What I’m Watching: Harley Quinn

HoboMax delivers a mostly-adult-oriented cartoon about recently-separted-from-Mistah-J Harlequinn/Harley Quinn.

Voice-actor is Kaley Cuoco (the annoying chick from the more annoying Big Bang Laugh Track Show), who is better than I expected, but doesn’t really hit the shrill Joisey girl accent I expect; Poison Ivy, her slightly but not too overtly lesbian (well, you’d think, but they do throw in lines about Kite Man) roommate is the surprisingly competent Lake Bell (who has been acting for 20 years but her IMDB page is just a list of trash roles; did you see Surface? Be glad if you didn’t.); Alan Tudyk does the Joker, which he’s not really fit for, I miss Mark Hammill as the Joker, but he also does Clayface, which really fits his over-the-top thespian tone just like Mr Nobody in Doom Patrol.

“You helped me. I can be around people now. You know, I mean, I hate it, but I can do it without vomiting.”

Some of it’s well-written, there’s a lot of snarky lines, and the plots and tone are similar to the ’90s Tick cartoons. But I do find it odd and annoying that A) There’s 3 main writers, all of them dudes, B) The art is very male-gazey/Striperella, which hey, I like cartoon porn as much as anyone but it’s not a good way to build Harley up as a self-respecting villain. In fact, of the 30 names listed for writing on all 15 episodes, 7 are women, all with 4 eps or less to their names. And it shows over and over again. When they try to “talk about women”, it’s slightly better than the Rick & Morty Bechdel Test gag, but only very slightly.

“This guy’s such a douche.”
“I’m sorry, but none of the charming supervillains with great personalities were holding seminars today.”

Occasionally manages some social commentary, but at the same time exactly reinforces the stereotypes it’s gossiping about.

“I had to make my own [crew] by believing in stupid little things like Mark. No offense, Mark.”

SIGH. The curse of the generic name.

Well, I’m rarely bored by it, and I do laugh.

★★★½☆