Yesterday, Die Antwoord member Yolandi Visser took to Instagram to claim that Suicide Squad director David Ayer ripped-off direct imagery and artwork associated with the rap group for his film.
In the post, she indicates that stars Jared Leto and Cara Delevingne revealed to the group that Ayer had been talking about them on the set of Suicide Squad.
Also, Yolandi mentions an attempt to contact David Ayer about the issue and when Ninja confronted Ayer about getting clearance he blew them off. Reaching out to Ayer before making the claims publicly gave the filmmaker plenty of chances to clear the air.
Keep in mind, the two actors are heavily involved with the fashion scene. Cara being a model of course and Leto attending many fashion events, that has led to friendship with the rap group, who attend fashion shows on the regular as well.
Cara featured in their music video Ugly Boy.
So you might be asking how much could have they actually used for the film?
Well, I’ve put together a couple of strong examples of where they clearly took from published photoshoots and music videos, along with evidence that Joker’s tattoos were directly influenced by Ninja.
The first thing that caught my attention was the graffiti and clothing in scene where Harley Quinn steals a purse, this was popular scene used in multiple trailers.
The graffiti style is most linked to the group and they’ve used it multiple music videos including Enter The Ninja.
If you know anything about Ninja he’s a huge self promoter and it’s apart of the persona, leading to covering himself in tattoos that mostly have to do with the band’s brand (artwork, graffiti and lyrics) and his nickname Ninja. Oddly enough, the same thing can be said about the Joker’s tattoos that clearly follow an eerily similar theme of self-branding.
They didn’t directly copy the tattoos, yet it’s hard to believe they didn’t take and then rework to fit the Joker. There are a couple similarities with placements, including replacing Ninja’s signature lyrics with Joker’s signature laugh.
It doesn’t end with just Ninja’s tattoos, as Joker’s iconic outfit from the film that is being immortalized in toy form reveals another clear take from the group. A photo used in publications like Spin has been obviously used as inspiration for Joker’s coat and batman logo pants.
This wouldn’t be the first time Ayer has been caught taking established musician imagery for the film. Harley Quinn’s outfit was based on a Debbie Harry photo shoot and Joker’s makeup/grill is likely an homage to Marilyn Manson, this trend could easily extend to Die Antwoord as well.
It’s not a huge amount of things taken, but if Warner Bros. is selling pricey toys using imagery that is not exactly created in-house and taking from artists without credit is wrong.
Shocking, considering how much Warner Bros. had spent on getting clearance for the massive about of music in the film already, you’d think this would only take a couple of phone calls to clear up.
SOURCE: YOLANDI VISSER