She-Hulk can’t quite meet its feminist ideals yet
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law makes its thesis statement about 13 minutes into its 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. “Those are like the baseline of any woman just existing.” It’s a point she’ll hit harder later in the episode, after weeks of training to be dexterous and zen so as to not accidentally Hulk out. As he reminds her that the most important thing in the whole world is for her to not get scared or, more importantly, angry, she hits him with the manifesto, of sorts, for She-Hulk:
“Here’s the thing, Bruce: I’m great at controlling my anger. I do it all the time,” Jen says. “When I’m catcalled in the street, when incompetent men explain my own area of expertise to me — I do it pretty much every day because if I don’t I will get called ‘emotional’ or ‘difficult’ or I might just literally get murdered. So I’m an expert in controlling my anger because I do it infinitely more than you.”
To demonstrate how fully in control she is, she briefly morphs into She-Hulk. Eventually, we’ll see her prove herself right, returning to the regular world and suffering her misogynistic co-worker’s snide comments with aplomb. It’s all a great win for feminism.
The question is: How far will — can — She-Hulk go with this limited brand of feminism?
There’s a lot of Feminism 101 shows out in the world already — your Bold Type or Supergirl. Per the four episodes provided to critics for review, She-Hulk fits in with those shows without much challenge; feminism and the people it covers isn’t one-size-fits-all, and these shows are more of a foundation to inspire younger folks who are just
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