Two movies about morality outside the bounds of polite society and banding together — it's Saving Private Ryan vs Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)
Episode Transcript & Breakdown
Every episode of Tasteless, I take a critically acclaimed film and compare it to one that shares the same themes but didn't get the attention it deserves — and explain why that second movie is my pick. This week: two movies about morality outside the bounds of polite society and banding together. It's Saving Private Ryan versus Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn. I will say the full name only once, thank you.
Saving Private Ryan
Following the Normandy Landings, a group of U.S. soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose comrades have been killed in action.
This movie came out in 1998, has a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, and is number 26 on the top-rated movies of all time. It won five Oscars — Best Director for Steven Spielberg, Best Sound, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Effects Editing. It was nominated for another six that it didn't win, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Tom Hanks, and Best Music for John Williams.
This movie kicks off with too many barfs. One of my only problems with movies: animals being hurt, barfs. Those are the things I don't like in a film. But I can't blame these guys — they are in an old-timey boat going to shore to do battle. They're barfing all over the place. Hate it.
I had seen this movie a couple of years ago and really didn't internalize a lot of it. Didn't really think about it again. But on rewatching, I was really struck. When I started it and saw it was almost three hours, I was kind of like, ugh, God, another one of these. But the first 25 minutes or so of the landing on Omaha Beach, the Normandy landing — the brutality really comes through on the screen.
A guy loses his arm — he has viscera on his sleeve hanging off, and he kind of bends over and picks up the arm and stands up and trudges off holding his arm. There's the guy that Tom Hanks is dragging and then he realizes it's only half a body — he only got his top half. He thought he was saving this guy, but he only got his top half. There's the guy who gets shot on his helmet — a bullet pings off the side, and he's like, oh my God, I just got shot but I'm okay. So he takes off his helmet to look at it, like, wow, this just saved my life. While looking at it, he gets shot in the head and dies.
Some guy is laying there with his guts hanging out and he's like, mama, mama. I mean, not like that at all. I feel like if my guts were hanging out, I would definitely be yelling for my cat. But here's the thing — the indignity of not only having your intestines outside your body, but having sand get into your intestines. Just awful.
It's just 25 minutes of relentless, unflinching war. It's not Michael Bay action-y. It's not bright red blood. It's real in this way that is striking and I was very impressed by.
The conceit of this movie is that a secretary realizes that three brothers have died in three different conflicts — three brothers, last name Ryan. And the army is basically like, God, we have to tell this mother that three of her sons are dead, but there's still one brother left alive. He paratrooped in somewhere but they lost track — something went wrong with the landing, so no one knows where he is. The army's like, okay, we have to get the other Ryan brother. Private Ryan. Save him, Private Ryan. We have to bring him home to his mother so that we don't tell her every single one of her four sons have died.
Now, I think in real life at this point, knowing our government, it would be more like — we better kill that mom so she doesn't tell anyone that the army killed all four of her children. But in this movie they are going to go rescue James Ryan.
Tom Hanks is the leader. He is in charge of the band of men that go to save Private Ryan. His name is Miller, and he's this kind of tough guy. I've talked about this before — I don't dislike Tom Hanks, I like him, he seems like a nice man, I'll watch his movies. I am never like, oh my God, what incredible acting, the way that I am when I watch Rebecca Hall or Christian Bale, who even when I don't love his movies or his zaniness, I watch him act and I'm like, wow, he's doing something.
Tom Hanks always plays these mild-mannered guys. There's this bet among the guys under his command about what his job might be, because no one's positive what he did before the war. He finally tells them: I was an English teacher and I love my wife. Which is the epitome of Tom Hanks roles. He's mild-mannered, he does the right thing.
He has seven other people on his team. Tom Sizemore is the second in command and he gets to say the title at one point — he gets to say "saving Private Ryan," so good for him. Edward Burns is the New York guy. Perfectly — that's his thing. I hadn't really realized until recently that he directs and writes movies in addition to acting. No one else is bringing us important New York stories like Edward Burns. He's very much like, hey, I'm Edward Burns. You like pizza? I may need to bump up New York on my list of hot accents. And remember how hot Edward Burns was in 27 Dresses as Katherine Heigl's boss? None of this pertains to Saving Private Ryan.
