BIRDS OF PREY Cast Cover Glamour Magazine; Discuss Not Having To Worry About The "Male Gaze"

Suicide Squad came under fire for Harley Quinn's skimpy, unpractical outfit, but with a female director at the helm, the Birds of Prey cast didn't have to worry about working under the "male gaze"...

By MarkCassidy - Jan 15, 2020 01:01 PM EST

Filed Under: Birds of Prey

David Ayer's Suicide Squad faced backlash for a variety or reasons, but many fans and critics honed in on the skimpy costume worn by Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn. Although the character's outfit was true to the comics, it was felt that the camera lingered on Robbie a little too lasciviously in a few shots.

Many dismissed these complaints as the usual "woke" nonsense at the time, but it turns out that it was something the Aussie actress was aware of, and it's something her Birds of Prey costars have also experienced on numerous occasions.

While speaking to Glamour Magazine, Robbie, Rosie Perez, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead were all in agreement that coming to work on a movie with a female director, writer and producer was a most welcome change.

“The female gaze just happened inherently because there were mainly women making the decisions,” Robbie says. “We were all just picking what we thought was cool.”

You're not scrutinized with, ‘How can she look hotter?’ Which is an experience I've definitely had in the past,” adds Winstead. “It's not like, ‘Let's just put her in that because her ass is great,’ which I know we've all experienced,” Perez weighs in.

What do you guys make of the cast's comments? Let us know in the usual place.

Birds of Prey will be the second R-rated DC Comics adaptation from Warner Bros., and if it's as successful as Joker we can expect a lot more. Marvel and DC CBMs used to have to be content to push the boundaries of the PG-13 rating, like the movies listed below.

To view the list in its entirety, simply click on the VIEW LIST (ONE PAGE) button below!

Avengers: Infinity War

Image result for infinity war loki death

Avengers: Infinity War is quite a dark film in many respects (it wipes out half of its characters at the end, for one), but there is one scene that stands out as being particularly brutal, and that's Loki's death at the hands of Thanos.

When The God of Mischief betrays and attempts to assassinate The Mad Titan, the villain grabs him by the throat and proceeds to - rather slowly and methodically - crush his larynx.

Marvel has killed off major characters in the past, but this is by far the most graphic demise they've shown on-screen.

Guardians Of The Galaxy

James Gunn's GOTG is a pretty light-hearted affair for the most part, one one particular gag surprised everyone - including the director - when it was left in the film.

Without going into too much graphic details, when Gamora confronts Star-Lord about how filthy his ship is, he implies that he's indulged in quite a lot of "alone time" by responding with with: "She has no idea... if I had a black light, this place would look like a Jackson Pollock painting.”

To be fair, the line probably went over most kids' heads, but Gunn was still shocked that Marvel allowed it - mainly because he only told Chris Pratt to say it as a gag, never thinking it'd make the final cut.

The Avengers

The Avengers, or Avengers: Assemble, wouldn't be the first superhero flick to spring to mind when you think of controversial sequences, but one moment did come in for quite a bit of backlash and got director Joss Whedon in some hot water.

Towards the end of the Black Widow/Loki interrogation scene, The God of Mischief calls Natasha a "mewling quim." No big deal, right? Well, quim is a Victorian-era slang word for vagina, so in modern English Loki was basically calling Widow a whining... well, "C U Next Tuesday."

Whedon has since joked that working the phrase into a PG-13 film is his greatest achievement.

The X-Men Movies

Image result for wolverine go [frick] yourselves

We're grouping several movies together for this one, as 20th Century Fox has made a habit of sticking a single F-Bomb in their main mutant saga installments.

Beginning in Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class when Wolverine told Xavier and Magneto to "go [frick] themselves" it's remained a tradition, with the most recent example being Magneto's "who the [frick] are you?" to En Sabah Nur in Apocalypse.

The MPPA's PG-13 guidelines do actually allow for a single use of "one of the harsher sexually-derived words", but somehome it's hard to imagine Marvel taking full advantage of it as Fox clearly has. It is a little surprising that Warner Bros. hasn't, however.

Man Of Steel

Zack Snyder's superhero filmography is full of pretty dark scenes, but arguably the most shocking moment occurs right at the end of the highly divisive Man of Steel.

Forced to choose between letting an innocent family perish and taking a life himself, Superman snaps the neck of his adversary - and the only other living Kryptonian - General Zod.

Though Supes was justified in his actions (well, depending on who you ask!), this was still a particularly violent scene for a PG-13 superhero flick.

Daredevil

The Daredevil movie is not regarded as a great example of the superhero genre (putting it kindly), but it is notable for one pretty sadistic death scene that somehow made the final cut.

