A problem with Harley /or/ How I learned to love the nurse outfit.

The original cartoon design

Harley Quinn, the crazy and playful henchgirl/ally/girlfriend of the Joker is probably the most succesful character who has it's origins in the Batman cartoon adaptation and not the official comic continuity. She became a permanent and popular figure in almost all of Batman-related media (excluding, unfortunantely, any movie adaptations) thanks to the incredible positive fan response and support.
Her classical jester costume design has stayed largely unchanged both in the comics and cartoons, being a simply good, simple, effective design.

Yet, when the videogame Batman: Arkham Asylum came out, the practically inevitable happened: the design got changed. A lot.

Though firstly, it would be more correct to say that it's a new outfit than a redesign of the original- the mostly unchanged version of the jester costume is seen in the character info files and her pointy hat is seen in her abandoned office. Yet, she still is wearing that instead of the original costume.

My reaction was probably something that is expected from most female fans- I disliked it greatly. I mean, it's a costume that includes a miniskirt, fishnets and a biiiig cleavage. Also, the nurse theme didn't have any appeal to me at first.

But, after playing through the game twice and reading up on the design process, I kinda changed my view on the "sexy nurse'' outfit- I mean, one of the things that define this character is the obsession with the Joker and desire to impress him by any means possible (including the means that require a big cleavage :D), she is in a hospital and has a doctor's degree AND she is the one "taking care" of the more important hostiges during the game. Also, apparently, innitially the Joker was meant to be dressed up as a sort of a mad scientist, making her nurse outfit a partial leftover from that idea. Also, she still looks playful, in a morbid way, perfect for her and her boyfriend. And I still have to face the fact, that as always, sex sells. Oh well.


So, yeah, at the end, I kinda approved of the nurse outfit.
And I DEFINETLY approved of the gorgeous art direction and brilliant redesigns of the characters in the game in general. The dark and morbid mood of Batman was captured perfectly, and, while looking different, the villains and heroes still felt themselves.

Since Batman: Arkham Asylum was a hit, a sequel is being worked on as I write. In the teaser trailer Harley Quinn appears in her nurse outfit. At first, I got a bit annoyed that she is not going back to something closer to her original garb. Yet it still made even more sense this time, since in the trailer we also see the Joker who was left in a really bad shape after the events in the first game being nursed by Harley.

But, when I saw the screenshots of the new game, I came to a conclusion that the nurse outfit was perfectly okay and that it should stay. Because they are replacing it with something that I find awful.

A BLAND GOTH OUTFIT THAT MAKES HER LOOK LIKE AVRIL LAVIGNE. Bad dye job included.


Oh my, where do I start... Her face looks boring, it seems to have been tottaly remodeled and made into a generic dollface. Atleast the last model had some character in the face.

The outfit not only is blander- it's the blander version of the previous outfit, with all the cheeky and comic nurse parts replaced with leather pants and a skimpyer top. The rest is the same- the gloves, the shoes, the belt and he corset are all from the old model, which might have been an interesting way to show continuity, make it more realistic (to show that she herself just modified the previous outfit), but all that is destroyed by the fact that all the parts of the oufit that were purple are now black, making the design choices make no sense.

And, when looked at closely, one can see that she has tattoos now, all featuring her boyfriend. Ok thats... kinda interesting. She is the Joker's biggest fan after all, though I never saw her as the tattoo type... They would've been okay, if they weren't messing up the whole design. They throw off the whole composition, you have to squint your eyes to see what they are and what is drawn in them.

This is not good character design. She looks like a common 12 year old goth kid with messy tattoos. And Harley Quinn originally was far from that.

I am only left to hope that she is decently voiced and that she will atleast act like the character in the upcoming game.


...or maybe there's still time to get her redesigned? I heard I'm not the only one to be displeased with her new outfit.

Violence and reality

So, violence.... Violence in media, that is. While it has a huge potential to be an interesting subject of analysis, it is always crippled by the fact that it's still for some reason controversial or atleast controversial-ish, even know it has been portrayed in various kinds of media and entertainment since I don't know when.