In Saving Private Ryan, Edward Burns is like, why are eight guys being risked for one guy? He's the most outspoken to Tom Hanks that he doesn't agree with this plan, but at the end of the day he will follow orders. He's like, this is stupid. What are we doing here? Hey, this is stupid. What are we doing here? You like pizza? Just like that.
Maybe most importantly — we forget, or I had forgotten, and I think the world has forgotten because they're rude — that Vin Diesel was in this movie. In fact, his role, Caparzo, was written for him after Steven Spielberg saw Diesel's independent film Strays, which was Vin's directorial, writing, producing, and lead acting debut. I need to watch that movie ASAP.
He is kind of the comedic relief along with Adam Goldberg. They're buddies, they hang out, they're chit-chatty with each other. Vin Diesel does unfortunately die in this movie because he takes a kid when he's not supposed to. He gets shot because he opens himself up to it. He's just laying there bleeding out and it's raining. Who knew we were going to have ten Fast and Furiouses after this? He looks so good in this movie. Vin Diesel has the littlest shadow of hair on his head and it looks incredible. I don't even know if it's painted on.
So Upham the translator — Jeremy Davies plays him. He's this guy who wasn't part of their crew. They were all together when they stormed the beach, but now on this mission to save Ryan, he gets added because he can speak German and French. And he's like, I want to bring my typewriter. He looks like Andrew Garfield.
But here's what's important to talk about with Jeremy Davies. He does cameos — on cameo.com — that are an hour plus each. It is bananas. You get your money's worth. On his Cameo page, he says: I'd redefine grateful if you'd read a letter I wrote to my fans, which you can find on jeremiedavies.com. I need everyone to go to jeremiedavies.com. His letter is titled "A Criminally Misfit Altruistic Inaugural Social Media Mission Statement of Sorts" and is 32 pages long. I am fascinated by this man. I cannot get over it. I'm starting a book club just for this. We're all going to read that 32-page letter and then we're going to get back together and talk about it.
Matt Damon plays Private Ryan. Steven Spielberg cast him because he wanted an unknown actor with an all-American look. But before this movie came out, Matt Damon won the Oscar for Good Will Hunting and became a massive star. So that didn't work out. He's really good in this. He has this scene where he tears up and I started crying watching it. But then he tells this very weird story about his brother making out with a girl in a barn and she runs into a wall and is knocked out, which is not a fun story. And Matt's like, well Tom, what's your story? And Tom's like, I'm going to save my story for me.
Brian Cranston pops up — also very hot with a buzz cut. Paul Giamatti. Nathan Fillion, at one point they think he's Private Ryan but he's a different Private Ryan. Ted Danson is here. Ted Danson, younger and older, looks like a Ken doll in a nice way, but he has a very long rectangular head.
Spoilers for this movie from a thousand years ago that everyone has seen. Tom Hanks dies. And as he's dying, he says to Private Ryan: earn this. That's so much pressure. Imagine someone's dying words to you being earn this. Also, when he's old and he's at the grave of Miller, he turns to his wife and says, tell me I've led a good life. Leave your wife alone. This movie has a few moments like that where it takes something real and heightens it to This Is Us levels — where you feel like they're trying to make you cry rather than trying to tell a story.
Birds Of Prey
After splitting with the Joker, Harley Quinn joins superheroines Black Canary, Huntress, and Renee Montoya to save a young girl from an evil crime lord.
This movie came out in 2020, has a 78%. No Oscars, but one of my favorites of 2020 — top three, maybe top two, maybe top one. This one and Promising Young Woman, both produced by Margot Robbie's production company Lucky Chap. Lucky Chap produced I, Tonya, Terminal, Birds of Prey, Promising Young Woman. They have a Yorgos Lanthimos movie on the slate, they have the Greta Gerwig Barbie movie. This company is making all my dreams come true.
