[The Disney Plus series "She-Hulk: Attorney at Law" is about body
image issues, but it’s got some of its own]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE

SHE-HULK CAN’T QUITE MEET ITS FEMINIST IDEALS YET  
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Zosha Millman
August 19, 2022
Polygon
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_ The Disney Plus series "She-Hulk: Attorney at Law" is about body
image issues, but it’s got some of its own _

, Image: Marvel Studios

 

_She-Hulk: Attorney at Law_
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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_
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“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?

[Hulk and She-Hulk bowing to each other with their hands in prayer
position]Image: Marvel Studios

There’s a lot of Feminism 101 shows out in the world already —
your _Bold Type_ or _Supergirl_
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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
beginning to find what kind of feminist action they want (or need) in
their life. In its initial episodes, _She-Hulk_ isn’t
revolutionary, and for a certain set of viewers that’s OK. That the
show is able to address the undercurrent of anger that comes with
feminism is a step toward acknowledging rage as merely a valid
response to a world that is broadly inhumane, in ways big and small,
to women every day.

It’s a double-edged sword that the creators behind _She-Hulk_ know
too well. The show centers Jen’s discomfort with heroics as part and
parcel with her uneasiness around how people treat her new looks. As
She-Hulk she’s respected, defended, applauded — even
just _seen_ more.

“In terms of the CGI being critiqued, I do think that has to do with
our culture’s belief in their ownership of women’s bodies. I think
a lot of the critique comes from feeling like they’re able to tear
apart the CGI women,” _She-Hulk_ director Kat Coiro said during
the Television Critics Association panel on the show. “There’s a
lot of talk about her body type. And we based her a lot on Olympian
athletes, not bodybuilders, but I think if we’d gone the other way
we would be facing the same critique. I think it’s very hard to win
when you make women’s bodies.”

[she-hulk walking to a crowd of fans, wearing a sparkling dress]Image:
Marvel Studios

Even in the first episode, _She-Hulk_ feels clear about how this
transition is layered by Jen being a woman. But still, it’s
frustrating to see a movement be filtered through Marvel Studios,
whose general ethos is like if King Midas sanitized everything he
touched
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There’s no way the (modern
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MCU wants to get as thorny and provocative as feminism
actually _is_ in the real world; feminism is a political ideology
(no matter what slogan T-shirts tell you!), which means that some
topics will inherently feel taboo, prickly, and disruptive. You will
not get things like that in a Marvel Studios project, by design. And
so a lot of the feminism of _She-Hulk_ feels a little too pat —
of _course_ the sexist co-worker’s slights are things like “more
smiles,” and the bad bros she runs into just a little too clear
about how much her femininity is what irks them.

Because here’s the thing about _She-Hulk_: There are all kinds of
Olympians. They’re bodybuilders, swimmers, runners, rowers, skiers,
gymnasts, and more. They’re bulky just as often as they are slim.
And so when Cairo tells Polygon that the body type they settled on was
akin to Misty Copeland, someone who is “strong and powerful, but
[...] can go to a restaurant and have a date, can work in a regular
office and sit in a regular office chair,” it feels like just more
Marvel sheen, where edges get sanded off to make for a common
denominator. She-Hulk’s muscles have looked different
through several decades of comics
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and it’s telling that _She-Hulk_’s iterations fall in line with a
more conventionally attractive body type. For all _She-Hulk_ feints
at being “feminist TV,” it’s still bound up in a specific
conception of womanhood and empowerment. The show can only conceive of
its heroine as a feminine answer to Hulk, so it can’t fully imagine
what it would mean to be free of a comparison at all.

* she-hulk
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* Marvel comics
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* MARVEL
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* Disney plus
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* Feminism
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* body image
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