Hard to be Harley is a rock song performed by the fictitious character Harley, from the 2006 animated series Biker Mice from Mars. This song was in the 28th (and final) episode, Turf Wars, where the Biker Mice and the Nomad Rats fight over who gets to save Mars from drying up and dying. Some time later, Harley – who was kidnapped by a Rat and ended up siding with the Rats – shows up and bursts into a song, explaining her emotions during these events to the Biker Mice.
To tell you the truth, there isn't much to say about this. I was OK with her story, but I didn’t like how the song went in particular. The song isn’t even catchy or memorable in the slightest. The lyrics explain that she was 'abandoned' by her own people after a Rat kidnapped her, and was taken in and welcomed into a family (or a pack) of Rats after being injured by a blast or an explosion. So she ends up working for them, while still being loyal to her planet.
After listening to the song, I had a thought about how it should have gone. Just to make it more tragic and dramatic, make the viewers feel sorry for Harley for what she had to go through. But with the original song, that might not be so easy.
As for the video, there isn't much to say here. I know the story, but there are just some things that confused me. In this song, Harley stated that she was 'bruised, blue and black' after she got injured from a blast or an explosion. Considering this statement, she (in reality) would have been bleeding and scarred from such a devastating attack.
If she was to be 'bruised, blue and black', she would have been attacked (offscreen) by Mace and left to die. As she gets up from her explosive injury, she gets angry. I wasn't entirely sure whether she was angry with The Biker Mice and the Freedom Fighters, for 'abandoning' her, or with Mace, for kidnapping her (while masked Harley sang, "You Biker Mice think you're so great, but you're the ones I really hate").
We cut to a bandaged Harley in the Rats' chambers, and then the scene transitions to Harley being prepared to wear the purple mask. Her tan fur is now brown, her tan hair is a slightly darker shade of brown, she has an earring on her right ear and she doesn't have a ponytail anymore. And when you see her face (having been shrunk by the mask), her eyes are smaller, she has purple eyeshadow (instead of blue), she has brown lips (or lipstick) and her hair has a blue scrunchie at the front.
Where did all those features come from, and how long has it been since Harley had those bandages on? It wouldn't take days, weeks or months for her image to change just like that. And I don't think it would certainly take years for her facial wounds to heal, leaving scars behind. Is this supposed to be Harley, two or ten years later? Because it kind of seems like her appearance changed immediately. I have to wonder, why didn't the artists keep Harley's old look until we cut to the scene where she leads the Rat army? Did they think that she would look too cute and innocent to look and act like a villain?
The song was supposed to make the viewers feel sorry for Harley for what happened to her, but it's difficult to take it seriously. It kind of feels as if the song and the video are treating Harley's tragic fate like some kind of joke, as if to say that she is just making up some kind of pathetic excuse to turn on the Mice for not saving her after she had just been kidnapped by a Rat, and had her face disfigured. I know that the 2006 version of BMFM is trying to appeal more to kids, but even for a kids' show, surely you have got to do better than that to make us feel sorry for the character(s). Kind of reminds me of another song, but I won't go into details on that.
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