I'm someone who's vaguely familiar with comic books. But when I saw Suicide Squad, I was — horrified is too strong a word. I saw it with a full theater of mostly men and the things they got excited about, the things they cheered for, genuinely upset me. Which sounds so stupid and lame to say, but I remember there's a scene where Harley licks a prison bar and everyone's like, yeah. And I was like, what are we doing here? I think Margot was so incredibly talented, and so I was really bummed by that.
With this movie, she took the character, she took what she knew about it, and she created this incredible super villain/superhero somewhere in between that isn't permeated by the male gaze.
She really spearheaded getting this movie made. In Suicide Squad, she's wearing short shorts, denim short shorts, ripped fishnets. In this movie, she's wearing fully insane clothes that are really fun to look at — full yellow overalls with a pink fishnet halter top. She's obviously beautiful, but nothing about the clothes she's in is sexual. She's dressed in the way she wants to be dressed. She has a specific sense of style. It's very fun.
It's such a good example of male gaze versus female gaze. The only semi-glamorized shot we see of her is her hair in a wind machine blowing back, and that's because she's watching her breakfast sandwich get made that she's so pumped about.
I remember when the movie came out and there were comments on Twitter about how this is the difference between male and female gaze — that we get this almost pornographic exploration of a breakfast sandwich being made, the eggs cracking, but then Harley is wearing overalls. It's such a different take on the genre because I think even when the women in superhero films are strong, there is that inclination to really still make sure men like them. There's none of that in Birds of Prey.
Margot Robbie in this character — I'm so glad we got this movie because she is perfect in this role. You saw that in Suicide Squad. To see her make it her own — she does this accent that's really wonderfully cartoonish, with weird emphasis on some words, like poi-fect. It really captures this surreal vibe. I knew she could act, but this really establishes her as a star. Her charisma is absolutely out of this world. As Harley, it doesn't rely on her being one of the most gorgeous women on the planet. That's not what we're looking at. She plays every element of this movie so loud, with such conviction, but also with emotion. It's never unbelievable.
The costume designer said they were talking about how Harley isn't meant to be an object of desire in this movie, which is on purpose. Erin Benach, the costume designer, said, that's what happens when you have a female producer, director, writer. Robbie added, yeah, it's definitely less male gaze-y. She had discussed how uncomfortable her outfits were for Suicide Squad, so that was altered for this movie.
There's a scene when the sprinklers are going off and she gets soaked and there is nothing sexual about it. The water makes for this really great fight scene. There's nothing wet-t-shirt-contest about it. She's wearing a white t-shirt, but that's not what's happening.
One of my favorite moments: she's hiding from all these guys, prepared to fight them — guys that got out of their jail cells. She is in basically an evidence room at a police station and she realizes she's behind a bunch of bags of cocaine and guys are shooting at it. The cocaine flies up into the air, she looks around, realizes what's happening, and she just inhales. Her eyes go wide and "Black Betty" starts playing. Such a good, fun fight scene song. The whole soundtrack for this movie is really fun. Every element came together into what I want from a superhero movie — bright and colorful and fun.
Rosie Perez plays Detective Renee Montoya. At one point Montoya is investigating a crime scene, looking at four guys that have all been shot by arrows, and it kind of pauses the scene so she can walk around it and replay what was happening. This movie is really innovative in the way it shares information. The story isn't fully linear — it unfolds these different pieces for you. Rosie Perez just gets to be grumpy and great. She's good at her job but she's also not going to play by anyone else's rules. And Renee Montoya the character is the first canonically gay character in either a Marvel or a DC movie. We see her ex-girlfriend, played by Ali Wong, which is cool. It's not a big deal — she's just mad that her ex-girlfriend is there.
Jurnee Smollett plays Dinah Lance, aka Black Canary. She's such a good singer — Jurnee does her own singing. She sings at the club that Roman owns, the Black Mask, our main villain. When he sees her fighting to help Harley get away from some drunk guys, he decides she will be his new driver. She becomes enmeshed in his world of crime but she's letting Montoya know what's going on because she wants to protect the little girl he is after. Her as Black Canary — I want her in more action movies because she is so cool.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays Huntress, Helena Bertinelli. What an unsung hero Mary Elizabeth Winstead is. She is so good in so many things. You watch her and you know you're going to get a good performance. She's very funny in a very understated way and she gets to really lean into that in this movie. Her entire family was killed in search of a diamond that holds their riches — all their money is in offshore bank accounts and all the numbers are stored inside a diamond. She has spent her life preparing to avenge them.
