Batman and Harley

[Spike Spiegel]

I woke up this morning thinking about this movie, and I realized that the Harley/Nightwing scene at the start is one of the most important parts of the film:

Spoiler:

• She gives that speech about what people expect her to be versus what she is.
• The costume she wore at Superbabes was a clear reference to the New 52 version of her as drawn by Amanda Conner.
• When she goes through her closet full of variant costumes and spouts off the pet names she has for each one ("here's Sucker Punch Harley, Goth Harley, etc."), you could read this as a response to how the recent comics and Suicide Squad movie have made her such a ubiquitous character and have created so many different ways to sexualize her.
• When Nightwing is getting unnerved at the gratuitous ass shot, he's really representing the audience who grew up on TAS. Think about it, we all at one point wanted to be Robin and do cool stuff with Batman. Therefore, we identify with him. Here were see this iconic figure that we recall from our youth and are blatantly confronted with how she has changed over the years. It's comforting and familiar to see her, but these new feelings confuse us--has she changed, or did we?