Analysis of Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad with Mulvey's male gaze theory.

Harley Quinn's character is a prime example of the male gaze, her character is so unnecessary sexualised, in this clip you can see how the camera lingers on her figure and there is a zoom shot in on her licking the bars of the cage she is in, this is sexualisation of the character as the lingering shots and the zoom in shots of her licking the bars sexualise her because they linger on her like the male gaze would. The extended shot duration and close-up of Harley Quinn's face, together with her facial expression, are clearly used to satisfy the male audience and objectify her as an object of male desire. Even the words she are saying 'don't you want to play with me is sexually charged even though it could arguably be a phrase that a child would say. Even the men within the clip are seemingly aroused and interested in her even though they know she is dangerous, we can see this when the cutaways show us their expressions in midshots. The main man she is interacting with shows no interest in her though which shows that even if the scene in the movie isn't meant to be sexually charged but it is exploring the male gaze and particularly for the audiences gratification.

At the start of the scene there is a slow tracking shot around the bars of the cage from a low angle, putting Harley up high in the shot which is a power-play but ensuring that the male viewpoint is gratified for the audiences benefit. This then cuts to a mid-shot of her and tracks downwards with the movement of her body, clearly showing off the curves of her torso right down to the top of her legs. This slow tilting shot glides over her body like the eyes of the male audience and fractures her body as Mulvey suggests in her theory. This is then followed by a zoom-in shot of her being framed in the centre of the screen, this makes her the centre of attention for the shot and gives her the power in the shot. The next shot is a close up of her face as she is licking the bars.

Although the sequence was not constructed with 'the male gaze' in mind, it clearly conforms to the way that a male viewer would be gratified by the over sexualised shots which have been used. The fracturing of the female form, so that a male can see parts of her body in a sexual way makes it easy to critically assess the sequence from Mulvey's perspective. As a consequence I would argue that cinema is still dominated by a masculine approach to representation.