You think, wow, the Huntress kills all these people — other people call her the Crossbow Killer — but you realize she stands in a mirror and practices, do you know who I am? Do you know who I am? There's something so real about her. I love when somebody says "a bow and arrow" and she says, it's not a bow and arrow, it's a crossbow. I'm not 12. She's semi-awkward but still so cool and sure of herself in so many ways.
Ella Jay Basco plays Cassandra Cain, the kid who swallows the diamond. She's a little pickpocket. Everyone is trying to either cut it out of her or get it out another way — Harley gives her a whole lot of prune juice, that's not working. They need to protect her from Roman the Black Mask. Ella Jay Basco is a very fun kid in this movie. Everybody's trying to protect her and you're never annoyed. She can handle herself but also is a kid who needs someone to look out for her.
Our villain, the Black Mask, Roman, is played by Ewan McGregor. Before Ewan was cast, Nicolas Cage, Sharlto Copley, and Sam Rockwell were considered. Rockwell passed on the role but was considered the archetype for the casting. As much as I adore him, I'm very happy that Ewan got to flex this weird, dark, comedic, strange, Nicolas Cage energy type muscle in this movie. He is so good in it.
He has all these little idiosyncrasies. He's going to cut the faces off these people. Then he goes, actually, this girl can go. And he takes tape off her mouth. Then he sees a snot bubble in her nose. And he's like, ew, nevermind, cut her face off.
What I love is that he's this male villain who never sexualizes the heroes. There's never a threat of sexual assault. He never looks them up and down. He respects Black Canary as his driver and is devastated when he thinks he's been betrayed. Yes, he wants to own her in the way that she's his singer at his club. But there aren't those elements. He definitely is misogynistic, he definitely doesn't love women, but I liked that there weren't those elements.
Important trivia: Harley suffers a concussion at one point and has a dream of herself singing "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend." Of course, Ewan McGregor is probably best known for Moulin Rouge, where Nicole Kidman sings "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend." So he is in both of those, dancing to it. I love it.
Chris Messina plays his right-hand man, Mr. Zsasz — also a really strange, quirky villain I enjoyed. He's sniveling a little bit. At one point Black Canary is late and Ewan McGregor is like, it's fine. And Chris Messina is like, no, you're late. Shouldn't she come back later because she's late? She was late, shouldn't she? He really wants other people to be punished. And Ewan McGregor is like, no man, cool it, it's fine, don't worry about it.
Cathy Yan directed this movie. She is the first Asian woman to direct a superhero movie. She is the second woman to direct a DC film, after Patty Jenkins. She knocks it out of the park. Every element of this film came together for me — the little things that come up on the screen telling you why people are mad at Harley, the way it unfolds, the coloring, all of it. The writer, Christina Hodson, she wrote another movie that has appeared on Tasteless — Unforgettable with Katherine Heigl and Rosario Dawson, which I love. All the pieces in this movie came together. Watching it in a theater was breathtaking.
Shared Themes
Something that sets these two films apart is that their protagonists aren't heroes to everyone. They're people who live in moral shades of gray, who have to do things outside the realm of human decency to survive. And that doesn't make them bad people, doesn't make them good people. It's a much less black-and-white way of looking at things.
In Saving Private Ryan, we are following soldiers in the midst of war. Soldiers are forced to do horrible things to protect not only themselves but their fellow soldiers and their country. Other people's lives are in their hands. The best example of this is Vin Diesel and the little girl. A girl's parents beg the soldiers to take their two children to safety. Tom Hanks screams at his soldiers — no children, we do not take children. They have a mission, they can't take the risk. Vin Diesel defies orders, grabs the kid, and says, sorry, Captain, she reminds me of my niece. I gotta take her, I gotta help her. And he gets shot and bleeds out slowly all over the note he wrote to his dad.
