Another take on the The Batman Adventures: Mad Love Flashback panels
We all know my typical standard take about this, but I’ve been thinking about it and the more I sit on it the more I realize that frankly if Harley, an adult, did sleep her professor it doesn’t matter.
(Also this isn’t about the whole he’s her professor so it’s problematic angle, the dude has no character at all. I don’t even think he has a full name. Just speaking about it from her side only)
So first off, the narrative being told already has a bias because it’s being told from the side of Batman, it’s what he believes at this point, not the unbiased truth. It’s what he’s researched and what he’s heard about her through hearsay and gossip from people she went to school with who slut shamed her for having a fling with a professor.
I enjoy that this is something Harleen canonized in it’s universe.
In the exact same comic, in a flashback told from Harley’s perspective, it’s confirmed that not only did she graduate Med School, but she had high grades.
And again, it takes literal years to get the degrees Harley’s got.
Sleeping with one professor for one grade on one paper for a single class is completely redundant in the grand scheme of things and she’d be smart enough to know that. She has to do so much to get to the point she’s at in that flashback it literally wouldn’t be worth it.
So to regroup and restate this take.
Harley did have a fling with her professor. She’s always been someone who craves love, so it wouldn’t be that far fetched for her to seek that out while she’s going through college, even just casual dating.
However Bruce allows himself to be fooled by hearsay, by the people who said she couldn’t have possibly done it (get her degrees) on her own so obviously that’s why she had the fling, it was for the grades.
Women can’t just be sexual cause they want to, there has to be an ulterior motive.
That’s the take away. The two conflicting narratives of the story that collide at the end.
Harley had a fling because sometimes she has a thing for older guys and she liked her professor.
Bruce believes Harley had a fling because she needed better grades and didn’t want to study. She didn’t want to put the work in cause she wasn’t actually smart.
And the comic ends with Bruce realizing he was wrong in terms of underestimating her.
His perception of her and her character is what led to his downfall in their meeting. His perception that was fed into and stemmed from false stories discrediting her abilities and her IQ.
And those false, misled biases led to him getting out smarted, drugged and nearly fed alive to man eating fish.
Also, side note, I have very little hope that this whole thing was actually supposed to be a well thought out take about slut shaming and sexual promiscuity considering who her creators are, but as this is a comic fandom it doesn’t really matter does it skdjsksk
Harley’s canon timeline is the one inside my brain babiessss 💕💖💕
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