While many (men) were quick to dismiss She-Hulk: Attorney-at-Law as yet another attempt on Marvel’s part to “feminize” and “ethnify” everything, anyone willing to look past their inherent prejudices would see that series creator Jessica Gao has provided a gem in what is usually a pile of meaningless and/or repetitive schlock. Aiding in the delivery of She-Hulk’s inherently political nature (for whenever a woman steps into a “man’s role,” things always get political) is Tatiana Maslany in the part of Jennifer Walters a.k.a. She-Hulk.
And yes, one might say there is a “political” angle to Bruce Banner a.k.a. Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) “contaminating” his cousin with his Hulk blood (it feels like there’s an allegory here for when a woman gets knocked up through no choice of her own). Were it not for his careless masculinity—getting in a car crash with Jen and letting her help him out of the vehicle with an open wound—Jen might have remained a full-stop lawyer, instead of a lawyer-by-day/Hulk when the mood strikes or the situation warrants it. Just as it does at the end of the first episode, “A Normal Amount of Rage.” But before the denouement of it, we see Jennifer being held essentially against her will by Bruce so that he can now teach her the “trade” of Hulking. Of course, his fragile male ego is offended when she masters every aspect of being a “mutant” in hardly any time at all. Still, he insists that she stay and become “one of them” (read: the Avengers). If nothing else, to keep touting her theory, “Obviously, Captain America was a virgin.”
To Bruce’s dismay, Jennifer would do no such thing. After all, she just landed a gig at a firm and she didn’t spend all those years studying law only to throw it out the window for the “gift” of being a full-time Hulk. Unfortunately, when “superpower influencer” Titania (Jameela Jamil) bursts into her courtroom at the end of the episode, she gives into her newfound clout by “turning”—albeit at the urging of her best friend and paralegal, Nikki Ramos (Ginger Gonzaga). Much to Jennifer’s chagrin in the second episode, “Superhuman Law,” word spreads fast about her supernatural exploits in the courtroom as opposed to her intellectual ones.
Thus, reports featuring a man describing what happened are reduced to, “This chick turned into a chick-Hulk.” “A She-Hulk?” the newscaster offers. And so, a new identity is coined. That Jennifer didn’t get to come up with it herself is, naturally, one of the running jokes of the series in that, as a woman, she still has no agency whatsoever in this universe (or any other)—even when it comes to something as rightfully hers as getting to choose her own moniker.
Even so, Jennifer embraces her She-Hulk alter ego, setting up an account on a dating app to meet men in that guise. At least, after her corporate headshot does little to attract much “buzz.” Obviously, it’s Nikki who urges her to “use what she’s got” to lure them in—which is: being a green woman who looks like a hotter version of Shrek’s Fiona when she’s in ogre form.
At first, Jen is reluctant to do so, already irritated that she has to “play” She-Hulk all day at the new law firm she works at, Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzberg & Holliway, in their superhuman law division. And yet, when Nikki remarks, “Oof hetero life is grim,” as she looks through the “Matcher” app, it seems Jen is sold on the “marketing technique” of “putting herself out there” as She-Hulk. But hetero life turns out to be especially grim when you’re a She-Hulk who now apparently only appeals to fetishists who never really want to see the real Jen. Which is exactly what happens when she has what she feels is a great night with a “hot doctor” who only leaves her in the morning when Jen is no longer in She-Hulk form.
To add insult to injury, she’s served with court documents stating Jen has been “misusing” Titania’s so-called trademark: She-Hulk. Because, silly Jen, in all her contempt toward the name, she never thought to actually trademark it. “But that’s my name,” Jen says aloud in front of the server. He condescends, “Not if she trademarked it first.” “Oh is that how it works, Your Honor?” she jibes sarcastically as she closes the door, this just being one of countless belittling microaggressions she endures with men on a day-to-day basis.
But that doesn’t mean women can’t be her foes, too. Just like Titania in the following episode, “Mean, Green and Straight Poured Into These Jeans.” As is the signature of the series, a meta allusion (often including the breaking of the fourth wall) is made to Titania owning the trademark via the title card to the episode reading, “She-Hulk by Titania.” This, incidentally, being what she decides to call the line of beauty products she’s selling on the back of She-Hulk’s fame.
