{"id":87,"date":"2014-09-21T21:16:21","date_gmt":"2014-09-22T03:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/?p=87"},"modified":"2014-09-21T21:16:21","modified_gmt":"2014-09-22T03:16:21","slug":"gotham-and-the-quest-for-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watchinggod\/2014\/09\/gotham-and-the-quest-for-justice\/","title":{"rendered":"Gotham and the Quest for Justice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

This piece, on Fox\u2019s new show Gotham, was initially published on Christian Toto\u2019s excellent entertainment site, Hollywood in Toto. But just for fun (and with Mr. Toto\u2019s permission), I\u2019m reprinting the piece here. <\/em><\/p>\n

\"Gotham-2\"<\/a>Detective Harvey Bullock doesn\u2019t like what he sees in his shiny new partner, a young James Gordon. He may be a war hero. His pops may have been a dynamite district attorney back in the day. Sure, James may have the courage to walk Gotham City\u2019s dirtiest streets. But does he have the stomach?<\/p>\n

\u201cYou seem like a nice guy,\u201d Harvey tells him. \u201cThis is not a city, or a job, for nice guys. Understand?\u201d<\/p>\n

Gotham<\/em>, Fox\u2019s highly touted series that begins its run tonight\/tomorrow [Sept. 22], gives us a city with very few nice guys. Its streets teem with thugs and heavies. Its bars and dance halls are buoyed with underworld money. Pickpockets and psychopaths root around the city\u2019s edges\u2014exploring their darkest inclinations, wondering whether Gotham might be the place to make a name and a fortune.<\/p>\n

The city could sure use a hero\u2014but there\u2019s no Dark Knight in sight. Bruce Wayne\u2019s just a sad, frightened rich kid, ensconced in his lonely mansion. James Gordon will have to do.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to make a compelling superhero story without a superhero. Most don\u2019t even try. Marvel\u2019s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.<\/em>\u00a0 struggled to find itself most of its freshman season on ABC, and at times it felt more like an intermission performance than a dynamite television drama\u2014a small-screen song-and-dance number before an Avenger took command of a bigger stage.<\/p>\n

\"gotham2\"<\/a>So Fox, instead of pushing Batman to the periphery of the story, eliminates the guy altogether. There\u2019s no Batman here\u2014just the child Bruce Wayne desperately trying to deal with his parents\u2019 death. Batman\u2019s Rogue\u2019s Gallery is barely in its beta stage: Selina Kyle (Catwoman) is stealing milk on the streets; Edward Nigma (The Riddler) is working for the Gotham police force as an IT specialist. When we first meet Oswald Copperpot, he\u2019s a flunky working for the beautifully duplicitous gangster Fish Mooney\u2014and he hates<\/em> being called \u201cPenguin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gotham can\u2019t turn to a caped crusader to save it. And few others seem inclined to try.<\/p>\n

James Gordon is the exception. Still years away from being Commissioner, James is the closest thing that Gotham has to a white knight. He\u2019s as clean as they come\u2014but it\u2019s hard to stay too clean in this filthy city. His partner, Harvey, is more typical: His primary goal each day is to survive to see the next. And if that means working with Gotham\u2019s underworld power brokers? So be it. \u201cSometimes in war you\u2019ve got to do a bad thing to do good, right?\u201d he tells James.<\/p>\n

Fox\u2019s Gotham<\/em> is a good fit in this era of television antiheroes. In the last several years, we\u2019ve rooted for serial killers and watched chemistry teachers break bad. Fox alone has given us a Jack Bauer, a hero who breaks every rule in the book, and Homer Simpson who, despite his utter lack of parenting skills, has become America\u2019s favorite dad. The fact that these antiheroes are so popular says something about us, too\u2014something deeply spiritual. Each of us intrinsically understands the division in our own souls; we are flawed beings, and yet we feel the hero inside us, too. We are fallen products of a fallen world. And yet, the divine design in us still lives\u2014a spark underneath the dark.<\/p>\n

\"Gotham-McKenzie-Taylor\"<\/a>In Gotham<\/em>, we see that strange antihero-like duality in many of the characters we meet. Harvey is corrupt, but he\u2019s not altogether bad. Carmine Falcone may be Gotham\u2019s unquestioned crime kingpin, but he has a strange love for his ugly city. We meet people who want<\/em> to be good\u2014but they\u2019re so dirty themselves that they foul everything they touch. Gotham asks an important, and inherently spiritual, question: Is it really possible to be a nice guy in a bad city? Can you clean up a place like Gotham without getting dirty yourself?<\/p>\n

Batman\u2019s own mythos the last decade or so has been predicated on mulling that very question. As I explored in a book I wrote a few years ago<\/a>\u00a0, the superhero is himself an antihero, though different from those we typically see: He\u2019s incorruptible in a way, adhering to his own stringent code of ethics. And yet he works outside the law. He believes that, to find true justice, you must sometimes skirt the system designed to give it to us.<\/p>\n

In Gotham<\/em>, the question becomes in a way even more intriguing. See, James Gordon is a part of that very system that Batman can ignore. James must<\/em> work within it\u2014and yet, he sees as well as anyone its flaws. We see how difficult it can be to stay squeaky clean, even in the first episode. James may feel incorruptible, but only by comparison. He honors the system. He respects the law. And yet, James comes to understand that he, too, will have to work in the shadows a bit\u2014just like a certain caped lawman will someday do.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s telling, I think, that even now James is mentoring a young Bruce Wayne\u2014teaching him lessons that may come in handy down the road.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know how you feel right now,\u201d James tells Bruce right after Bruce\u2019s parents were murdered in front of him. \u201cAnd I promise you that no matter how dark and scary the world might be right now, there will be light. There will be light, Bruce.\u201d<\/p>\n

The world of Gotham is flawed, just like ours. It\u2019s full of darkness, just as we are. It is a place populated with sin and corruption and compromise, and perhaps James won\u2019t walk through its shadowed streets without some of its ick sticking to him. But in this promising Fox show, we\u2019re still given a real hero\u2014one who hopes to rise above the world he\u2019s in and serve as an example to others who might follow. In the dark world of Gotham, James Gordon is looking for the light.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This piece, on Fox\u2019s new show Gotham, was initially published on Christian Toto\u2019s excellent entertainment site, Hollywood in Toto. But just for fun (and with Mr. Toto\u2019s permission), I\u2019m reprinting the piece here. Detective Harvey Bullock doesn\u2019t like what he sees in his shiny new partner, a young James Gordon. He may be a war […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2036,"featured_media":89,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,20],"tags":[28,21,29,27],"class_list":["post-87","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-superheroes","category-television","tag-antihero","tag-batman","tag-d-c","tag-gotham"],"yoast_head":"\nGotham and the Quest for Justice<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This piece, on Fox's new show Gotham, was initially published on Christian Toto's excellent entertainment site, Hollywood in Toto. 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