BIRDS OF PREY Director Cathy Yan Shares Details on The Sizzle Reel She Made That Landed Her The Gig

Birds of Prey director Cathy Yan has an interesting story, as her career as a director was pretty much accidental. I was reading a New Yorker article titled “Cathy Yan’s Accidental Movie Career,” and in that article, Yan shares details on the sizzle reel she made that helped land her the gig.

The interesting thing is, the sizzle reel really had nothing to do with the DC franchise, comic books, or Harley Quinn. Yan Recalled, “I put together a sizzle reel. But it was not your typical sizzle reel.” She went on to say that the reel was set to “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” with a “collage of clips that embodied the worst of modern womanhood: Like, scenes from ‘Bachelor’ proposals, the De Beers diamond commercial, Kim Kardashian’s vampire facial, Fox anchors talking about women, Trump saying ‘Grab ’em by the pussy’ — stuff that might make a girl want to smash the patriarchy.”

Yan went on to say, “After I showed the video, there was just silence.” I imagine there would be silence as most of that room was probably filled with men in high power at the studio!

It’s definitely a different way to pitch a movie. I can see and understand the point that she was trying to get across with the theme of the movie, but it still doesn’t give any sense of the kind of adventure or story that Harley Quinn finds herself on. It was just pitched as a girl-power movie.

I’m all for girl-power movies, I just wish that they would have actually come up with a better story and script for Harley Quinn and these characters. I just don’t think this film did those characters justice.