And yes, I personally don't mind and even to some extent enjoy the violence in media. I play lots of FPS and action games and I am a big fan of them, not to mention the fact that I would prefer a good scifi/actiony/horror/psychological movie to a romantic comedy any day, same goes for cartoons, comics and even books.

BUT, I know, along with many other people, that violence- in real life- is wrong. Very wrong. It's bad, it hurts, it's disgraceful, HEY IT KILLS PEOPLE etc.
Yes, it's bad. In real life.

And what are we talking about here is not real life. It's movies, cartoons, comics, books, etc.
These mediums are known to portray many things differently from the real world, also things that don't exist in the real world. That's one of the reasons people love this stuff. And not all things that are portrayed in media are essentially good, or seen as good in real life: madness gets glorified, indecent realationships get romanticised etc. And not always the real-world wrongness of the subject is seen through the veil of fiction that covers it.

And, let's face it, violence has gained many shapes in media too, most of which are as unrealistic as it comes. Still, people seem to care mostly only about the typical action movie stuff, the brutal one dimensional violence only meant to impress the common menfolk. And then every movie that has violence in it, for one reason or another, seems to be met with prejudice by some people just because of the violence.

But let's think about it- I've already mentioned that violence, along with many subjects portrayed in media, has gained more shapes than the usual Rambo routine. How about epic and breathtaking sword battles between two honourable armies? How about the incredibly beautiful duels in the air in those asian movies? Hah, what about slapstic violence? Not to mention all the cases where the portrayed violent acts have a meaning and are well integrated into a story...

Are those things really that bad?

Also, let's not forget one of the essential things in media that makes us forget the world and enjoy them instead- excitement. And this seems to be the reason why violence is used quite a bit- it's movement, it's action, it's a duel, friction it's exciting. Along with many other things we don't do everyday, because we can't and are not allowed to.

 Also, those many forms of violence in media are the consequences of the main thing that creates a story- confict. Violence is physical conflict. 

While conflict can be shown and be played out by different means than violence and  it might be overused sometimes and sometimes definetly misused, I really don't think that violence in media is unecessary or entirely replacable. 

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When talking about this subject it's also inevitable that I have to say something about it's impact on society. Many people claim that violence in movies, etc. makes kids violent, that this is the reason of the school shootings, etc.

Many of them refer to that school shooting that had a connection with the videogame Doom. But, as it was shown in the lectures, the kid that was obsessed with Doom was already not all right in the head. Normal sane people don't think of themselves as gods and don't connect a video game with reality to the extent that kid connected it. The thing is, in my opinion, he was already insane, he already wasn't all right and he didn't see the difference between the game or reality.

I think that that game, that work of fiction, acted as his object of obsession and he crossed the line that shouldn't be crossed with any work of fiction- started seeing it as reality. And it applies not only to violent games and such, but even to the "harmless stuff" such as soap operas or anime. There have been cases of ladies doing crazy things in name of their soap heroes, and anime fans marrying fictional characters and dangerously harrasing and endangering anime voice actors and the such, even killing or trying to kill people who endanger their anime collections or while imagining to be samurai demons.

As works of fiction, these things are harmless, and are only meant to bring joy, excitement, food for thought for the reader. Yet people cross the line between fiction and reality, and I really doubt the roots are in these works themselves. Could it be parenting? Society? Someting in the water? Probably, these seem to be more likely causes for that, in my opinion.

Also, many cases of the "usual" real-world attacs on people don't have any connections, atleast don't seem to have any obvious connections to any works of fiction (not possibly counting religion driven attacks, but this is not the subject I want to discuss).

Of course, media plays a role in forming a person and his/hers life, but it shouldn't teach us about such essential things as "don't hurt people", "don't kill". Would you find a person who was taught all the life's lessons by the TV set normal? No. People's views on things of such importance, in my opinion, should be formed by real people and the real world, with fiction acting only as a supplement to the person's experiences.



Violence in fiction is fiction too. And fiction should never be seen as reality.