Was taking the kid the moral thing to do, the "right" thing to do? Yeah, probably. But they have a mission. And when Vin takes the girl, he's focused on her, so not only is he endangering his life, he's endangering the lives of the other men he's supposed to be looking out for.
Which leads us to the crux of the movie. Eight men are sent back into battle to save a single man and they feel conflicted about it. Most of them don't think it's worthwhile. Why kill eight men to save one man? They don't think it's right. Private Ryan could already be dead, but they're here alive now and they don't want to put themselves in danger. Many of them do die on the way to rescue Private Ryan, or even when they're with him. But he represents something more — he represents that mother. And Edward Burns is like, I have a mother. We all have mothers who don't want their sons to die. Why is he more important?
Another complicated aspect: Tom Hanks at one point has a POW, a prisoner of war. He sets him free — has him dig graves, then they're like, you can't kill the guy now. He sets him free with a blindfold and a hundred-yard head start. That is the man who kills him. That is the man who later at the bridge shoots him. There was no clear morally correct option in war. There just isn't.
In Birds of Prey, we're exploring the choices of women who have been shafted by the world, who have been put in a box, mistreated, and who are trying to make things right in the only way they can. They don't have the luxury of making the right choice a lot of the time. They've been left to their own devices and need to survive the seedy underbelly of the worlds they've found themselves in.
Harley is an incredibly complicated character. She's not a hero, not even a villain — just a woman who has gotten away with her behavior for a really long time while putting up with disrespect from the Joker. That got her certain perks, people looked the other way. Now she needs to figure out how to stand on her own two feet, which leads to some poor decisions. When she decides to turn in Cassandra — when she's going to give Cassandra over to Roman — it's because she feels like she doesn't have another choice.
We don't judge Black Canary for working as a driver for Roman, or Huntress for murdering vigilante-style the people who killed her family instead of pulling a Spider-Man and tying them up outside a police station. Where the criminal justice system has failed, Huntress has stepped in to make sure these evil men are dealt with. Detective Montoya is working outside the scope of her job to make sure the real bad guy who no one else wants to go after gets what's coming to him. And in the process, she forgets the rules she promised to adhere to as an officer of the law and becomes a vigilante.
Even Cassandra must make bad choices to survive. She picks pockets from people — maybe good people, maybe bad people — to keep herself going as her foster parents fight about keeping her. She is on her own, and since she can't get a job as a kid, she does what she needs to do. Everyone here is operating at the level of survival in both movies, and when they can do the right thing, they try to. But that's not always possible.
The best element of these movies is when our wildly different characters come together and have each other's backs. The protagonists in both films must learn to put the group above the individual.
In Saving Private Ryan, Tom Hanks' team had worked together during their attack on Omaha Beach. When he's told he needs to head up the mission, he gets the same men along with Jeremy Davies the translator and they set out. We've seen these guys in battle together, covering each other. But for those first 25 minutes, we don't see a lot of communication — it's just Tom Hanks giving them orders, which is what battle is. With this new mission, a lot of the men are unhappy. They wonder why their lives aren't as important as Ryan's. They question Tom Hanks, they grumble and gripe. But when they're faced with incredible challenges and not many resources, they learn how to work together.
When they're in that town with the bridge that Ryan refuses to leave because he wants to protect it, the men finally begin sharing personal facts with each other. They set a plan — they're going to destroy the tracks on one of the tanks so it'll block the road and funnel the bad guys in one spot where they can be gunned down. Everyone is working together. They come together in a way that's really incredible. A lot of them wind up dying, but it's not for a lack of trying and being the best they can for each other and for themselves.
In Birds of Prey, our women had been working separately to get the diamond, each after it for their own reasons. But then they find themselves trapped at the theme park in a room, at which point they realize it would be best if they worked together. They each use their individual strengths. Harley does gymnastics. Montoya loves punching. Black Canary is a kicker. Huntress has a crossbow. In conjunction, in the service of one goal — saving Cassandra — they fight off wave after wave of bad guys. They each have their own focus while also looking out for the others. And in saving one another, they know they've got each other's backs. They don't worry that one of them is going to betray the other. That's never a concern. They're like, nope, we're working together. That's it. I know you've got my back. I love that.
