She-Hulk follows Jennifer Walters— a lawyer infected with her cousin (the Hulk)’s blood, which gives her Hulk powers. The concept is neat; it’s the reluctant superhero trope except this time Jen is an adult woman with an existing job and lifestyle. In episode one her cousin Bruce Banner does a lot of “mansplaining”, which annoys Jen. She responds badly, throwing stuff at him and rejecting a genuine, if mishandled, offer of help.
This alone doesn’t make Jen a bad character; flawed characters are often the best characters. Tony Stark, the lynch pin of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was a very flawed character: a narcissistic, alcoholic, womanising weapon’s manufacturer who changed for the better. The problem is that Jennifer remains flawed and doesn’t grow, she doesn’t use her powers to help people until she is forced to.
But…
James Bond is similar, and I still enjoy those films (exploitative sexualisation aside). Bond’s character itself is insignificant; I come for the action spectacle, not for the well-rounded characters arcs. However She-Hulk, is heavily character-based - I’d hoped Jen would become more likable as she went on, but the show seems to think that by showing her experience sexism she is immediately likeable. This isn’t the case; I empathise with Jen but she remains selfish and annoying.
We live in a society where my best friend could earn less than me doing the same job because she’s a woman. Of course my problem isn’t that Jen dislikes men; it’s that it becomes her defining character trait. She is trapped by her role as mouthpiece for exclusionist feminism.
There’s been a lot of media recently with primarily female casts and specifically feminist storylines. Some are brilliant like Yellowjackets or Promising Young Woman. Others, less so — Charlie’s Angels 2019 took a very aggressive stance against men. Every male character was horrible, displaying either casual sexism or downright gun-toting violence. bell hooks writes that “Like women, men have been socialised to passively accept sexist ideology. […] It angers women activists who push separatism as a goal of feminist movement to hear emphasis placed on men being victimised by sexism; they cling to the “all men are the enemy” version of reality.” If feminist media tells a male audience they aren’t allowed to enjoy it because they’re the enemy, why will they want to challenge the status quo?
Making a film about a specifically gendered conflict is perfectly possible, case in point Promising Young Woman which has almost no redeemable male characters yet remains a film that I really like, the difference is that we get to see exactly why they’re so reprehensible. She-Hulk’s villains lack any depth, they're caricatures, even Reddit insel trolls have personality traits beyond their sexism.
Episodes two and three cemented the idea that the show’s heterosexual men were all fundamentally bad people who promoted Jen because she’s a female superhuman. The messages here about workplace sexism are refreshing to see on screen — in the last five years or so, the MCU has used its status to tell new kinds of stories like Black Panther and Ms Marvel which show characters all viewers can relate to. Neither Ms Marvel nor Black Panther’s central conflict is about a character’s religion or race; it’s an important part of their character but isn’t their main conflict because they’re in a superhero story!
She-Hulk’s core conflict isn’t about superheroes at all; it uses the character to explore deeper issues as comics have always done. This is where the problem lies, the MCU is first and foremost for kids and teens – the content is generally a 12, and Marvel’s audience come to it for action-adventure escapism.
But if it didn’t have the MCU label would it reach as wide an audience? Does the MCU have a responsibility, being such a cultural juggernaut, to provide not only entertainment but education too? It’s certainly possible to teach the audience about tolerance and celebrate diversity but when that overshadows what an audience expects to see from a superhero project, they will be more critical.
The MCU has a responsibility to show that change is possible. I don’t think She-Hulk is optimistic enough for its target audience, at least one male character should’ve showcased some growth across the series - even if it were minor. She-Hulk makes a strong statement about the patriarchy but doesn’t try to use its platform to teach positive change.
It took me a while to realise that my anger wasn’t really at the show for portraying men as evil but at the men themselves. I still object to the insinuation made that all men are inherently evil because that’s not the way I see the world. But the show did make me open my eyes to the fact that there are men who behave in this way; when you hear about how your friend walks home with her keys in her hand ready to defend herself it’s this abstract concept that men will never understand. To quote the great Roger Ebert, films are “like a machine that generates empathy.” I think She-Hulk tries its best to do this. It won’t reach the small number of very vocal reddit-based insels, but it will reach a lot of men — hopefully they will be taught something.
The importance of high-profile feminist media cannot be understated, and She-Hulk presents topics that haven’t yet been addressed in mainstream Hollywood to this extent. It does have flashes of brilliance, and its themes are very important. However, its stance can feel exclusionary at times which isn’t the right way to do it, especially as the audience for superhero is predominately male. But, ultimately, whether you like She-Hulk is up to you.
If you want to read more on this subject I recommend checking out this video https://youtu.be/xeX4qvP5mGg from Filmento as well as “Feminist Theory from Margin to Center” by bell hooks (available from BHASVIC library)