In the same way it appears to be a requirement to use New Order’s “Blue Monday” to indicate it’s the 80s (most recently manifest in the Wonder Woman 1984 trailer) in a movie, so, too, do music supervisors seem to strongly believe in Heart’s “Barracuda” as a means to express female empowerment in a particular scene. Even if this has to do with being lazy about getting around more cumbersome licensing agreements, the recent use of it in a fight scene during Birds of Prey makes one want to scream: enough is enough.
With the entire notion of music supervision and soundtracking being to curate how a viewer is supposed to feel during a specific moment, “Barracuda,” at this point, has given audiences an almost Pavlovian response to note to themselves that this is a requisite “ass-kicking” moment to infer that a woman, whether alone or in a group, has taken charge of a situation. In fact, even Sarah Palin tried to use the song during her 2008 political campaign as potential vice president (the song also shows up, incidentally, in 2012’s The Campaign), forcing Heart to publicly announce that Palin’s values had nothing to do with the spirit of “Barracuda.” What does have to with it, movies starring fighting-oriented women want to iterate, is a female’s liberation. Her declaration to all genders alike, but especially men, that she isn’t going to take shit from anyone.
In Birds of Prey, the song plays as Roman Sionis a.k.a. Black Mask (Ewan McGregor) and his prepaid army (for he’s rich enough to build one for his own nefarious purposes) ambush Harley (Margot Robbie), Gotham City PD officer Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez), Helena Bertinelli a.k.a. Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), Black Canary a.k.a. Dinah Lance (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) and Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco). For they are cornered in an abandoned amusement park after Victor Zsasz (Chris Messina), Roman’s right-hand lackey, pursues them for the valuable diamond Cassandra has pickpocketed from him and now swallowed (hence her being taped to a toilet by Harley, who briefly decides to trade the kid for her own emancipation and protection).
Even though there are only five of them versus the countless men waiting to attack, the quintet decides to, for once, work together in order to defeat the odds. So it is that in a swirly, spiraly motif’d funhouse filled with giant hands sticking out of the floor, “Barracuda” must play. And why must it play instead of even, say, one of the songs from the many trailers for Birds of Prey (i.e. Björk’s “It’s Oh So Quiet”)? Because you, as an audience member, have already been conditioned to know what it entails. Like Lucy Liu wearing a tight leather slit skirt and cracking her riding crop in 2000’s Charlie’s Angels as she whips a group of men into shape, this is a scene that can only mean female vengeance (which is, to be honest, a key source of empowerment to that gender). And yet, like Harley says to Huntress, “Psychologically speaking, vengeance rarely brings us the catharsis we hope for.” So would it be possible to get a different fucking revenge jam for women in the next major blockbuster showcasing their wrathful capabilities?
