Warner Bros.
Earlier this week, Warner Bros. and director David Ayer decided that now was the time to release more looks at the many wicked baddies that will inhabit their villains-as-heroes film, Suicide Squad. It may also have something to do with Empire magazine doing a big spread on the movie with a bunch of fancy collectible covers. Because who doesn’t want to scour newsstands across the city for a mostly hard to find film magazine trying to see if each of them have the Jared Leto as The Joker cover, only to later leave it on the back of the toilet for 6-months without ever reading it?
Which begs the question: are newsstands still a thing that most cities have? Now that I’ve begun to think unnecessarily long and hard about this, I’m not entirely sure that they exist outside of airport concourses. I could be wrong. Here in Austin, people don’t have time to read anything that isn’t written with taco emojis.
Back to Suicide Squad, a movie that hits theaters August 8, 2016. It made a ruckus with its trailer just after Comic-Con in July, but has been pretty under-the-radar ever since thanks to many healthy doses of Star Wars, Batman v Superman and the new CW show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (not so much on that last one, but you should check it out, anyway — it’s a lot of fun).
WATCH: The Suicide Squad Trailer from Comic-Con
Taking to Twitter to debut some of the collectible Empire covers, director David Ayer set out to introduce the world to Cara Delevingne‘s Enchantress, allow us the opportunity to count the many deadly accessories that Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn wears, to check out Will Smith’s Deadshot beard, and give a more “electrifying” look at Jared Leto‘s Joker. The results were as follows:
She’s making her own rules. #Enchantress @Caradelevingne @empiremagazine @wbpictures #skw http://pic.twitter.com/buaJh1meXL
— David Ayer (@DavidAyerMovies) October 27, 2015
Crazy in the right way! #HarleyQuinn @MargotRobbie @empiremagazine @wbpictures #skwad http://pic.twitter.com/2WaA8aQ3Da — David Ayer (@DavidAyerMovies) October 28, 2015
The man who never misses #Deadshot @empiremagazine @wbpictures #skwad http://pic.twitter.com/PTnwQM1gpj
— David Ayer (@DavidAyerMovies) October 28, 2015
Another shocking look at Mr. J @JaredLeto @empiremagazine @WarnerBrosEnt #Skwad http://pic.twitter.com/lbim3DYrYM — David Ayer (@DavidAyerMovies) October 27, 2015
I know what you’re thinking: since when is active electricity purple? I’m not entirely sure, but we’re going to have to suspend our sense of disbelief for some of this. Leto’s Joker wields purple-zapping electrodes that, if we piece together what we saw in the trailers, he’s going to use to transform Margot Robbie from the otherwise law-abiding Dr. Harleen F. Quinzel into his psychopathic sidekick, Harley Quinn.
But there’s another problem with this new reveal that has nothing to do with Leto, his bright green hair, his band Thirty Seconds to Mars or the science behind why electricity looks blue to the human eye (hint: interaction with oxygen creates the effect of color). The problem with this new reveal is the Enchantress’ costume is, well, a lot sexist. Not a little. A lot. In fact, it goes against statements that Cara Delevingne herself has made about female superhero costumes basically being bikinis.
As HitFix’s Donna Dickens explains in a very passionate and thoughtful piece about the situation, the costume “looks like Hutt-Slayer Leia’s metal bikini had a Pig-Pen baby with Red Sonja’s metal bikini.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself. On top of furthering the unnecessary over-sequalization of female characters in comic book movies, the costume feels wholly unnecessary. As Dickens explained in a Tweet following the release, the costume is also pretty inaccurate:
You know what, #SuicideSquad? Fuck you. You can’t even blame Enchantress’s costume on canon. SHE’S IN PANTS. http://pic.twitter.com/5YcbK6uhh2
— DonnaTheDead (@MildlyAmused) October 27, 2015
What’s wrong with have a more faithful version of Enchantress in which she, at the very least, wears pants? I’m by no means a comic purist — Wolverine doesn’t have to wear yellow spandex to be Wolverine — but Ayer’s movie isn’t even playing in the same ballpark here. In a week when DC’s television division premiered an empowering, female-led series that’s going to kick a lot of ass (Supergirl, more on that later), this feels like an immediate step in the wrong direction.
This stuff isn’t hard. This isn’t the 1950s. We should be evolving past this kind of thing in our entertainment. Enchantress is a really fun character. She’s got supernatural powers, which she uses to defeat both monsters and gangsters alike. Cara Delevingne is also a really good young actress who could be given some really fun material to work with in Suicide Squad. Neither Delevingne or Enchantress need to be made into sexual objects to be worth our attention.
The hope is that this costume is a purely promotional thing, but even then, that doesn’t make it right. At the very least, it’s unnecessary. In honest, it’s exploitative and unnecessary. Even deeper, it’s indicative of DC’s big cinematic problem: they’re a style-over-substance outfit. Zack Snyder’s stuff — and Ayers, as should expect — looks great, but a lot of it really misses the core of what makes these characters interesting. Suicide Squad does not appear to be improving upon that at all. But hey, as long as it sells those (hard to find) magazines, right?
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