Suicide Squad left a sour taste in many people's mouths, but even its most staunch detractors would probably admit that Margot Robbie's performance as Harley Quinn was one of the film's saving graces. Despite the effervescent charm Robbie oozed, the film never repaid her efforts. Leering shots of her getting changed in front of a gaggle of male onlookers and the fluffy romanticization of her abusive relationship with the Joker -- the psychopath who persuaded her to give up a promising career to pursue a life of villainy -- hung a lurid cloud around her performance. Even worse, it made the idea of potential sequels and Harley and/or Joker-focused spinoffs equally unappealing.

This kind of mistreatment of female characters has never been right, but would have skirted under the mainstream radar more if the film had come out in, say, 2006 instead of 2016. It's also the kind of treatment we've been used to for female characters who come from pulpy origins like comic books, which are filled with physically improbable proportions, clothing that defies that laws of science and rampant objectification.

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But a radical shift in cultural and political attitudes over the last decade or so has made consumers more discerning than ever when it comes to how people are presented in media. Thus, those sensitive to the issue of fair and equal representation found it hard to swallow the sight of a beloved character waltzing through a warzone in a push-up bra and hotpants next to her fully-clothed, predominantly male teammates.

You could argue this was fully in-character for Harley; certainly, playfulness, confidence and a keen sense of style are her hallmarks. The problem -- other than outright sexism -- was director David Ayers handled these qualities with the same degree of subtlety that led him and Jared Leto to tattoo the word "damaged" across the Joker's forehead. This is why news that Robbie would be taking the creative reigns from Ayers for her character's solo project seemed like a step in the right direction. Much like her comics counterpart, who better to break Harley away from her controversial origins than Harley herself?

NEXT PAGE: Why Harley Quinn is the Perfect Character to Nullify the Male Gaze

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Since Margot Robbie took over, every new detail surrounding the project's development have been a dozen steps in the right direction. Not only does the film have a brilliantly wordy title, Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) it's morphed into a female-led ensemble both in front of the camera and behind the scenes.

In true feminist spirit, Harley is sharing the spotlight, with Dinah Lance, Helena Bertinelli, Renee Montoya and Cassandra Cain joining what looks to be the first, all-female superhero team-up movie, powered by a script from Christina Hodson and directed by Cathy Yan. (In comparison, Elektra was entirely helmed by men; Catwoman had a male director and one female writer vs. three male ones; Wonder Woman had a female director but an all-male writing team; the upcoming Black Widow has a female director and two male writers attached so far, while Captain Marvel flies the flag for gender equality with an equally balanced male/female directing and writing team.)

Putting so many women in so many positions of authority makes Birds of Prey not only a very big deal for superhero movies, but for movies in general. Women And Hollywood reports that, in 2018, women made up half of all cinema-goers, but only 4% of directors, 15% of writers and 18% of producers. Less than a quarter of all films released in 2017 had women protagonists, while only 32% in the year's top 100 were non-white. So, while filling up the production staff with women may seem counter-intuitive to the end-goal of gender equality, within the wider picture, it's an over-correction that will go a long way to address this industry-wide imbalance.

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And we've already seen the proof in the puddin'. The first teaser video for Birds of Prey quickly drew praise for how differently Harley is being presented now that more women are in charge. "I can't always exactly explain the difference between the male and female gaze," tweeted Joanna Robinson, a senior writer for Vanity Fair, "but I do know it when I see it." She illustrated the comment with side-by-side images of Robbie's Suicide Squad costume next to the one worn in the Birds of Prey teaser. Somehow, despite more flesh being on display in the latter, that indefinable difference that Robinson is talking about is very visually definable here. Whereas Suicide Squad's Harley looks like a playthingBirds of Prey's Harley looks ready to play.

RELATED: How Suicide Squad 2 Can Succeed Where The Original Stumbled

There's a sense, through costume alone, that Birds of Prey could very much be the "How Harley Quinn Got Her Groove Back" story promised by its title. While the gist of her original look has carried over, Harley's make-over -- from her shorn-off hair to sporting the name of her ex's arch enemy around her neck -- suggests an evolution rather than an abandonment of her cinematic history, much like her recent transformative arc through the comics. And this is really the best thing that Birds of Prey can do to appease Suicide Squad fans and still give Harley's character the redemption that the film's critics think she deserves: retroactively reorienting Suicide Squad as the dark, Skrillex-soundtracked hole from which Harley must pull herself out of to arrive in a brighter, neon-tinged future.

Much like Lara Croft, Harley is a complicated figure of empowerment -- both a symbol of sexual fantasy and, separately, of survivorship; the latter being a legacy that Robbie has demonstrated is close to her own heart. In the right hands, she could become a fun and twisted counterbalance to the shining optimism of Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel, who are morally restricted by the burden of being the sole, female powerhouses of their respective cinematic universes. Rarely do women have the freedom to be adored without having to be admirable in the way male anti-heroes can, and rarely do women have the opportunity to tell those characters' stories themselves.