Yes, The Penguin was THE victim of the entire film. Anyone who doesn't get this, doesn't get Tim Burton, and they certainly don't get this film.
His life was horrific. This unfortunate deformed and disabled individual was 'greeted' with horrified screams as soon as he entered the world, he was kept in a cage as a baby, he was thrown into a stream as an infant (with his parents intending that he died), he was raised underground in the sewers on and off for 33 years, and in-between that time he was exhibited as a circus 'freak' to be mocked and derided.
The reason you all hate him is because he's ugly, and also because, whilst we've mostly all started to catch-up when it comes to systemic sexism, racism and homophobia, it's still socially and culturally 'acceptable' to hate on the disabled (and the fact he's a straight white man, means he doesn't tick any of the big three boxes when it comes to oppression, even though, as I say, his life was FAR worse than most human-beings, regardless of sex, gender, race or sexuality).
Also, Josh and The Ice Princess, two 'normal', 'good-looking' people, weren't as innocent as you say, and The Penguin only wanted to kidnap the spoiled rich first-born children, so they would suffer a similar fate to the one marked for him.
So, yes, of course we are meant to feel bad for him. What an absurd question to ask.
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GreenGoblinsOck8 (7976)
2 years ago
Frankly I don't agree with you there. He may have a sympathetic backstory but he was still an evil man who did evil things. Yet you seem to think the ice Princess is somehow worse than him? There's nothing in the movie to even say she was bad. You're just thinking this because you think Penguin is somehow more sympathetic than he actually is. I noticed you also don't say anything about him biting a guy's nose or about his plan to kill babies. You just ignore that because you yourself sympathized with him more than the rest of us did. A bad past doesn't give you the right to kill innocent people. And yes. Batman himself probably shouldn't kill people but then again this is based off the original 30s comics where he would kill people.
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Ace_Spade (9657)
2 years ago
There's also a big difference between taking a bomb that was already lit by a homicidal maniac and turning it around on the maniac (one of Batman's kills in Returns) and kidnapping a bunch of literal babies to murder them.
I agree with you almost entirely on Penguin: his backstory is sympathetic, and the tragedy is that - as Schrek points out - if he had received a little love, maybe he'd have turned out differently. With that said, the implication in the film is that Penguin isn't just a product of his environment. In the opening scene where he's a monster baby in a cage, he pulls the family cat into his "crib" and mangles it - probably to eat.
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pioneergrrrl (2412)
2 years ago
I myself have multiple disabilities and while I did find Burton's screenplay (around the time of the ADA being signed!) interesting, the penguin is no 'innocent victim' as people note, he kills the family cat, he bites people, he kills innocent babies
Selina by contrast only wants to intentionally kill Max after her traumatic brain injury and years of prior emotional abuse working for max, the man who killed her.
Other than that she does try to rescue a woman who is being assaulted. She does express remorse at the ice princess dying. We feel for selina because she feels for others.
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HarveyManFredSin (4877)
2 years ago
He kills the family cat as a BABY! Whatsmore, a BABY who has been LOCKED IN A CAGE due to his physical disabilities and deformities. I'm frankly amazed that anyone who is *genuinely* disabled could be so callous about such blatant ableism.
He bites the nose of a man who was mocking him for his disabilities, and for being a homeless sewer-dweller. I'm not saying that it was right, but neither was insulting a man who was born deformed and was punished for that deformity.
As for killing 'innocent babies', you're forgetting that Oswald was an innocent baby himself, who'd been thrown into the sewer simply for being disabled, or do you draw the line when it comes to babies who 'kill the family cat'? In which case, how do you know any of the children (I saw no babies, although I did see a grown-man who Oswald attempted to kidnap at a swanky party) hadn't killed their own family cats?
I never said he was 'innocent' although I also suspect that had he been treated with love and kindness, he'd have turned out a much nicer human-being (the only people who could *possibly* disagree are those who believe physical ugliness is inextricably linked to evil...) In fact, Danny DeVito, who played the part, and thus knows the character far better than you or I, said the very same thing himself. When an actor or director tells us how to regard a particular character they've conceived, only a fool would ignore them.
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pioneergrrrl (2412)
2 years ago
Selina was not treated with love and kindness either--but she did not go out and kill masses of people. The only person who was polite to her pre-transformation despite his own prior loss and psychological issues was Bruce Wayne--he is at the meeting where Max says she has not been housebroken yet.
Burton used the three characters to explore how disability is/could play out. Selina is that wavering line--not quite sure what they want to do but not incapable of redemption...Bruce is the good (so far) person with invisible (psychological/mental) disabilities--he tries to help people but he's not 'warm and outgoing'. And Oswald is the 'dangerous' person with disabilities who is (yes) subhuman and animalistic.
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HarveyManFredSin (4877)
2 years ago
The difference is, Oswald was physically disabled and deformed, and he was thrown into the sewers as a baby because of it.
