SAY IT A BIT LOUDER FOR THE ONES AT THE BACK!

SAY IT A BIT LOUDER FOR THE ONES AT THE BACK!

In defense of Joker/Harley and other “bad” ships.

Here’s another thing about Harley and the Joker as a pairing.

Saying they can’t have a relationship, that someone liking their relationship is wrong, immoral, and “romanticizing abuse” is not only judgmental but limiting. You can engage with darker fiction without it actually reflecting your world views. Appreciating conflict and villainy is no indication that you think it’s normal or acceptable. Example: Harley Quinn is a criminal and a murderer, but you liking her doesn’t make you a murderer apologist. 

Yet people seem to think that enjoying a dynamic like Harley and Joker’s clearly means you’re too ignorant to understand that their relationship is abusive, or that you are in favor of abuse. 

If you’re going to protest so heavily against bad relationships, let’s just take villains away all together. Let’s take away conflict, lying, and murder from stories all together. I mean, by the same logic applied in trying to restrict any Joker/Harley content, it’d be good if all these bad things weren’t portrayed at all. 

Except we need conflict for stories to be interesting. Everyone can agree on that. Then why is so unacceptable to enjoy romantic relationships full of conflict? 

Superheroes all have that One Big Archenemy. Batman and the Joker have one of the most loved relationships of all time. All their fighting is usually considered epic, their back-and-forth is accepted as the norm, and Batman’s moral struggle about whether or not to kill him is considered interesting and engaging. 

So why can’t I appreciate a similar arc with Harley and her relationship with the Joker? Why can’t I indulge in the complicated, messy, and gritty relationship between them?  Why can’t I like their mutual inner turmoil regarding each other? Why can’t I do that, if everyone else can for Batman and the Joker? 

I saw a post earlier pointing out how people seem to assume young women are completely incapable of separating fact from fiction when it comes to shipping. That if a person ships something that is not completely healthy and pure, it must mean they condone that kinda thing, or wouldn’t recognize it as a problem in real life. Certainly a large portion of people seem to assume the same in regards to Joker/Harley shippers, or shippers of similar ships with morally grey matter (ex: Reylo, Dramione, etc.) If you’re trying to stop these ships under the guise of feminism, yet that’s your impression of a young woman’s mind, you’ve got some things backwards.

No one is asking you to ship it, or like it, or look at it. But it’d be nice if you stopped trying to judge a person’s moral character based on a fictional story they engage with.