Ever since the first image of Jared Leto’s Joker was released in the spring of 2015, astute music dweebs noticed something striking: He looked an awful lot like Ninja, the wiry, metal-toothed, tatted-out, hair-slicked, deviously grinning male half of South African avant-rap group Die Antwoord. Throw in the fact that the other half, Yolandi Visser, is a murderous and face-painted pixie not unlike Harley Quinn, and suddenly, there was a case to be made that Suicide Squad writer/director David Ayer was going for a bit of an homage to the duo.
Flash forward to today, when Warner Bros. is living in the aftermath of the film’s abysmal critical reception and steep drop-off in ticket revenues. A little more bad news came the studio’s way when Visser issued an accusatory Instagram post saying Ayer was in contact with Die Antwoord and even invited them to the film’s premiere, but never openly acknowledged their indirect contribution to the aesthetic. “Yes David Ayer u jockin our style,” Visser wrote. “Cara [Delevingne] & Jared [Leto] told us how much u were talkin abt us on set but u never asked our permision [sic] to rip us off.” You can see the whole post, with an accompanying video showing side-by-side comparisons of Ninja/Yolandi and Joker/Harley, below:
yes David Ayer u jockin our style. callin ninja up before your movie came our pretendin 2b down, so it looks OK when u bite our black & white graf style & our opening sequence to umshiniwam & an all da lil tiny details u nibbeld dat other people wont see but we notice. Cara & Jared told us how much u were talkin abt us on set but u never asked our permision to rip us off. An when ninja texted u sayin wassup wif dat u said nothin like a scared lil bitch. U were jus flauntin our names pretendin to b down. u aint down an u never will b. but before we knew da extent of ur two face nature - u invited us to ur movie premiere(which i didnt wanna go to) but ninja went , tinkin ur solid guy an mayb there was jus a lil “misunderstandin”. Den poor ninja had to sit thru dat hole bullshit movie. An u even got da nerve to say wassup to him smilin - an ninja has to b nice cus he is there wif his kid. But we all tink u wack. U shud start a crew called:,”im a fake fuck” ask kanye if he wants to join u. Cum show ur pretty face at my studios. U know Muggs & u know where da Soul Assasin Studios at. we watin for u.