Selina, by contrast, was a beautiful cishet white woman whose mother still called out for her, to the extent where she was asking Selina to come back home for the holidays. The novelisation even suggests that she had a pony growing up, which implies she was raised in some level of financial comfort and privilege (maybe The Penguin's line about her being a 'screwed-up sorority chick getting back at daddy for not buying her that pony when she turned sweet sixteen" wasn't that far offthe mark). It appears that it's the bullying of Max and his colleagues that causes Selina to have her psychological breakdown, but her mother clearly loves her, even if she is a nag, and her boyfriend is a bit of a drip but hardly sounds abusive. Still, some people have suggested that Max's treatment of Selina is a metaphor for rape, and her breakdown analogous to rape survivor trauma. I can sympathise with that analysis, but it does also suggest that Selina's formative life wasn't what caused her to 'snap'. It was how she was treated upon working as Max's assistant in Gotham that destroyed her.
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pioneergrrrl (2412)
2 years ago
she was physically disabled too by the TBI etc she received from being pushed out the window she also has blood on her so she presumably has other disabilities now acquired from the fall.
Even though she presumably had a health care plan from being an executive assistant/secretary for Shrek, we never saw her get a CT/MRI from the fall. Or physical therapy, counseling...etc. Making the costume and trashing her apartment is how she 'rehabilitates' herself. She does appear with a bandage on her head and around her hand during a subsequent return to the office, and Bruce is concerned but nothing was checked out.
Actually nobody even calls an ambulance even though her fall would have realistically made a noise in the business district....the cats implausibly are the only ones who hear it. They let her transform into Catwoman and do not stop her. They supervise that process, content to let it occur.
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HarveyManFredSin (4877)
2 years ago
I don't know how 'disabled' she was, seeing as she apparently emerged from her accident with 'super-powers', but the point is, she wasn't born disabled, and she didn't grow-up facing discrimination on account of being 'disabled'.
I do however find your last few points more interesting and compelling. Yes, Selina didn't receive medical treatment upon falling to her apparent 'doom'. Like you say, no one, but the cats, responded to her 'accident', all of which goes to show how insigificant she is within the context of Gotham. She has no family around her (presumably they live outside the city), her boyfriend has just dumped her, and, as she says, men come and go throughout her life, she doesn't appear to have any close friends, and her boss has just tried to murder her, and one suspects few people at her office treat her with much more regard than Shreck does. And so, she is left to essentially 'die' alone, were it not for the stray cats who 'bring her to life'. Unlike most of the other characters in the film, including The Mayor and his baby, Shreck and his son, and The Ice Princess, all of whom cause a panic when they are in peril or apparent peril, no one seems to give a damn abour poor Selina's fate, save, of course, for those cats...
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pioneergrrrl (2412)
2 years ago
Even if you're not born with your disabilities and acquire them, it's still possible to face discrimination....
Max remarks that he will push her out of a higher window......he is still determined to assault and harass her in the workplace. He was stunned by her change but his determination to do things to her does not end. He is oblivious to having injured her as being inappropriate in the workplace so she kills him.
at the dance after seeing the gun Bruce remarks that he knows she is having problems with her boss. Yes her disabilities are invisible, but she is having 'problems' in society.
Presumably Wayne Enterprises has a non-discrimination policy and he could have given her a referral saying hey come work for me or I can give you a referral to another place, but for some unexplained reason he lets her stay with Shrek and that work environment even though she is obviously in a bad situation. He of all people knows emotions are no less serious even if invisible.
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HarveyManFredSin (4877)
2 years ago
Do we know that 'Wayne Enterprises' even exists in this universe? There's nothing to indicate that it does. Even if Batman Forever is a canonical sequel, for all we know, Wayne Enterprises might have been built within the interim between Returns and Forever. Perhaps it was built off the remnants of Shreck Industries.
As for Selina, once again, I see no evidence that she is discriminated on account of any 'disability', certainly not a physical or plainly apparent one. It's definitely possible that she has some mental illnesses, even before Shreck tries to murder her, and that Shreck took advantage of her mentally ill state of mind, but once again, I see no evidence that society as a whole is discriminating against her because of those illnesses, in the same way Gotham discriminates against Oswald on account of his physical deformities.
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pioneergrrrl (2412)
2 years ago
sure Bruce meets with Max re a proposed power plant deal as Bruce Wayne the head of Wayne enterprises--and explains that he and the Mayor see eye to eye re it not being needed. Selina pre-transformation is nervous and stressed during the meeting even though Bruce at least will not harass her.
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HarveyManFredSin (4877)
2 years ago
There's no reference to Wayne Enterprises. The implication is simply that Bruce is wealthy enough to be a potential investor.
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pioneergrrrl (2412)
2 years ago
He owns it so no, there would not be a reference. He doesn't work for them, it's his company.
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HarveyManFredSin (4877)
2 years ago
But if there's no reference to the company, can we be sure it exists? We never see him visit the company or talk to any associates/employees. He seems to be a complete recluse who only has regular contact with one individual: Alfred.
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