In the interest of fairness

When I was a kid, I had a real hangup on things I deemed to be “fair” or not. I suppose this is true of all kids, but my issues were not the standard sort of “that’s not fair” tantrum … possibly because I rarely didn’t get my way. But that’s an issue for a different day.

No, my fairness doctrine had to do with perceived injustices that I would see on television and in movies. And specifically, one of the things that irritated me the most was the issue of fraudulence and/or improper credit.

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The most defining example I can remember was the Inspector Gadget cartoon. Whether or not I understood that it was a Get Smart parody is beside the point. I knew that the title character was funny, a bumbling goof, and that the allure of the show was which gadgets he would deploy from his robot body to get him out of that particular episode’s scrape. Comedy was also meant to be derived from Gadget’s sheer, bludgeoning stupidity and incompetence.

But the real hero of the show was Gadget’s niece, Penny (with the assistance of her dog, Brain). Penny tagged along or secretly followed Gadget on every mission, and she and Brain would end up solving the case or saving the day. And each time, Gadget would get the credit from his boss, despite actively hindering the investigation at every turn.

Let me tell you, dear reader: that absolutely drove me up the wall. It wasn’t mere irritation, either. I would often get actively angry at the absolute injustice of it all. A man too stupid to recognize his niece’s dog got to coast on his reputation as the world’s greatest robotic detective, despite the fact that a little girl was the one actually solving 100 percent of his cases.

Now, it’s likely that in the show, Penny was happy to let her uncle take the credit, and maybe the thrill was in being the person behind the person, with no one the wiser. But despite that being a terrible disservice to everyone involved — what would happen if Penny were on a field trip and unable to follow Gadget on a case one day, and Dr. Claw ended up getting the nuclear codes or something? That’s nuclear winter, all because Penny was more concerned with her uncle saving face than everyone understanding that — helicopter in his head or no — this cyborg should in no way be trusted with matters of international security.

As an adult, I was further infuriated by the glut of cringe comedy films in the early 2000s that insisted upon tormenting a man (it was always a man) who had done nothing wrong, and was subject to an endless amount of grief, embarrassment, and abuse simply because the people making those movies thought it was funny to watch someone suffer who doesn’t deserve it. Drove me bonkers.*

So why did I have such a huge problem with this? Probably because I’ve always wanted credit for the work I’ve done, and that I would not hesitate to speak up if someone received credit that wasn’t due to them. Does that make me a squealer? Probably! But I’ll be god damned if anyone else is going to get any praise for the work that I do.

(Naturally, cruelty for the sake of laughs seems even more crass these days. Half of the country wants people they don’t like to suffer, and they cheer on cruelty, vote for it, and give money to causes that will ensure the suffering of people who they feel deserve to be punished. It’s hard not to feel frustrated and hopeless in the face of cruel injustice.)

My main point is this: give Penny her flowers. Give Inspector Gadget nothing. It’s time for Inspector Gadget to be relegated to a desk job. Give him the Vic Mackey treatment. Defund Inspector Gadget. All Inspectors Gadget Are Bastards.

We’ll see you all on Monday. Til then, don’t forget to submit your list for our community Coen Brothers film ranking! Click here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/14-zxaxVbO4AX5TI5EFu7N7WiquYipAQjN4CnsVA6WEk/edit

* This doesn’t extend to films where the suffering of the main character is the point of the film, like A Serious Man. I’m just talking about someone being put upon for comedic purposes.

Bill Hanstock's Super Secret Words Club is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.