Bruce Timm Reveals Why The Penguin is Female in ‘Batman: Caped Crusader’: “There’s a lack of good villains”

Batman: Caped Crusader recently premiered to widespread acclaim and has quickly surpassed The Boys in streaming popularity on Amazon.

Fans have largely embraced the show. However, leading up to its release, the show faced several controversies that some fans labeled as “woke.” These included a race-swapped Harley Quinn, who is portrayed as Asian, and a gender-swapped Penguin.

The show’s creators, Bruce Timm and James Tucker, recently discussed the show’s development with ‘The Emmys.’ One of the standout topics was the decision to gender-swap the Penguin. The creators explained that this choice was largely driven by the need for more compelling female villains.

Timm: James and I were talking about the overview of the show, and we said, “One of the problems with Batman, as he is, is there’s a lack of good villains. You’ve got Catwoman, you’ve got Poison Ivy, you’ve got Harley Quinn. But it would be really good to have more female villains.” And off the top of my head, I said, “We never really could figure out exactly what to do with The Penguin, what the gimmick for The Penguin would be. What if we gender-flip The Penguin?”

James: When he said “Maybe we can gender-flip Penguin,” I just got this flood of ideas. I was thinking of Marlene Dietrich in her tuxedo and Cabaret the musical and the art form of cabaret, and I just started drawing. I instantly got a flood of ideas. Also, I was thinking a little bit of Harvey Fierstein and Hairspray and Divine. It just was like I knew instantly what it could be.

You could argue that Batman has one of the most iconic rogues’ galleries in comic history, including several memorable female villains. So the decision to gender-swap The Penguin remains a curious choice.

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