Between our soldiers and our sirens, there are such distinct personalities, but you believe — of course they could work together. I see how this works. It wasn't unbelievable.
Saving Private Ryan and Birds of Prey both have troubled characters, but they also share an important message of hope.
The guys in Saving Private Ryan are mad that eight men's lives are being risked for one man. But Tom Hanks, in addition to just wanting to do the job so he can go home, also understands the importance of hope. Ryan represents that. A mother has three dead sons coming home to her. All she has left in this world is Matt Damon. There's something about this mother losing all four children that the head army guys cannot stomach. It's too devastating. One child gives her something, some link.
Ryan's story is one that upsets the people he runs into. Everyone has a similarly somber reaction when they find out three separate brothers have died. We learn the brothers were purposely sent to different areas with different tasks to try to keep something like this from happening. Regardless, getting James Ryan home to his mother means a great deal to morale, to the optics of the war, to this family. While the guys are mad to be sacrificed for one other man, everyone wants this mother to have someone come home to her.
In Birds of Prey, our women are mostly single-minded, working towards a set goal with no plans afterwards. But finding each other, uniting to save Cassandra — it gives them new life. It gives them hope for a better future. Through their protection of Cassandra, they realize they can be better people. They realize that others can rely on them and that they can make connections.
Harley felt bereft with the loss of the Joker. She doesn't know who she is without him. But she's able to define herself, differentiate herself over the course of this film. Instead of mourning her past, she finally becomes excited for her future — making new business cards, starting a new life for herself and Cassandra. And the other women start their own crime-fighting squad, giving themselves a new purpose and a continued bond with the people who understand them best.
What Birds Of Prey Did Better
One big difference in the two films that sets them apart is the importance of having a choice. At the end of the day, the guys in Saving Private Ryan have a duty to their country and are following orders. That carries over into the duty to their fellow soldier — not just the duties they have to those above them, but also to the men they are in this situation with. And of course they grow to care for each other. Of course there's camaraderie in this awful world they're forced to navigate. And that camaraderie isn't made any less meaningful just because it is forced. Most of life is like — you're put with people and then you like them or you don't.
But there's something I love about Birds of Prey having people come together not just because they have to, but because they want to. They want to protect the kid. The women in Birds of Prey make choices for themselves, for the moment, not because someone above them is telling them what they must do. In fact, they're finally getting to make their own choices, especially Harley.
In the world of Saving Private Ryan, at the end of the day, these men have been given orders and they're going to do them. Even when they argue with Tom Hanks — when he's just like, well, it's orders — they're like, all right. And by following these orders, they can take a lot of the blame off themselves. Even Tom Hanks, the head of this contingent, is following the orders of people above him who aren't in the field, who are sitting in their office reading an old Abraham Lincoln letter and bemoaning a mother losing her children.
Tom Hanks makes one call for himself. He agrees to have the men stay to help Ryan's men hold that bridge. And that leads to a lot of them dying. But the other men at the bridge had to stay because of orders. They didn't choose because they love their country to stay there — there's this obligation everyone has.
The women in Birds of Prey who have felt so helpless at various points in their lives, who have been treated as less than, who have been consistently underestimated — in this story, they are finally making choices for themselves.
Harley had been under the Joker's thumb, and it's a huge turning point when she admits to the world she's no longer associated with him and must stand on her own two feet, no longer under his umbrella of protection. Finally responsible for her own actions.
Montoya stops coloring inside the lines of Gotham City PD because they have passed her over for promotion and treat her with zero respect. In following her own path, she uncovers the evils of Ewan McGregor. She's on his trail.
Black Canary is someone who has not wanted to live in her mother's shadow — someone else who had the vocal powers that she does. She balks at Montoya's suggestion that she follow in the senior Dinah's footsteps. However, it is her choice near the end of the film to use the power she inherited. A choice she doesn't make lightly.
Huntress had everything taken from her and a specific mission she lived her life by that kept her going. Everything prior to this movie was in service of killing the men that killed her family. When she kills who she thinks is the last one, she's able to make the choice for how to continue forward. Montoya is integral in that, reminding her that Roman is the man at the top and Huntress can keep doing good for the world.
