She-Hulk: Lawyer makes his thesis statement about 13 minutes into the first episode: When Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) tells his cousin – newly Hulked thanks to an accident – Jen Walters (Tatiana Maslany) that the triggers are anger and fear, she scoffs. “It’s like every woman’s baseline existingIt’s a point she’ll hit harder later in the episode after weeks of training to be skillful and zen to avoid accidentally losing Hulk. When he reminds her that the most important thing in the whole world is that she doesn’t get scared or, more importantly, angry, she hits him with the Manifesto, sort of for She Hulk:
“Here’s the thing Bruce: I’m great at controlling my anger. I do it all the time,” says Jen. “When I get phone calls on the street, with incompetent men explaining my own area of expertise to me – I do that almost every day because if I don’t I’ll be called ’emotional’ or ‘difficult’ or could be literally murdered . So I’m an expert at controlling my anger because I do it infinitely more than you do.”
To demonstrate how completely in control she is, she briefly transforms into She-Hulk. Finally, we’ll see her prove right by returning to the normal world and enduring the snide comments of her misogynistic colleague with aplomb. This is all a great win for feminism.
The question is: How far will — can — She Hulk do you go with this limited kind of feminism?
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Image: Marvel Studios
There are already many Feminism 101 shows in the world – yours bold type or super girl. According to the four episodes made available for review by critics, She Hulk fits into these shows without much challenge; Feminism and the people it treats are not one-size-fits-all, and these shows are more of a foundation to inspire younger people who are just starting to figure out what kind of feminist action they want (or need) in their lives. In its first episodes She Hulk isn’t revolutionary, and for a certain group of viewers, that’s fine. That the show is able to address the undercurrent of anger that accompanies feminism is a step toward recognizing anger as merely a valid response to a world that is, by and large, inhuman towards women every day.
It’s a double-edged sword that the creators stand behind She Hulk know too well. The show focuses Jen’s uneasiness with heroics as an integral part of her uneasiness about how people are handling her new looks. As She-Hulk, she’s respected, defended, applauded – even just that seen
“In terms of criticism of CGI, I think it has to do with our culture’s belief in its ownership of women’s bodies. I think a lot of the criticism comes from the feeling that they’re able to tear the CGI women apart.” She Hulk said director Kat Coiro during the Television Critics Association panel on the show. “There’s a lot of talk about her body type. And we based them a lot on Olympic athletes, not bodybuilders, but I think if we’d gone the other way, we’d face the same criticism. I think it’s very hard to win when you’re making women’s bodies.”
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Image: Marvel Studios
Already in the first episode She Hulk feels clear about how this transition is layered by Jen being a woman. Still, it’s frustrating to see movement filtered through Marvel Studios, whose overall ethos is one of King Midas sanitizing everything he touches. In no case does the (modern) MCU want to become as thorny and provocative as feminism is
Because this is about She Hulk: There are all kinds of Olympians. They are bodybuilders, swimmers, runners, rowers, skiers, gymnasts and more. They are just as often bulky as they are slim. And as Cairo tells Polygon the body type they’ve settled on resembles Misty Copeland, someone who’s “strong and powerful, but […] can go to a restaurant and date, work in a regular office, and sit in a regular office chair,” it feels like just more Marvel polish, with edges sanded down to create a common denominator. She-Hulk’s muscles have looked different across several decades of comics, and it says it all She HulkThe iterations of suit a more conventionally attractive body type. For all She Hulk While pretending to be “feminist television,” it is still tied to a specific notion of femininity and empowerment. The show can only think of its heroine as a female answer to Hulk, so can’t quite imagine what it would mean to be without comparison at all.
