The ‘Harley Quinn’ Creators Were Told That They Couldn’t Depict A Sex Scene Involving Batman And Catwoman

One of the internet’s finest resources is Common Sense Media. The website is the self-proclaimed “leading source of entertainment and technology recommendations for families and schools.” In other words, it tells the Helen Lovejoys of the world what they should and shouldn’t let their kids watch. Here’s the “What Parents Need to Know” for HBO Max’s wonderful Harley Quinn: “Harley is working to become one of the best supervillains in Gotham. This comes with a lot of gratuitous violence and death. Characters are killed in gruesome ways, including being shot, stabbed, dissolved in acid, and having their limbs removed. There are frequent mentions of sex and sexual innuendo as well as the appearance of some pixilated genitalia. Characters use every curse word in the book (“f-ck,” “sh*t,” etc.). Underneath the racy and grisly nature of this series are themes of female resilience and empowerment.”

I’m not saying Harley Quinn rules because of all the “gratuitous violence and death” and “frequent mentions of sex and sexual innuendo,” but I’m also not not saying it. There is a line that the funny and filthy animated series isn’t allowed to crossover, however.

“It’s incredibly gratifying and free to be using characters that are considered villains because you just have so much more leeway,” co-creator Justin Halpern told Variety. “A perfect example of that is in this third season of Harley [when] we had a moment where Batman was going down on Catwoman. And DC was like, ‘You can’t do that. You absolutely cannot do that.’ They’re like, ‘Heroes don’t do that.’ So, we said, ‘Are you saying heroes are just selfish lovers?’ They were like, ‘No, it’s that we sell consumer toys for heroes. It’s hard to sell a toy if Batman is also going down on someone.’”

I always assumed Batman was the DJ Khaled of superheroes, but I was wrong. My apologies to the Dark Knight. As for all the bat stuff, though…

HBO MAX

(Via Variety)