Last week, Warner Brothers released the DC animated film Batman and Harley Quinn in cinemas for one night only.
Following the screening, fans expressed a mixed response to the film, with criticism specifically for writer Bruce Timm.
batman and harley quinn is about to join the killing joke on the AU dcau movies we ignore
can we all just collectively erase batman & harley quinn from canon & pray that bruce timm never comes near DC's female characters again
For context, Timm also produced the animated version of The Killing Joke, a controversial story by Alan Moore that implied the sexual assault of character Barbara Gordon by the Joker.
The film drew more criticism when it included a new additional sex scene between Batman and Gordon.
With the release of Batman and Harley Quinn, there was new wave of criticism over the sexualization of DC's female characters.
Batman and Harley Quinn ( 2017)
and we wonder why bruce timm still gets a job after all... there's a LOT of ugly people who enjoy seeing rape and w… https://t.co/3lSVUCEhB3
And a scene in which the character of Nightwing is tied to a bed and forcibly kissed by Harley Quinn.
I seriously wanna know what's been going on with Bruce Timm lately.
Beth Elderkin, a writer for io9, made a thread on Twitter of a number of highly sexualized points in the film, such a scene with a bar staffed by women characters dressed in revealing versions of their normal costume.
p.s. for Bruce Timm to follow up The Killing Joke's concerns with a shot like this is inexcusable.
And the drawing of Quinn's body, which went viral, being retweeted over 20,000 times.
This is what happens when men have creative control. A butt crack on top of another butt crack.
The film has received some praise, and people have argued that as Timm created Quinn he is allowed to shape her narrative. But overwhelmingly, fans seem to feel the characters deserved better.
When you realize they already made a Batman and Harley Quinn story in the animated universe and it was actually good