Harley Quinn And Her Joker: Exploring The Suicide Squad Romance

Once in a while, controversial things happen in comic books. Wonder Woman killed Maxwell Lord to save Superman and Batman. The Joker tortured Barbara Gordon, and Batman kills a whole bunch of people. More recently, over at Marvel, Captain America was announced as being a secret agent of Hydra. While they serve a creative purpose, these narrative developments are, by their very nature divisive, with consequences and ramifications echoing through respective series for extended periods of time. Thus far, live-action cinema adaptations of comic book stories have largely avoided the most contentious plot points – but that’s all about to change with the release of Suicide Squad. Clearly, in a film that depicts events from the perspective of a team of supervillains, there are going to be some controversial aspects to the storyline – but it is the presence of Harley Quinn and The Joker that really kicks this dubious tale into high gear. Suicide Squad will be the first time these two lovebirds have had their romance laid bare on the big screen and, indeed, marks the feature film debut of Harley herself. But, just why is this particular liaison so hotly debated? Their Comic Book Presence The Joker is a character that is almost as old as his nemesis – Batman. He first appeared in the debut issue of Batman in 1940, and the two icons have been closely connected ever since. This means we were very familiar with the Clown Prince by the time Batman: The Animated Series introduced Harley Quinn to audiences in 1992. While The Joker is an integral part of the Batman canon, Harley was invented outside of that narrative, as a one-off supporting character in the animated show. Audiences responded strongly to Harley, however – possibly because she enabled a different side of The Joker to be seen – and she became a recurring side-kick character in the show. She featured in the one-shot comic book, The Batman Adventures: Mad Love, in 1994 – but again, this was outside the Batman canon. Harley was not officially integrated into DC lore until 1999, with Batman: Harley Quinn, by Paul Dini and Yvel Guichet. This debut story finds Harley rejected by The Joker, which leads to her bonding with Poison Ivy. Ivy gives Harley strength, reflexes and immunity to poisons – something that proves useful in Harley’s ongoing, problematic relationship with the Clown Prince Of Crime. How Their Relationship Began As Harley became embedded in the world of DC comic books, readers learned – along with viewers of Batman: The Animated Series – about the story of Harley and her ‘Puddin,’ The Joker. She was working as a psychiatrist in Arkham Asylum when she met him. He was the patient, and she was the doctor – Dr. Harleen Quinzel M.D, to be precise. During the course of their psychotherapy sessions, Dr. Quinzel fell in love with the serial killer and repeatedly helped him to escape the facility. Each time Batman returned him to incarceration, Dr. Quinzel became more enraged – until she finally snapped when The Joker was returned to the Asylum severely injured by The Dark Knight. She dispensed with her life in the medical profession and became Harley Quinn – side-kick extraordinaire. Her obsession with The Joker gave rise to her hatred of Batman though. She came to feel that the vigilante was unfairly targeting her loved one – and so she became his sworn enemy. Her relationship with The Joker was always an abusive liaison, however – and this is where things get really controversial and divisive. The Abusive Dynamic It will come as no surprise to learn that The Joker is an abusive boyfriend. He is clearly a homicidal maniac with little regard for the lives or well-being of others. He is also deeply manipulative, and generally stops at nothing to get what he wants. In addition, he is locked into this obsessive situation with Batman, which can’t be helpful in terms of maintaining a relationship with someone else. It is, in many ways, his narcissism that defines his relationship with Harley Quinn. If his personal agenda is one of self-service, then Harley serves an important purpose for him. It is easy for him to take advantage of her devotion to him – seeming to manipulate her into helping him escape when necessary, or helping him execute various nefarious plots as he sees fit. Once she has served her purpose, he rejects her, however – even going so far as to kick her into a vat of chemicals at one point. She is useful to him though in that she will always undertake actions that he is not willing to commit himself – usually out of self-preservation. In his addled mind, this is the equivalent of finding somebody attractive, or wishing to have them in your life. For Harley, the relationship is like an addiction. In exploring his unhinged mind, Harley found something she did not realize she had been seeking – a different way of life. The Joker is a powerful and dangerous man precisely because he is seductive, charming and highly intelligent. During their therapy sessions, he figured out Dr. Harleen Quinzel very quickly, and assessed what she needed to hear in order for him to achieve the result he desired – having an ally to help him. While he may not have anticipated the extreme psychotic break she would eventually experience, this would also be to his advantage, ultimately. In order for him to be successful in his initial manipulation of Harley, he needed to pick up on some weaknesses