicitly discussed, students are encouraged to assimilate these ideas as they are outlined in the two chosen chapters and apply them to Harley and her place in her own universe.

 

Week 8: The Princess’s Subjects: Fan Communities and Harley Quinn

  1. “Masochist or machiavel? Reading Harley Quinn in Canon and Fanon,” by Kate Roddy for the journal Transformative Works and Cultures
    • Though this work could also have been placed in the week devoted to the discussion of Harley’s unique sexuality, Kate Roddy’s masterful use of online fan-to-fan interactions make it rather a perfect microcosm through which students can investigate Harley in her canon as an example of artist-mediated, fan-informed identity. Roddy demonstrates how fans appropriate Harley and map her against fan-engineered universes, often using prominent events from the established canon as loci around which one may create a new story while still devising novel environments, situations, ancillary character, and arcs for Harley to navigate. Students should ask themselves: To whom does Harley belong? Regardless of the answer, how do online communities refashion the relationship between character, creator/artist/writer, and fan?
  2. DC Rebirth: Harley Quinn, #1
    • This is the start of Harley Quinn’s newest adventure following the impending publication the sixth and final volume of the New 52’s Harley Quinn Only minimally changing, she mostly maintains the story/character traits and decisions established in the New 52. This is mostly for fun; as our class on Harley ends, her new stories begin! (Also, this issue was published with 30+ variant covers, all by different artists — a rare and exciting enterprise that deviates from the standard publication processes. Many websites compile as many variant covers as they can find; interested students should take to Google, from which these websites are readily accessible!)
  3. ShippersGuideToTheGalaxy Youtube Channel, Videos on Harley Quinn, including: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIkXqcCtO-Q, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u61PJZB3vYQ
    • A la Tropes vs Women, these videos from ShippersGuideToTheGalaxy probe prevalent issues surrounding fan reception of the apparent domestic violence that characterizes the Harley Quinn and the Joker’s relationship. The speaker takes the viewer through a cogent analysis of the abuse itself as well as how fans digest this violence and adjust their respective schemas and “ships” accordingly. It includes visuals from both classic Harley/Joker depictions as well as from newer stories like Suicide Squad.
  4. “What Suicide Squad’s Harley Quinn Means to Comic-Con,” by Julie Miller http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/07/comic-con-suicide-squad-harley-quinn
    • Julie Miller details how the new Suicide Squad film has fomented mainstream fervor for Harley Quinn, and how the already thriving comic book Harley fandom sometimes struggles to integrate or outright reject these new converts. She describes displays of animosity from the established Harley fans towards these new Suicide Squad-inspired Harley enthusiasts while documenting the seemingly rabid dedication she inspires in devotees both old and new. Miller also posits that Harley transcends gender, race, and even mental illness diagnoses, allowing for the students to ultimately recapitulate Harley as a character whose complexities and proclivities provide a vessel upon which fans of all types can project — and thus, perhaps accept and even celebrate — themselves.

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