“Diamonds are a girl’s best friend”? Tracing the implications of a song in Cathy Yan’s <i>Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)</i>

When Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) dressed as Lorelei (Marilyn Monroe) from 1953 film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes performs “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” in Cathy Yan’s 2020 Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation One Quinn), links drawn between 70 years history and women’s representation on screen. In this article, I put various iterations “Diamonds” into dialogue to explore how moment might be understood. consider scene central understanding Quinn’s “emancipation,” with security control over their lives key themes scene. The return song throughout histories video enables sense solidarity across time, acknowledging systemic problems that remain unresolved, contemplation can alter ways we understand characters texts, past, present, future.