Harley Quinn feels the Bern or that is what Birds of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) would have you believe.
Confronted with various people trying to kill her and collect a bounty in the film, the frame freezes periodically as Harley ID’s her assailant – or attempts to – and reveals or deduces what the person has against her.
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Brought before Black Mask, she runs through a litany of reasons he has to hate her. You will blink and forget most of them but one is hard to miss.
Her countdown of possible reasons and motivations for Roman Sionis’s wrath stops and lingers seemingly on “Voted for Bernie,” indicating Harley is either a Democrat or a radical independent socialist.
It may also prove that Sionis is either a Republican – as the filmmakers conceptualize one – or a Hillary supporter. BOP doesn’t take a position on that one.
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Thanks to this Easter Egg of sorts, some are hung up on the socialist Senator existing in the DC Extended Universe (big deal, apparently).
Director Cathy Yan informed TheWrap the humorous reference to Sanders would be in her film and tipped the hat to the script’s writer Christina Hodson for coming up with it:
“With the grievances we were just kinda coming up with different grievances, and I would throw some ideas in, and Christina Hodson would throw some ideas in. I think the Bernie thing, I’ll give full credit to Christina on that one. And we all just chuckled at it so we thought, why not? And I think tonally and stylistically this is a movie that can afford that kind of stuff, and a little bit of self-awareness — or a lot of self-awareness, I should say. And not a lot of movies get to make a Bernie joke, so sure, let’s do it.”
Star Margot Robbie explained to CinemaBlend she had to remind director Cathy Yan to avoid making Harley look like a hero.
Robbie stated, “We did want to see that real-life side of her. But, I think Cathy was loving the vulnerable, fun and sweet version of Harley and I had to keep being like, ‘She’s a bad person, still. She can’t be good. She is a shitty person.’ [laughs] We can’t forget that.”
Does that mean voting Bernie Sanders is another of her villainous touches? One has to wonder.
Birds of Prey is out now. Noteworthy is its release in an election year if that really means anything.