Cathy Yan, the director of Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), has defended one the movie's more upsetting and controversial scenes, explaining that the very discomfort it caused was why it was so important to keep in.
The scene Yan is talking about doesn't involve Harley Quinn and takes place in a club owned by Birds of Prey's antagonist, Roman Sionis (played by Ewan McGregor). Paranoid and overly sensitive, Sionis believes that a woman, Erika, is laughing at him. In an effort to humiliate her, he storms over and demands that she dance on the table before requesting her to take off her clothes. It is an undeniably uncomfortable scene -- one Yan believes was an integral turning point for McGregor’s character.
"I’ll be honest: we had to fight to keep that scene because it was uncomfortable," she said. "It was risky, and we had to fight to keep it at all. There are cuts of the movie without it. I'm really glad that we kept it because I think it’s important. I think that a lot of people have been very impacted by that scene."
Yan explained how they wanted to shoot the exchange in an effort to make the focus about Sionis, not "the sexual violence upon the woman." She pointed to how this scene indicates what he is capable of and marks the first time that Black Canary sees him for who he truly is. Because of this revelation, Black Canary can commit to cutting herself off from him. She stressed that all of these character-based implications were why she fought so hard to keep the scene in the movie.
At the time of writing, there is no word on a potential sequel to Birds of Prey being planned, though fans can see Margot Robbie reprise her role as Harley Quinn in the upcoming Suicide Squad movie from James Gunn.
Birds of Prey is available now on digital home media.
Source: Gizmodo