I did some changes to the fit of my riddler cause I thought his coat felt a little too generic (this checker pattern will definitely not come bite me in the ass later)
the other day one of my students asked me if i was 'into musicals'. anyway here's a crop of a wip i've had sitting open in photoshop for a year and a half.
I have been thinking about stupid ass Gotham (2014) again. I am over a year sober, so to speak, from actually being obsessed with it, so I feel like I have some distance and can finally more clearly articulate what I find so captivating about it.
What you need to know is:
1. Gotham is horror. Or maybe not fully horror but it does horror things. It is horror adjacent in the way that almost all Batman media is. My point here is it does creepy and grotesque shit on purpose all the time
2. Gotham is trash. It is full of tacky stuff. Shocking twists, soap opera-like melodrama, identical twins, ""multiple personalities"", people coming back from the dead, you name it. There is also something perverse about Gotham. Not with sexualizing the characters, though that is kind of part of it, but more in how it revels in the violence and the melodrama for the cheep thrills. Also there's some pretty erotic violence lowkey
3. Gotham has no fucking shame in it's body. This is related to it being trash, but I really wanna drive home how fucking shameless this show is. Nothing is too much, logic doesn't matter, the integrity of the characters doesn't matter. Characters will just change personality or just straight get replaced with flimsy or no explanation. The magical ageing up of Poison Ivy is honestly grotesque to me, and the fact they did it twice, and that the three performances have absolutely nothing in common is almost impressive. The shamelesness is what makes Gotham go from boring chiché writing to something genuinely cursed at times.
I think the best example of the tacky dramatic writing, the intentional horror and the unintentional horror coming together is the Isabella plot.
So having the actress of the girlfriend who got fridged come back as the new girlfriend who also gets fridged is incredible. It's amazing. They really stumbled into saying something about the role of women in the superhero/supervillain stories. And it is obviously creepy on purpose. It's suppose to be weird that she looks just like Kristen (all of Ed's romantic relationships are freaky and cursed, it's maybe the only consistent part of his character)
But the sheer shamelesness of not explaining why they look the same is what really elevates it for me. None of the characters wonder why! It's like they barely notice it!! And after season 3 I'm not sure they even mention either Kristen or Isabella ever again (?)
It's cursed. It's haunting, it's fucking avant-garde. I cannot stop thinking about it.
So I think Gotham (the show) really manages to make Gotham (the city) feel depraved. Fitting! And it's not all horrible shit like the Isabella plot, there is a lot of silly, fun villain hijinks that I can 100% get behind, but I guess I like the tension of when it gets genuinely cursed. It makes you feel morally conflicted. Keeps you on your toes.
