“Gotham” Notes: Accentuate The Positive

In this week’s episode of Gotham, we found out a lot more about Harvey Bullock’s character. But there was one scene that every review I’ve found has overlooked: let’s call it the “Bathtub Scene” with Oswald Cobblepot.

All creepiness aside of the fact that his mother is washing him and he’s obviously a grown man, there’s one reason I want to focus on this scene, and it’s the song choice. You all know me as the Marvel fangirl of this site, but if there’s one thing I’m obsessed with just as much (and probably more), it is music.

So when the episode cut from Selina Kyle skulking around Wayne Manor to Cobblepot in the bathtub with Johnny Mercer’s “Ac-Cent-Tch-Ate the Positive” playing pretty loudly, I flipped out. Listen to it below.

Johnny Mercer is one of my favorite musicians/lyricists, even though not many people remember his name despite the fact that he wrote lyrics to over 1,500 songs. The song this scene used is my favorite song by him, second only to “My Sugar Is So Refined.” I can tell you with relative certainty that I was one of the few twenty-something-year-olds who screamed, “Holy crap, they’re playing Johnny Mercer!”

And it fits perfectly with the theme and tone of this Cobblepot scene.

The History: “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive” was recorded in 1944 and written for Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters for the film Here Comes The Waves. Mercer’s version stayed on the charts in 1945 for thirteen weeks and got as high as Number Two. Mercer came up with the lyrics after hearing a rousing sermon, and Americans loved it because as World War II reached its climax, it gave them a breath of hope.

It is the polar opposite of everything Cobblepot preaches to anyone who will listen. He’s constantly proclaiming that a war is coming, an inevitable war that will leave Gotham in ruins. He has the keys to it and he’s doing everything he can to… well, we haven’t really figured that much out yet. But you can be certain he has a plan of his own that involves exploiting as many people as possible.

At the same time, the song fits so well with what Cobblepot is attempting to do. The introduction of the song describes his attempts to get people to listen (“Gather ‘round me everybody/Gather ‘round me while I preach some”). He may not be a preacher on a pulpit, but who is in the travesty that makes up Gotham? No one’s a saint. Nothing is positive, everything is negative.

Likewise, he’s making the best of what he’s been given as a dead-man walking in a city his only “friend” (in his terms) barred him from returning to. He has faith that this city he calls home will treat him well and that the same “friend” can have his back (“Have faith or pandemonium’s/Liable to walk upon the scene”). Mrs. Cobblepot says that he cannot trust the police because they are liars, but Cobblepot assures her that at least Gordon is good.

“He’ll help me come out right in the end,” Cobblepot utters with a crazed smirk as Johnny Mercer croons, “Don’t mess with Mister In-Between.” Cobblepot could lean either way in the impending war; he’s the one straddling the line between the two sides.

Bonus Thoughts: Mrs. Cobblepot seems like the kind of woman who would cling to her faith or the Bible and its teachings, so the whole verse giving examples of accentuating the positive fits her (“To illustrate my last remark/Jonah in the Whale/Noah in the Ark/What did they do just when everything looked so dark?”).

And can Gotham get darker? Well, of course it can. Using “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive” was a clever little wink by showrunners that most people probably didn’t even catch.