I’m a girl, and yes, I wanted to dress up as Harley Quinn for Halloween. I know, shocking right? I wanted to embrace my inner confident, mischevious supervillain, aided by the magic of Harley Quinn's two-toned hotpants and pigtails. Like most girls out there this Halloween (Harleween?), I wanted to celebrate the assertive, flat-out dangerous character who charmed audiences with her one-liners and gravity-defying stunts. She was likable, funny and her outfit was incredibly cute. Why wouldn't anyone want to dress like her?
Well, according to the internet, the rest of the female population and I should have done anything but pull out the two-toned pants this Halloween. In the spirit of Halloween, Twitter was flooded with tweets and retweets harassing girls for planning to dress up as Harley Quinn. Girls dressed up as Harley were no longer simply having fun celebrating a holiday because society had transformed them into "basic white girls" who would be fun to count for a drinking game. Get lit! Dressing up as Harley Quinn was no longer cool, but making fun of girls who chose to do so certainly was.
It's actually Harleween cause every girl on the planet is Harley Quinn this year
— Wesley Stromberg (@wesleystromberg)
How Halloween is going to look this year when every girl dresses as Harley Quinn pic.twitter.com/K99RnBmBsp
— Common White Girl (@girlposts)
Drop kick every Harley Quinn u see this weekend
— dead girl🍼 (@BrandyLeonore)
Halloween drinking game
Step 1: take a shot for every girl dressed like Harley Quinn.
Step 2: die of alcohol poisoning
— eduardo (@EDamite)
Ouch. But why does it matter so much if a million girls wanted to dress up as Harley Quinn this year? I've been witnessing Batman and Spiderman costumes my entire life. Are we not going to talk about all the Spidermen? The Batmen? The Supermen? The Iron Men? Harley Quinn's male counterpart, The Joker, was the top costume for males age 18-34 this year, but no one seems to be getting themselves in a twist over that costume, either. Does it really make our society uncomfortable that girls are capitalizing on the fact that we were finally hyped and centered in a superhero film?
All signs point to yes. Even in the 21st century, the reality of female representation in movies, particularly superhero movies, is a grim one. In fact --unsurprisingly to anyone since these characters rule the box office across the board --the biggest superhero names have all been "attractive" white heterosexual men. As a box office rule for success, women will see movies about men, but men won't see movies about women, so what's the point in making them? With that mentality dominating the film industry, females are left sorting through the few characters were are offered, and boy, it is unpleasant. Mary Jane from Spiderman has to be saved, Rachel Dawes from Batman is at times a damsel in distress and Lois Lane from Superman is consistently in need of Superman to save the day. All three of these characters have very respectable qualities, but these qualities are overshadowed by swooning, desperate props in the arms of a strong male superhero. No one is going to be thinking about Lois Lane's fierce reporting when Superman is swooping in from the horizon to save the day.
Even the visual representation of female superheroes isn't up to par. Female superheroes rarely ever wear outfits that are comfortable to fight crime in, they wear outfits that are for the male viewers. I don't know about you, but if I'm ever fighting off hordes of evil, my outfit of choice probably won't be tight leather pants.
Far too often, female characters are painted with a broad brush: she's the pretty and catty one. She's the dumb one. She's the chubby one who tells jokes. And don't forget the power-hungry man-hater! So when we finally have a character who exhibits complexity, who is strong yet vulnerable, flawed and concerned with love, of course, we're going to embrace her! When Pixar released Brave, their first film with a female lead (50 years after being a company, might I add), of course, every little girl wanted to dye their hair red and dress up as Merida! And inevitably, the internet got mad about it. In 2013, the spited costume was Katniss Everdeen. In 2012, the internet was against all the little girls dressed up as Elsa from Frozen. The painful cycle goes back for years.
Instead of settling for female characters whose capabilities are mocked or pushed under the rug, demand the celebration of their stories. Allow girls to feel powerful; let little girls or grown women wear sparkly dresses and belt "Let It Go" like the empowered, self-realized women they are. Let them walk around with baseball bats and hot pants feeling like they can take on the world. It's time to embrace the spirit of Harleween.