To combat this “frivolous lawsuit,” She-Hulk’s boss enlists the best (non-superhuman) lawyer at the firm, Mallory Book (Renée Elise Goldsberry), to represent Jen. And the first thing she asks her about is why she didn’t trademark her name. Jen has no good answer, saying she just didn’t think about it and, “Did Dr. Strange have to trademark his name? Did Thor?” Rather than “allowing” Jen to make this a “sexist thing,” she points out that, in those instances, that was actually the name of each man. But the inevitable sexism of what Jen has to go through rears its ugly (male) head in the courtroom, when she allows Mallory to sift back through all the dates she had on the Matcher app as She-Hulk to establish that Jen was using the name well before Titania trademarked it. With these men as witnesses, Jen is forced to sit through their testimonies of how they were specifically interested in her solely because she had advertised as She-Hulk.
This becomes a running theme of the nine-episode series: Jen constantly feeling as though “Just Jen” (the name of episode six) is never enough—where the hell is Mark Darcy when you need him?
Yet she’s still disappointed that she can’t appear as She-Hulk at an old “friend’s” wedding. For that would upstage Lulu’s (Patti Harrison) limelight. Thus, Jen must dim herself and settle for the comfort of drinking, never imagining that she could attract someone at the reception who might actually like her just for herself. The dude in question is plainly-named Josh Miller (Trevor Salter). A little too plainly, it turns out. For no one could be that “mild-mannered” without hiding an ulterior motive. Which is exactly what Josh does as he bides his time until Jen finally lets her guard down long enough to sleep with him, whereupon he extracts her blood and flees the scene.
Once again, Jen is ghosted. And because her self-esteem is so shot, it never even occurs to her that Josh might have done something shady as she stresses over her unanswered texts. Ending up at Emil Blonsky’s (Tim Roth) newly-founded retreat center for reforming villains, she finds herself confessing in group, “You know in high school, that friend you have that’s, like, way cooler than you are? Like more attractive and athletic, they get all the attention from everyone?” She then points to herself in her She-Hulk form and says, “Hello?” continuing, “You think, ‘Life would be so much easier if I were that person.’ And I can turn into that person anytime I want to. And everyone pays attention when I’m this… But it feels like cheating. Because would they like me if I didn’t have all of this?” It’s a question that Jen persists in grappling with as we learn that, as it happens, Josh is part of the 4chan-esque Intelligencia website, led by a man who has the gall to wield the user name HulkKing.
This setup in the penultimate episode leads to a finale rife with all the irreverent meta flavor the series paraded thus far. For example, meeting with the Marvel overlord called K.E.V.I.N. (a nod to Kevin Feige) to discuss the ostensibly undesirable conclusion to the series, Jen takes him to task with her legal prowess/knack for arguing. Advocating for a better ending than the one She-Hulk seems to be getting, Jen says that adding a bunch of “plot and flash” at the end, as MCU is known for, is not what Jen, nor her audience, wants. Something she explains to K.E.V.I.N. when she tells him, “It distracts from the story. Which is that my life fell apart. Right when I was learning to be both Jen and She-Hulk. Those are my stakes.”
When he demands what ending she would propose, at the top of the list is not having Bruce come down to save the day. Because, in case one needs it spelled out yet again, such a “convenient” plot point is completely sexist and degrading to Jen and her alter ego.
Despite how well the season (and series) wraps itself up, review sites would seem to indicate otherwise. Unsurprisingly, before She-Hulk had even aired more than one episode, it was review-bombed to the point where it presently has four or five stars out of ten on most websites. Needless to say, it’s evident that She-Hulk struck far too much of a cord with the anti-female, “Make Marvel Great Again” viewers that would seek to bury it so that MCU never does something like this again.
The recent fate of Warner Bros. kiboshing Batgirl is also telling on this front. So maybe that’s why it feels even more poetic that the crux of the final scene of She-Hulk speaks to taking accountability for one’s actions. Particularly their innately sexist ones that would inhibit the simple admission that a show is fly just because its focus is no longer on a man.
