Overly Political Story-Telling
Telling stories using present-day issues is completely okay to do. Plus, if you want to truly offer inclusion, you need to tell stories that connect to the audience. Let’s say you’re wanting to present powerful women, it might also be good to discuss issues women face. Such as sexual harassment or the fear of walking outside at night, for example. However, one should also know where the line is and where you shouldn’t cross it. The series She-Hulk: Attorney at Law on Disney+ seems to struggle with this issue just a bit. It’s comic book accurate that Jennifer Walters aka She-Hulk, can go back and forth in Hulk form under her own control.
Yet the reason they give for this is very feministic rather than comic book accurate. Jen tells her cousin Bruce, that she can control her anger because as a woman and attorney she has to control it all the time. They get everything right about how she was in a crash. Although in the comics, Bruce is the only one with her blood type around, and using his blood for a transfusion gives her the Hulk powers. Therefore, she only had a dose of gamma-infused blood while Bruce was exposed to massive portions. He has trouble controlling Hulk due to this, Jen and She-Hulk aren’t truly separate because of less exposure. Not because she’s a woman or an attorney. It’s comments like this that started online hate for the show, which continued to lean into feminist concepts. Most of it was fine, but they did not know where to place it.