B:TAS reviews: Birds of a Feather

(9/06/09)

The title card depicts the Penguin in the guise of Pagliacci, the famous tragic clown of the opera, as the score takes a turn for the classical.  We see the Penguin stealing an expensive painting.  Birds of a Feather directs its gaze first to high art, which is so naturally followed by high society.  The Penguin acts the part of the urbane socialite, an apparent gimmick that hardly fits a deformed criminal mastermind.

We follow Penguin as he attempts to reclaim his position in Gotham’s societal upper crust.  The weakness is that high society is too hollow to be seen even as the target of comical satire.  The writers have made it a point for its two emblems of this wealthy social stratum to constantly exude superciliousness.  This is not a humorous critique so much as a one-joke comedy.  The Penguin is to be the object of sympathy, the misled fool caught up in a manipulative charade.  As he believes to be reentering the ranks of the elite, he is being made a fool of for Pierce’s and Veronica’s sick amusement.

And yet how can one sympathize with the Penguin?  The writers set him up for mockery at the same time we are asked to feel for his exclusion?  As he slurps fish at the luxury restaurant and squawks his rendition of Pagliacci, how can we not feel the way Veronica feels?  This is not a sympathetic portrayal.  This is a blinded fool, unaware of his lack of social graces and under the delusion of successfully assimilating into this world that so obviously demeans him.  Were his reform genuine, his delayed epiphany would not have immediately jumpstarted a return to crime, and it is important to note that his scheme entails collecting a profit just as much as enacting revenge.

If anything my estimation of the Penguin has lowered, because now I understand his capacity for utter stupidity.  He cannot detect the embarrassment of Veronica as it stares him in the face, and his awkward party interactions prove that he is devoid of any understanding of proper social behavior.  He is pathetic.  Previous appearances of the character seem to suggest an urbane sophistication that oozes superiority.  I like the Penguin’s arrogance and heavily displayed intellect.  But when he is so ignorant and emotionally blind as when he seriously considers proposing to Veronica in marriage, I find my respect for him dwindling.

The climax is one of the most rushed in all of Batman.  Birds of a Feather remains a unique installment in its focus on high society, no matter how shallow.  If we are to deal primarily with this group of socialites, then let us stick with them and perhaps some competent satire or ironic conclusion might emerge come the finale.  But when the Penguin, after a good several minutes of watching his degradation, returns to his villainy, giant ducks and fire-breathing dragon props become instruments of his devilish scheme, and the final battle comes off as forcedly over-the-top.

The Penguin does not befit a character study.  As he is established he deserves to be a sly intellectual perched atop a criminal empire.  If making him a protagonist is to belittle him, then let him remain forever a flat antagonist whom we love for his gimmicks and upper class charm.

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The Penguin, like Catwoman, is one of the few characters that the series wasn’t able to nail down.  He had a great voice, a great design, an urbane charm, but he was never placed in anything other than generic mob boss situations that didn’t bring out anything interesting about his character.  ‘Birds of a Feather’ is the closest the series got in making the Penguin an interesting character. 

This episode starts off very good actually.  Something I always wondered about the Penguin is why a guy as smart as he is would reduce himself to working with lowlife thugs.  At the outset of the episode, Penguin turns over a new leaf and decides to become a notable figure of wealthy society, which makes perfect sense for the character.  And Penguin actually means it, to the point that even Batman falsely accuses him of certain crimes.  Indeed, Penguin is actually the protagonist of the episode.  The writers spend a great deal making him sympathetic in his awkwardness, and if anything the true villains are the rich upper class who toys with him like an amusing puppet. 

Up to the point that I believe the episode begins to fall apart, a great amount of care goes into the dramatic irony that all the humor of the episode is rooted in: the very fact that the Penguin is falling for a ruse and Veronica Vreeland, the girl he has taken a fancy too, is merely toying with him.  It’s rather funny and yet strangely saddening watching the Penguin eat fish with his flippers and squawk embarrassingly at the opera.  What gives it an added dimension, however, is the fact that Veronica is clearly walking a thin line between keeping up the charade and feeling guilty about her deception.  Whenever the two interact there’s a certain tension, in that the viewer feels bad for the Penguin but at the same time is worried at what he might do to Veronica were he to find out about her underlying cruelty. 

Now there is an unspoken rule of ‘Batman: the Animated Series’ that states that no villain may ever reform.  Most people know this and therefore while watching ‘Birds of a Feather’, they are always perfectly aware that the Penguin’s happiness will not last and that he will return to a life of crime by the end of the episode.  This is where the episode fails to succeed in that as soon as Penguin figures everything out, there’s no real drama.  He’s an angry squawking man who suddenly has access to a giant rubber duck and has set up an intricate plan at the local opera house involving the Penguin with a Viking helmet riding around in a fake dragon that breathes fire, all to hold Veronica to ransom for some money.  It’s over-the-top to the extent that it undermines the realism of the earlier scenes of the episode and it’s sort of a letdown. 

The artwork is average.  The animation gets the job done, but is hardly a thrill to look at.  The music hardly stands out, and even the direction feels a bit weak, except for a handful of brilliantly storyboarded sequences involving the Penguin’s awkward exchanges with Veronica.  I don’t know about anyone else, but when an episode turns mediocre halfway through and there is nothing visual to keep me interested, it ultimately makes the episode appear bland and dissatisfactory. 

‘Birds of a Feather’ is an okay episode.  It’s good at the beginning, but fizzles out as the story progresses.  It’s still slightly above average, but not by much.