Gotham Penguin Actor Hates Double Standards In Comic Canon

So, the Penguin and the Riddler are officially dating on Gotham. Does that surprise you? The revelation shocked quite a few fans watching Fox’s Batman prequel series, and many of them weren’t too happy about it. Penguin actor Robin Lord Taylor had some choice words for the fans who have been complaining about the romance publicly.

In the third season of Gotham, the Penguin’s conflicts have found him an unlikely ally in Edward Nygma aka the Riddler. As the two continue to work and support each other in Gotham’s ever-growing battle between good and evil, it appears that Penguin’s fondness for the Riddler has grown romantic, or at the very least, complicated.

While the show is coy regarding the exact nature of this relationship, whether it’s truly romantic or some kind of co-dependency as hinted by the respective actors, remains to be seen. Either way though, fans of the comics have been voicing their complaints about the “canon” nature of the relationship.

“I have to say, that that’s a bunch of horse shit,” Taylor explained at Rhode Island Comic Con. “You can’t tell me that unless you were just as upset that in our own show, we have Batman and Catwoman growing up together, running around Gotham City growing up together. If you weren’t as equally upset about that — which is changing canon characters. But you come to me and you say to me, ‘I’m okay with you being queer but I’m upset you’re changing a character,’ what you’re saying to me is, ‘I am homophobic, and I am afraid of gay people and queer people.’”

One of Gotham’s strongest assets is turning the Batman story into something more akin to a soap opera. The Batman lore and original crime story setting have been subtly incorporated into a story that focuses more on character development. The Penguin/Riddler ship is just one example of that, allowing two of the show’s stronger characters to explore more of their complex relationship.

Gotham airs on Mondays at Fox at 8 pm central.