*This article contains spoilers for Marvel Studios’ She-Hulk*
She-Hulk: Attorney At Law ended recently and it’s generated a lot more controversy than necessary for an ultimately witty and fun-spirited superhero show. While it’s definitely not a perfect show, I enjoyed the focus on Jen Walters’ character development and a precise determination to break away from the Marvel formula of cameos and explosive surface-level CGI monster fights. Small cameos like Daredevil were a nice touch and felt like they added to Jen’s story in a meaningful way, as opposed to other MCU shows like Wandavision which had Evan Peters’ Quicksilver cameo only for him to end up a boner joke. The cameos weren’t there just for nostalgia’s sake or to solely set up future movies. MCU projects that focus more on individual characters or smaller parts of the world always have a lot of charm, with the best example being Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and 2 despite obvious differences between that and She-Hulk.
WHAT’S GOING ON?
With all of this said, why does it seem to be getting so much hate online? There are people saying this is the worst Marvel project (people who haven’t seen Eternals or Thor: The Dark World), that it’s ruining the legacy of the characters or even Stan Lee himself (She-Hulk twerking and breaking the fourth wall is on-brand with how she has been depicted in comics since the 80s, when Stan the Man Lee himself wrote her).
To be honest as a longtime MCU fan, the fanbase has a problem with how they treat women characters. We saw something similar back when Captain Marvel was released. There were certainly some valid criticisms of the movie, for example, the beginning part on the alien planet being a bit boring and Captain Marvel’s personality not being as solidified by the writers in this debut as opposed to her future cameos and appearances. To be fair, a good handful of MCU movies also have a similar problem with not quite having a feel for the main characters in their debuts, for example, Thor and Doctor Strange.
However, a lot of these valid criticisms were taken as an excuse to be blatantly sexist, and people online started hating Carol Danvers’ solo movie for reasons that basically sum up to “women with superpowers make me angry because I don’t talk to women let alone one that holds the power of the sun”.
With a lot of this She-Hulk criticism I see a similar issue, some valid points here and there but an uncomfortable amount of straight-up misogyny. If you are genuinely mad that Jen has a one-night stand in this show but sat through Daredevil season 2 with not a care in the world while Matt had a “will he won’t he” between Karen and Elektra you need to look inward. Go outside, take a walk and rethink your life.
My favorite part about all of this and what I love most about the show is how well it knows the MCU fanbase and predicted this exact reaction to the show. A lot of Intelligencia’s sexist incel rants about Jen directly mirror a lot of shit people were unironically saying about the show, how Jen is “dirty” for having sex and how she’s a “mary sue” character because she has powers. The show plays chicken with incel MCU fans and having a Twitter account while watching this show is an intensely rewarding experience. It really goes to show how pathetic a lot of the backlash this show is getting when they were able to predict so much of this early on in the writers’ room. Instead of actually thought-out arguments and valid critiques, most online hate consists of stinky men throwing temper tantrums. It’s just a fun lawyer show guys, it’s really not that serious.