I have been excited to see Suicide Squad since they first announced the movie. My excitement only grew with every image, trailer, and news article that was released. Was I nervous about the lack of Harley's signature accent? Why didn't they make Killer Croc look like a crocodile instead of some sort of lizard? Who the heck is the villain in this film if it isn't Joker? I had questions and concerns, but my excitement overruled them all and I was willing to keep an open mind. On Thursday, August 4th, I headed over to my local theater at 7 for a 9 o'clock showing, decked out as a casual Harley Quinn, praying that this movie would finally be the breakthrough that we've been waiting for from the DCEU.

Unfortunately, I was sorely disappointed and left the theater entertained but upset at the portrayal of the characters that I have grown up with and love. This is not to say that the cast did a terrible acting job; on the contrary, I thought Margot Robbie nailed Harley Quinn, Jared Leto presented us with an interesting twist to Joker, and Will Smith stole the screen as Deadshot. However, even these stellar performances cannot detract from the trainwreck that this movie was. The worst part was as much as DC Comics has made strides in empowering women, this movie just took a giant step backward. Be warned: from here on out is SPOILER city.

Let’s start with the villain: Enchantress. We’re introduced to Dr. June Moon who later becomes the Enchantress after breaking open a random jar after rappelling into a hole. Because every archaeologist just starts to destroy ancient artifacts they find lying about in creepy caves. I can almost forgive this as we later find out about her fantastic powers that are only able to keep under control because Amanda Waller has Enchantress’s heart under lock and key. Great! A powerful witch who seems like she could be quite the force to be reckoned with if she could just get her heart back. But then we get to the main plot. She calls upon her brother while she gyrates in front of a magical swirl of power… that’s it. This woman who is able to take humans and turn them into loyal servants, who is able to transport anywhere in the world, who broke free from her bonds to try and take over the world, who can break into other's minds to bring them to their knees with fantasies they wish existed, is reduced to seductively squirming in a barely-there outfit.

Then we move on to Katana. We’re introduced to this woman quite briefly, learn about her heartbreaking backstory, and then she just flits around in the background. We get some glimpses of her prowess as a swordswoman, but otherwise, she doesn’t advance the plot nor does she add substance to herself or other characters. Why even introduce her if you’re just going to shove her to the back to make way for the bigger names? I can’t even write more about her because she added nothing to the film and was more of a throwaway character than Slipknot.

Finally, we get to Harley Quinn, the center of all the controversy since the first image of her new outfit was released. I will preface this by saying I am a huge Harley Quinn fan. As a young girl, I lived for her scenes in Batman: The Animated Series. As an adult, I cheered her on as she broke free from Joker, recognizing the dysfunction she was stuck in. She remains a flawed character and makes mistakes, but as a whole, she has become a badass woman who understands and accepts herself. In the movie, Harley was crazy and a barrel of fun and I could see glimpses of the strong character she has become. However, the biggest problem I had was her relationship with Joker.

In the animated series and comics, Joker shows Harley affection every now and then, but primarily uses her as a tool and abuses her, physically and emotionally, for all of their relationship. In the film, Harley and Joker have a “fairly functional” relationship in the sense that Joker spends the entire movie trying to get Harley back to the point that he risked his own life to go into a war zone and then break into a secret prison. This makes absolutely no sense. Joker has only shown affection when Harley is about to walk out the door. We’ll ignore that all of these characters have supposedly been around for some time, but yet we are shown a twisted version of Batman: The Animated Series Joker and Harley. I wanted to see a strong Harley, the Harley we’ve read about in the Suicide Squad comics, the Harley who would rather beat the shit out of Joker than continue the dysfunctional loop she has been stuck in. Instead, we are left with justifications for the abuse because "Joker really does love Harley".

As a woman, I left the theater pissed off that, yet again, all of these strong female characters were reduced to background characters or twisted beyond recognition. As we begin to delve deeper into the newest iteration of the DCEU, I fear for what this means for Wonder Woman. Diana Prince is one of the strongest female characters in comics. She is the prime example of a kick ass woman and it makes me nervous that her solo movie is going to be yet another hit against strides DC has made in empowering their female audience.