The Penguin as Populist, Not Plutocrat
"You know, not even a mile from here, there's a bunch of big-time, City Hall f—s sittin’ in some fancy private club," Oswald "the Penguin" Cobb tells a rogues’ gallery of Gotham City crime bosses in HBO’s eponymous series. "They're drinkin’ orange wine. They’re makin’ crooked deals to benefit them. … Why the hell not us? ... The real power comes if we’ve got each other’ backs. Then Sal, Sofia, the old guard, they won't be able to f—in’ touch us!"
Throughout the engrossing series, itself a spinoff of The Batman, Matt Reeves’s acclaimed 2022 reboot of the famed DC franchise, the Penguin (or Oz, as he prefers to be known) invokes nakedly populist tropes not only against the political and economic elite of the deeply stratified city but also against the mobster kingpins—Salvatore Maroni and Sofia Falcone—who greedily hoard Gotham’s illicit spoils.
And while Oz’s demagogic plaints transparently conceal his own avaricious desire to topple the Maronis and Falcones from their perches, they reveal something telling about contemporary popular culture: Everyone loves an underdog, but in today’s populist age, we especially love to hate those who lord it over us.
What’s both so surprising and so refreshing about this central theme of this dark, entertaining, and beautifully shot series, expertly paced by show-runner Lauren LeFranc, is how fundamentally it challenges the traditional depiction of the Penguin as the snootiest of snobs, the most patrician of plutocrats.
I grew up watching reruns of the 1960s television series, where a monocled, tuxedoed, top-hatted Burgess Meredith paraded around Gotham as the Penguin, orchestrating high-concept burglaries and other brainy capers. Meredith’s portrayal reflected the original comic-book version of Oswald, who derived his name not only from his signature waddle but from his black-and-white eveningwear. (For the sake of dignity, we will not speak of Danny DeVito’s turn in Tim Burton’s 1992 Batman Returns.)
Not so the most recent incarnation of the Penguin, brilliantly played by Colin Farrell. As scrappy and creative as he is untrustworthy, Farrell’s Oz channels the best of American Mafiosi, far more Tony Soprano than John D. Rockefeller, much less robber baron than robber. His epic, series-long campaign against Sofia (a fantastic Cristin Milioti) and Sal (the ever-compelling Clancy Brown) traces the classic anti-hero arc of the belittled peon striving to come out on top.
(To describe Farrell, the handsome Irish actor, as "unrecognizable" in the physical form of an obese, balding, pock-marked, hook-nosed Oz with a thick outerborough accent vastly understates his boffo performance. Praising his costume as "absolute liberation," Farrell revealed on Hot Ones that "when the piece moves as well as the piece that was designed for the Penguin moved, my eyebrows moved to my cheeks and my smile, it was f—ing insane. I didn’t have any fear that Colin could be seen through.")
In a 2021 interview, Reeves, who rebooted the Penguin’s character in The Batman, aptly described him as "a mid-level mobster guy [who’s] got a bit of showmanship to him, but you can see that he wants more and that he’s been underestimated." For his part, Farrell reportedly found inspiration in another classic mobster: Fredo Corleone, the hapless, put-upon youngest brother of Sonny and Michael.
The show isn’t afraid to highlight the fundamental shortcomings of the most ardent populists, serial disloyalty chief among them. Discussing his character’s development in The Batman, Farrell argued that Oz "commits the act of betrayal that he does, because he’s weak, he’s kind of broken, and he’s in pain." That wounded sensibility—which, we learn, has deep roots in a traumatic childhood—carries forward into The Penguin, where Cobb cloaks his treacherousness in high-minded communitarianism.
A few connective threads, however, charmingly link Farrell’s Penguin to the original version, including his endearing mentorship of a budding young criminal and his putative involvement in Gotham politics (Meredith’s Penguin ran for Gotham City mayor). Yet LeFranc’s adept treatment of these callbacks ultimately reinforces the gritty ruthlessness that fuels Farrell’s Oz.
A few sour notes undermine the show’s otherwise reliable narrative, including many characters’ irritating, over-the-top pronunciation of words like "word" as "woyd," and a dreamlike final sequence that, in trying to close one plot circle, clumsily ends up squaring another. But, quibbles aside, the series is a triumph, eschewing both any mention of Bruce Wayne or any supernatural plot devices in favor of a steely, spirited, and propulsive storyline.
At one point, secure in his underground lair, surrounded by his faithful foot soldiers, Oz articulates his populist political philosophy most explicitly, noting, of his adversaries, that "they’re so busy with their noses up, they’ll never think to look down." By contrast, "you and me? Look around. Look at what we got. The good people of Crown Point hard at work, right? Protecting us. Keeping this whole f—ing thing quiet. We got their loyalty. And we got their love." An antihero for our time, indeed.
Michael M. Rosen is an attorney and writer in Israel and a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute
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