La Ron S. Readus
patreon
The Problem With a Black James Gordon (VIDEO SCRIPT)
🕑 Added 2022-05-04 23:01:01 +0000 UTCWhile it’s a safe assumption to make that Matt Reeves simply wanted the best person for the roles that he cast in The Batman, it actually says a lot that two of the actors he presented the role to in general were prominent black actors; Mahershala Ali who possibly turned it down to focus on Blade for Marvel Studios, and Westworld and Daniel Craig Bond era’s Jeffrey Wright, who eventually received the role.
I say that because while the decision of making Selina Kyle a person of color for sure helped shine a more prominent light on DC’s decision to root her burglary in socialist wealth redistribution in rebranding her as an anti-hero and as an example of how pre-Batman Gotham changes people in the film...
Having James Gordon -- one of the most textbook examples of a lone “not all cops” character in a sea of corrupt law enforcement since his depiction in Frank Miller’s Year One -- be depicted as a black man during one of the most prominent eras of American history that’s validly calling for police abolition since initiated by police brutality aimed at people of color, is a choice that I don’t believe enough people are retrospectively realizing.
This has been an issue in fictional media regarding the portrayal of cops versus how to approach the social commentary surrounding brutality and the like at least since 2017 when David Ayer’s “Bright” was released.
/Now that orcs are this universe’s marginalized race when it comes to racism, let’s have a black police officer experience the same pathos, egos and logos regarding tolerance and acceptance that one would expect a white officer to go through if it was limited to the multiple ethnicities of the human race now that there are literally other races that exist./ “Fairy Lives don’t Matter today!”
The Saw spinoff Spiral is another example of this...
/Where a black police detective is constantly acting as a lone wolf because the other cops in his precinct don’t consider him loyal thanks to him putting a corrupt cop behind bars, while his black police chief father and latinx assistant was head of enforcing an act that protected corrupt cops from properly being persecuted just for the sake of having people on the force./
Even though the film was conceived months -- possibly YEARS beforehand, the movie’s original release date before having to be delayed thanks to COVID was 10 days before George Floyd was murdered thanks to the combination of police brutality and systemic racism
Once again; this has all the possibility of being purely coincidental, because this is literally James Gordon’s character at his core.
He’s a good man that wants to help Gotham, knows the corruption within the way he chooses how to offer said help, and is willing to do what it takes to weed it out.
/After all, that’s what attracts Batman and Gordon to each other and is the overall root of their relationship./
But to some who have experienced and become jaded by the real life police force, the judicial system, and the origins of white supremacy via colonization that has a deathgrip on both, the decision to cast a black actor in this role comes off as a fruitless endeavor.
To some, a black Gordon can be translated as a race traitor, just as real life minority opposers of law enforcement tend to look at POC who choose to continue to be cops knowing how broken, unfair and violent they are to their fellow men.
And even when you take into consideration Wright’s faithfulness to the character as he’s portrayed in the comics, others will see that as nothing but - and forgive my lack of capability of comparing it to anything else - the Mean Girls trap:
Someone who has the intention of knowing how bad something is and aims to fix it from the inside out, only to consistently be shown how difficult it is to do so because of how far said brokenness goes, and either end up jaded and alone like the character in Spiral, or having their conscience slowly eaten away by the toxicity the longer they stay in the belly of the beast.
And it’s not like there's a lack of real life inspiration for this phenomenon to be properly reflected in The Batman, either. Stories about how black officers and officers of color who joined the force with the hopes and goals that films and television sold them on, only for them to quit, be fired, humiliated and disgraced when they witnessed the likes of corruption, bigotry and oppression within their walls and tried to do something about it have regularly made their way on the internet since the death of George Floyd
The same can be said about the ones who decide to stick around because it's either too hard to fight or believe that being one of the oppressors is better than being one of the oppressed. As we’ve seen in 2 of the 3 cops that participated in Derek Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd; African American ex Minneapolis officer J. Alexander Young, and Asian American ex Minneapolis officer Tou Thao.
What makes matters worse when you look at Wright’s casting as Gordon in this light, is that when you compare it to Kravitz’s casting of Selina, his character isn’t given the same minority perspective in order to help with the direction of the character.
Selina was still the Selena a lot of us know and love from the comics, but was written to better reflect the fact that she is the daughter of a black sex worker and a white italian mob boss that has experienced first-hand what it’s like to suffer from the systemic issues that elitists clearly benefit from and wishes to exploit for those who are suffering.
Wright’s Gordon is still Gordon. But considering Matt Reeves intended the character to be played by a black man, he and co-writer Peter Craig don’t find a way to make Gordon’s character and resolve as it’s shown in the comics line up with why a well-intentioned black man would still choose to be on the force in one of the most iconic and believable iterations of Gotham City since the animated series...
Especially considering everything that has happened with civil rights, systemic racism, social justice and police brutality in real life that have opened peoples eyes to the rotten foundation of white supremacy that the police still use as a pillar to this day like they did with Selina.
Which is a shame, because I thought hearing this Jim’s struggle with trying to stay on the up and up knowing how deep law enforcement is in the pocket of the people that could give two shits and a tailwag about him for more than one reason would’ve been just as cathartic as hearing Selina tell off Batman about Gotham’s rich and elite and the lack of care for anyone they deem lesser.
But instead of adjusting this traditionally white character to fit the struggles that would come with casting a black man for the role to give him more depth and conflict, Matt Reeves just had Jeffrey Wright play Jim Gordon just as he is.
/And while his performance didn’t really suffer because of it, the decision added more to the police propaganda that The Batman ended up pushing because of it./
