Gay Penguins In ‘Gotham’: Fox’s Superhero Show Finally Gets Queer Right

Though it has spent the majority of its three years on air as a punching bag for comic book fans, Fox’s Batman origins drama Gotham recently performed one of the rarest feats imaginable in our overcrowded superhero culture. It turned its gay subtext into straight-up text.

For those not caught up on the often stylish yet frequently insufferable show, one of the major plots of Season 3 is the rise of series villain Oswald “The Penguin” Cobblepot to the office of Gotham City’s mayor. His partner in electioneering is Edward Nygma (the slightly unhinged mastermind fated to become the Riddler) with whom Oswald previously spent time inside Arkham Asylum. In the hands of actor Robin Lord Taylor, Penguin has always been a bright spot in the series’ dreary landscape. Equal parts sniveling and cruelly cunning, the would-be mob boss embodies the show’s uneven black humor at its best, and Taylor’s deranged yet dapper turn in the role made him an early breakout star. Meanwhile, Cory Michael Smith‘s work as Nygma has been far more inconsistent. But over three years, the future Riddler went from a one-note supporting player to gleeful take on the obsessive boyfriend trope.

Then two weeks back when Gotham delivered up its requisite “the mob is out to assassinate mayor Penguin” plot, the relationship between the two supervillains dove headlong into romantic territory. Penguin and Nygma would frequently land breathless and chest-to-chest under a hail of bullets before the episode ended with their quiet reconciliation – each staring longingly into the others’ eyes. At first the move seemed like a cynical bone thrown in the direction of slash fiction writers everywhere. Hyping up potentially gay stories that never come to fruition is a dispiritingly frequent piece of pop fiction’s modern landscape, after all.

But when fans tuned in last week, Gotham wasted no time in confirming that the internet was (at least half) right. Penguin’s first scene after his assassination scare saw him declaring his love for Nygma in no uncertain terms. “What is important is that I have found someone. What good is love if it’s one-sided? I have no choice but to confess my feelings to Ed,” the character mused in a chipper tone. And while the story since then has taken a typically bizarre Gotham twist (it involves Ed falling for a mystery lookalike of the woman he stalked and then murdered), the show should be commended for the honest, unfussy manner with which its delivered Oswald’s sexual identity. In fact, the Penguin’s coming out isn’t just an overdue milestone for the character, it’s a refreshing turn for the Dark Knight’s long, complicated relationship with the gay community.

From its 1939 inception, the Batman franchise has been drenched in queer themes. At its core, the superhero saga revolves around a dashing perpetual bachelor who’s always running away from dates with supermodels so he can dress up in black leather and truss up colorful men with ropes. Publisher DC Comics dodged an early attack on their respectability when in 1954 fear-mongering psychiatrist Fredric Wertham made the supposedly gay subtext of Batman and Robin’s partnership Exhibit B in his quest to kill the comics industry. But by 1966, the queer nature of the character rocketed into homes across America with the flamboyant, campy Batman TV show starring barrel-chested super-bachelor Adam West.

But despite its constant flirtation with queer identity, Batman’s world took forever to deliver real gay characters – even by comic book standards. While franchises like the X-Men, Superman and the Flash served up out heroes and villains through the ’90s, the Dark Knight’s cast remained distressingly straight. And whenever a queer character did cross the Gotham City limits, their debut was surrounded by second-guessing or outright obfuscation. Cartoon star turned fan favorite villain Harley Quinn has always seen her relationship with Poison Ivy undercut by DC’s focus that Harley’s “one true pairing” be with her abusive boyfriend the Joker. Meanwhile, acclaimed writer Greg Rucka did his best to include gay heroes in his Batbooks, but out detective Renee Montoya always seems to disappear whenever Rucka takes leave from the publisher, and his highly publicized reinvention of Batwoman received frequent criticism for being a “lipstick lesbian” – offering a stereotyped portrayal of the male readership’s expectation for a gay woman as much as real representation for the gay community. Then last year when Catwoman writer Genevieve Valentine confirmed that the longtime sexually liberated Selina Kyle was bi in the series and on her personal blog, DC seemed intent on cutting any discussion of the move out of the press. Hell, even Gotham itself hasn’t been innocent, playing the bi nature of Jim Gordon’s crazy ex-fiancee Barbara as pure titillation.

The one common thread in all these gay supporting players in the Batman milieu? They’re women. For a franchise rife with queer ideas mixed with masculine action clichés, almost no men have ever come out of the closet in Gotham. The closest the franchise has ever come is the way Joker taunts Batman as “Darling” in Frank Miller’s legendary but often hyper-macho The Dark Knight Returns – a move meant to highlight the homophobic fears of Batman’s mostly male readership.

This history not only makes Gotham’s outing of Penguin a major milestone for the franchise, it also proves that the move is incredibly fitting for Oswald himself. Created by Batman’s own originators Bill Finger and Bob Kane in 1941, the Penguin is the one member of the Dark Knight’s rogue’s gallery that doesn’t come with psychotic baggage. And whether his many creative contributors intended it or not, the character’s identity has always been just shy of an outright queer narrative. At his core, Penguin’s whole deal is that he’s the villain yearning for the respect of high society. Though he doesn’t seem attractive or dashing to those in power, he dresses up in a top hat and tails to launch scheme after scheme that will earn him a seat at the table.

In the many Batman media spinoffs, this quest for acceptance often takes the form of political maneuvering. The ’60s Batman saw Oswald’s first run at mayor of Gotham in the hands of Burgess Meredith’s squawking schemer, and that same plot was turned on its ear by Tim Burton and Danny Devito’s grotesque work in 1992’s Batman Returns. But perhaps the most poignant take on the idea (and the one most closely aligned with a queer reading of the character) is the 1993 “Birds of a Feather” episode of Batman: The Animated Series. Here, the Penguin (charmingly voiced by singer Paul Williams) makes a real attempt at going legit in order to earn the love of high society snob Veronica Vreeland. Oswald’s overtures are as sincere as the come, but Vreeland’s part in the relationship is the result of a cruel Mean Girls-esque gag. Because who could ever love someone so outwardly strange?

Today’s online fandom is constantly demanding that major players in longstanding pop culture franchises be outed. And while heroes with a veneer of queer coding like Star Wars’ Poe Dameron and Captain America’s Bucky Barnes blow up Tumblr on a daily basis, it’s odd that Penguin’s obvious nature never inspired such calls for gay definition. Regardless, as of now he’s here, and he’s queer. So homophobic fans better get used to it. And after seven decades without an openly gay man in Batman’s world, it’s far past time that this reveal took hold in the comics forever. If that’s Gotham’s one major contribution to the canon, the whole show may just have been worth it.

[Watch Gotham on Hulu]

Kiel Phegley has been a pop culture journalist for over a decade. His first children’s book – a science guide based on Cartoon Network’s Amazing World of Gumball recently arrived from Penguin Books.