Cassandra Cain is shuttled around from person to person, place to place, in search of the diamond she swallowed. But she realizes these women do have her best interests at heart, and when she has the chance to start a new life with Harley as her apprentice, she makes that choice, she takes that chance.
Here's the issue. While I think Saving Private Ryan is a fascinating look at the things people go through during war, it gives all the characters an out. They don't have to be responsible for their actions. It can always be blamed on someone up the line. They don't have to come to terms with what they've done in the same way they would if they had made the choices themselves. The women of Birds of Prey — they're experiencing choice for the first time and we're seeing the consequences of that.
I know men and women are different — that's like half my podcast, probably. But despite the camaraderie among the men in Saving Private Ryan, we see how cruel they are to someone they see as an outsider — to the translator, Jeremy Davies — until really the last moments of the film. Whereas the relationships between the women in Birds of Prey develop. There's not immediate acceptance, but there are so many more shades of gray. It's not this immediate rudeness. No one compromises their snarkiness, but they are supportive of one another in the way that humans should be. Not just because they've been assigned the same team by the United States government.
Jeremy Davies the translator in Saving Private Ryan — he's annoying. And it's clear the other guys have a tight-knit thing and now they have this intruder in their midst. I'm not the most welcoming person. I hate new things. But these guys are hateful to Jeremy Davies. They mock everything he says. They ask him questions about the book he's writing so he'll start answering and then they shut him down. They tell Private Ryan he's a burden. There's very little compassion among these men, even with all they've faced.
They have moments of sadness for one another, for themselves — Adam Goldberg crying, holding the Nazi knife. Private Ryan at the end, crying when he's old. He knows he owes his life to these men. But in an abstract way, I didn't really feel the bonds of brotherhood would extend past the three hours of their lives that we watched. They're in it for now only, and then they'll all go back to their separate lives that they don't even tell these guys about. Tom Hanks — none of them knew he was a teacher. He's going to go back to that life, none of them are going to know about it. I mean, he's not, because he's dead, but you know what I mean. There was no "in" — this was always a "for now." Brotherhood is such a large part of this movie, but it doesn't feel lasting. It feels temporary, in these specific circumstances only.
In Birds of Prey, the women are fiercely independent but they always respect one another. I don't know how you can be in the army expecting someone to have your back and not have some form of respect for them. That's crazy to me.
The women in Birds of Prey — their bonds go beyond orders, beyond requirements and what's expected. They validate one another, value one another for their individual contributions. Sometimes they tease each other, sometimes they're frustrated, sometimes they say mean things. But at the end of the day, there's no competition between these women that is anything other than professional.
There are these moments. Harley will tell Huntress, you are so cool. When Black Canary beats up somebody that was about to get her, Harley's like, thanks. Such a genuine appreciation of someone else. Then she gives Black Canary that hair tie — another moment that was spoken about on Twitter a lot as proof that this movie was made by women. The fact that these women are in a fight and Harley says to Black Canary, who has very long hair, hair tie? And offers it to her. Black Canary says thanks and puts her hair up so she can keep fighting. This small moment that's really incredible.
Then later one of them says to Huntress, I love that name, Huntress. And Huntress says, and I love how you were able to kick so high in those really tight pants.
I'm not saying everything needs to be a love fest. But you can tell they're sizing each other up and they appreciate what each other brings to the table. Montoya apologizes to Harley for underestimating her, for thinking she was just the Joker's pawn.
There's such a humanity here that fleshes these characters out into more than the battle they are facing — into people that we can picture in a variety of contexts. The guys in Saving Private Ryan don't exist outside that movie and they don't exist outside that battle.
We don't know who these men are when they go back home, if they go back home.
Watch Birds of Prey. It is on HBO Max. Every one of those fight scenes was something new — it wasn't the same old same old. Exploding glitter and smells and a beanbag gun. It's so fun.
Hit me up at @tastelesspod on social media. We can talk about Margot Robbie, we can talk about her beanbag gun, which was such a fun weapon, or we can talk about how we all collectively forgot Vin Diesel was in Saving Private Ryan.
