Harley Quinn Voted for Bernie Sanders in Birds of Prey, Apparently
Warning: Some light spoilers ahead.
The DC Cinematic Universe is full of heroes who fight on behalf of the downtrodden, like Superman, Wonder Woman, Shazam, and… Bernie Sanders? Birds of Prey, the latest DC movie, revealed that not only does the Vermont senator and current presidential contender exist in the DC universe...but that Harley Quinn voted for him, too.
Harley’s Bern status is confirmed in a blink-and-you miss it moment. Birds of Prey picks up shortly after Harley (Margot Robbie) has broken up with the Joker, and she’s trying to establish herself as a solo act and embrace the single life. Problem is, she pissed off a lot of people when she was with the Clown Prince of Crime, and now that they’re no longer an item, Harley’s no longer under the Joker’s protection, and her enemies feel emboldened to enact revenge.
As Harley encounters various people who want her dead, the reasons they’re mad at her flashes on the screen (“tattooed a clown pattern on his face,” “made a hyena eat his brother, etc”). But when Harley encounters Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor), the list is very, very long. The on-screen list of reasons keeps changing, but at one point you can clearly see that Harley’s on Roman’s shit-list because she “voted for Bernie.”
In an interview with The Wrap, director Cathy Yan said the Bernie shout-out wasn’t a political statement, and that it was just funny to think being a Bernie supporter was enough to make an enemy out of a powerful Gotham gangster. But, Birds of Prey’s Bernie moment has all sorts of implications if you’re willing to overthink this, as I’m about to.
For instance, when did Harley vote for Bernie, and how? She’s a convicted felon, after all, and in many states, she wouldn’t be able to vote. It’s unclear which state Gotham is in, although typically in the comics it's somewhere in the New Jersey area. When 2016’s Suicide Squad opened, she was imprisoned in Belle Reve Federal Penitentiary in Louisiana, which does not allow felons to vote until they’ve finished probation, and Harley certainly wouldn’t have been allowed to vote while behind bars. Therefore, Harley almost certainly wouldn’t have been able to cast her vote for Bernie in the 2016 primaries, and since Joker broke Harley out of jail at the end of Suicide Squad, she certainly hasn’t finished her probation, and therefore can’t vote in any 2020 contests. This must mean that, if we assume Harley Quinn is close to Margot Robbie’s age of 29, she must have been a resident of the state of Vermont and voted for Bernie in his 2012 senate election, or possibly in 2006, if she’s a little older. Bernie Sanders is one of the few politicians—Democrat or otherwise—who supports letting people in prison vote, and Vermont and Maine are currently the only two states that allow prisoners to vote.
It's also worth noting that Donald Trump's Secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, was an executive producer on Suicide Squad, adding another meta-layer to this whole thing.
Here’s what to watch at home this weekend.
Originally Appeared on GQ