The sequence in question sees Bullseye mercilessly murder Elektra by impaling her with her own sai - but not before taunting her about her dead parents, skewering her hand, and cutting her throat with a playing card.

A nasty scene indeed, and some cruel and unusual punishment to inflict on the leading lady of a PG-13 superhero movie.

Batman

Tim Burton's Batman is actually full of stuff that today's audiences are amazed got passed uncut, but for the purposes of this list we're focusing on what is arguably the most sexually suggestive scene in a PG-13 superhero movie to date.

In order to keep The Joker distracted while Batman moves in for the surprise attack, Vicki Vale begins flattering and kissing the Clown Prince of Crime before slumping to her knees.

The camera doesn't follow her and it's not graphic in any way, but let's just say it's highly unlikely we'll ever see any of The Avengers keeping their foes busy by employing the "promise of blowjob" technique.

The Dark Knight

Another Batman movie makes the list, and this time it's Christopher Nolan's acclaimed The Dark Knight.

Again, this is a pretty violent, bleak film overall; but special mention has to go to The Joker's disappearing pencil trick.

The scene is mostly played for (very) dark laughs and you don't actually see anything in graphic detail - but at the end of the day, one character brutally murders another by stabbing him through the skull with a pencil... in a PG-13 Batman movie.

"TADA! It's... gone!

Spider-Man

Perhaps the most gratuitous example on the list is MJ's wet t-shirt scene from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man.

When Mary Jane is attacked in an alleyway, Spidey swings in to save the day and is rewarded with an upside-down kiss in the pouring rain, which serves to make it abundantly clear that his high-school crush is not wearing a bra.

It's only a couple of brief shots, but it's still very noticeable and would almost certainly be left on the cutting room floor if the movie was released today.

What do you guys think? Did we miss anything out? Be sure to let us know in the comments down below.

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127 Comments

1 2 3 4

SpideyPuffsMJ - 1/15/2020, 1:06 PM

Why can't the gaze enjoy this movie as much everyone else? That's pretty homophobic, what a disgusting comment from this cast.

Battabing - 1/15/2020, 1:46 PM

@SpideyPuffsMJ - Heh. We love the gaze.

WakandanQueen - 1/15/2020, 1:06 PM

Movie looks fun tbh, even tho it ain't Birds of Prey. Also, damn, they are all hot.

RageDriver2401 - 1/15/2020, 1:11 PM

Mary Elizabeth..

tmp3 - 1/15/2020, 1:11 PM

Jurnee Smollett-Bell's got that Jordan Peele HBO show coming up, Lovecraft Country. Really excited for that.

Reeds2Much - 1/15/2020, 1:13 PM

Many dismissed these complaints as the usual "woke" nonsense the time

Many dismissed those complaints because they were the least of the movie's problems and wasn't really worth dwelling on.

L0RDbuckethead - 1/15/2020, 1:29 PM

@Reeds2Much -

WakandanQueen - 1/15/2020, 1:17 PM

DC lookin like they are having a winning streak since Aquaman.

dracula - 1/15/2020, 1:19 PM

@WakandanQueen - if only Wonder Woman had come out after Justice League

WakandanQueen - 1/15/2020, 1:20 PM

@dracula - There was a Justice League film?

NinnesMBC - 1/15/2020, 1:18 PM

Personally if the movie ends up being what all trailers and promos are about which is focusing excessively on Harley instead of fleshing then all out and making us care about them then it'll be a failure for me.

Battabing - 1/15/2020, 1:50 PM

@NinnesMBC - Word is it's a true ensemble film and that Blacks Canary and Mask are the breakouts of the movie.

GeneralZod - 1/15/2020, 1:51 PM

@NinnesMBC - You're not allowed to say "fleshing."

;)

dracula - 1/15/2020, 1:18 PM

You know you don't have to keep bringing up the male gaze, even if a character is not sexualized men will go see it if its good, there was nothing overly sexual about Ripley or Sarah Conner or Buffy Summers or Biatrix Kiddo.

Also please, women do the same thing with the pretty boy male actors. Thats why actors like Orlando Bloom and Channing Tatum and Zac Efron or sucessful. Also why Magic Mike was sucessful

LetThereBeMinge - 1/15/2020, 4:45 PM

@dracula - Good post.

DarkDetective - 1/15/2020, 1:18 PM

Women or not the costumes are terrible, not “cool”. This looks like Suicide Squad on steroids. Good for them having control, but if you hate it so much why you keep doing it? Oh, thats right: Money. They should shut up until they stop being hypocrites.

1 2 3 4

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