that could be exploited, and some buttons that could be pushed – and this is, perhaps, the most important aspect of this affair. There is a reason that Harley Quinn is driven insane – and The Joker is only a small part of that explanation. This is what makes Harley such a fascinating character in her own right, and what makes her relationship with The Joker so compelling. The Controversial Relationship There are, broadly speaking, two schools of thought on the relationship between The Joker and Harley Quinn. On the one hand, some consider it to be a deeply troubling depiction of a victim and her abuser. This perspective takes issue with Harley’s character as a negative portrayal of a woman, because she repeatedly returns to The Joker and forgives his abuses – even after being driven to the point of harming him in retaliation. On the other hand, plenty of people consider Harley Quinn to be a feminist icon – but, how is that possible if she keeps returning to the man that has no regard for her wellbeing, or the preservation of her life? It is clear that, in the early days of their interactions, The Joker speaks to something deep inside Harley that she has been resisting for a lifetime. In connecting with this criminal mastermind – on an emotional level, for her – something dark and malevolent in her becomes validated and awakened. The Joker effectively gives her permission to listen to that darkness, and demonstrates to her that there is a way to live in the world while expressing that darkness. To Harley, that sounds like freedom - because she is a woman operating in a male-dominated field, within the male-dominated environment of Arkham Asylum. She has spent her life – as all women do – inside a patriarchal society, juggling the expectations that are thrust upon her. To succeed in this society, you must carry yourself a certain way, dress a certain way, eat a certain way, talk a certain way, and never, ever, ever challenge the status quo. As Harley got older and more professionally qualified, the boxes society sought to put her in grew smaller and smaller – as they do for all women – and by the time she meets The Joker during his incarceration, she is trapped inside a prison of her own, constructed by a society that insists on placing limitations on the women within it. While The Joker sees in Harley an opportunity to escape his literal prison, Harley sees in him the chance to escape her figurative jail cell – and she seizes upon that chance with both hands. The fact that it is two men – The Joker and Batman – that actually drive her to psychosis is not so much another example of male comic book characters oppressing the female, as a manifestation of the ongoing sexism she faces, even after giving her heart to the Clown Prince Of Crime. The abuse Harley experiences at the hands of The Joker is the type of abuse that all kinds of women around the world are subjected to every day, just because they are women. In this sense, Harley represents all women, and The Joker represents the patriarchy. He fills her vision, and she works hard to meet the demands he places upon her - but is always set up to fail. However well she serves his purpose, he will always find fault and flaw, and a reason not to fully embrace her. In emotional terms, he continually keeps her at arms’ length, denying her the unconditional acceptance she craves. But, in the event, it transpired that the darkness within Harley that was harnessed by The Joker was much darker, and more aggressive than the homicidal maniac was expecting. So when she finally snapped, and became her fully realized self as Harley Quinn, The Joker in fact had less control over her, as opposed to more. She was still in awe of him, and sought his acceptance - but was empowered by the notion of living authentically for the first time. It is this sense of personal empowerment that led to Harley forming a bond with Poison Ivy after another instance of being cruelly rejected by The Joker. This proved to be a blow to The Joker, because Ivy bestowed upon Harley an immunity to poisons – and toxins and chemicals are The Joker’s weapon of choice. This means that her female friendship has, to an extent, levelled the battlefield between Harley and The Joker – because it means she is almost invulnerable to a large section of his arsenal and is further outside of his sphere of influence. The relationship between Harley Quinn and The Joker has continued to evolve over the years since she first popped out of a cake in Batman: The Animated Series. The two have separated and crossed paths, and briefly reunited many times. But Harley has continued to grow and progress on her own terms – something that is infuriating to The Joker, even at a distance. While they continue to be closely associated, Harley has blossomed into a supervillain in her own right – albeit one that is particularly susceptible to the charms of The Joker. This makes Harley Quinn a deeply feminist character and one that - underneath the bizarre costumes, mental illness and violence - is actually among the most relatable in DC comic books. Her relationship with The Joker may have caused her own incarceration – as we see in Suicide Squad – but it also caused her to embrace her authentic self, and she continues to challenge the status quo at every turn. This is undoubtedly what The Joker finds particularly vexing about his sometime side-kick, but it is also what makes for a fiery and fascinating chemistry.