SHE-HULK Discussion: The Limits of Control and The Show Without Fear (Patreon)

I’m finally caught up with SHE-HULK: Attorney at Law and I like a lot of it! But I also totally get why there seems to be so many varied reactions to it. But in watching the show I also suddenly realized I vaguely know a chunk of people who worked on it? Which means it kind of feels weird to do my regular deep-dive thing and get too much into specifics / offer measures of evaluation and all that. But! What I can do is talk about the ecosystems that seem to be surrounding the popular conversations. Essentially, I want to provide a framework as a launch point for your own thoughts and discussions (which is all I really want to hear about anyway). Cool? Cool.

On The Long, Quippy Runway

Remember when everyone was making a joke about the super long runways used in the final sequences of Captain America: The First Avenger and Fast and Furious 6? I think it oddly makes for a metaphor for what’s been happening in this latest MCU phase, now that we’re out of the long runway toward Endgame. Because outside of a few early films, the MCU has spent about a decade playing this very specific game of tonal balance. Everything felt closely controlled and whittled down to the same look and realistic cinematic language. And yes, things were often funny, but it was in this familiar snarky way where our leads were often poking fun at the other characters around them, all whilst engaging in the usual marvel rigamarole. And now that we’re in phase four? Especially with the TV projects? Things are genuinely starting to change. But nothing even comes close to the tonal changes and logic-smashing fourth wall breaking departures of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.

For starters, it’s the MCU’s first outright comedy. And after that big huge giant runway of snark, it’s easy to recognize the fact that they’ve never really prepared their viewers for THIS kind of take-off. To be clear, I’m not saying it shouldn’t have been done. Quite the opposite. I’m glad we’re finally getting the risky, varied, non-wide-dude-led projects we’ve been clamoring for. But I understand why people’s “THIS IS DIFFERENT AND IT'S THROWING ME!” sensibilities are going buckwild. Per the tonal control, they were never prepared. But hey, sometimes the only way you can break down a door is by, you know, smashing it. So who else would be better? But even as I say that, it comes with the recognition that the thing about pure comedy is that - even for the greatest comedic forces on the planet - it is very, very difficult to execute. And it also plays into the following conundrum…

On Comedy and the Delicate Art of Shooting From The Hip

If you’ve ever been told to “act natural” you know the second you actually try to make something feel natural, it feels impossible. Well, filmmaking is essentially the art of doing just that. You have this crazy process where you hire actors and stick a bunch of cameras and lights in their face and make them repeat the process from different angles until you have something that feels “real.” Which means making something feel loose and natural on screen, as if it’s all “shooting from the hip” is actually one of the most difficult things there is. But it’s also the needed goal. And what’s particularly fascinating about She-Hulk is that it is a genuine lark. It just genuinely, truly doesn’t care about being careful, nor does it care about all the fearful tact that has gone into the efforts in the past. This is to be admired. But this also gets into the parameters of baseline comedic realities (a subject I wrote in depth about here, which I just now realize was a response to the sitcom stuff in Wandavision). But the summary is essentially this: laughter is relief from tension. But tension comes from feeling an acute conflict. It’s hard to feel the conflict of a scene if you don’t know where the baseline reality is (which again, isn’t really tonal, but understanding a character’s conflicting wants, etc). Thus, how you guide a viewer through something that feels “reality-breaking” is a delicate art.

And again, She-Hulk kinda just goes for it with reckless abandon. I say this to both its credit and sometimes detriment. But I think it’s the reason there are some monster gags in this show, specifically in a way that we’ve rarely seen. My favorites include Wong’s Soprano’s dance and the entire Madisynn plotline on the whole. It’s everything about Patti Harrison’s wedding and her offhand delivery of “half the staff quitting because of how I’m treating them.” There’s kumite references, Megan Thee Stallion cameos, Mark Linn-Baker aggressively dadding, the ex-husband from VEEP playing a conflict avoidant Mr. Immortal, and there’s even Renee Elise Goldsberry! (I don’t know if it’s fair that I always want to see her sing?) All of this is wonderful. But it’s a tact that is going to inherently come with a hit and miss ratio. And the hows and whys of what hits and misses is tricky to parse without going into a giant thing on the art of comedic direction. So the short version: I think a lot of bigger jokes worked on the page and some of the missing came in said direction (though I think Anu Valia’s episodes were stronger on that front). But this is pretty granular. Whatever you feel, there’s the question of the two larger anchors at the route of all this comedy. The first is…

Tatiana Maslany!

Anyone who watched Orphan Black knows that Tatiana Maslany is probably one of the best actors working today. It feels inarguable. Yet, I can’t help but feel like she hasn’t gotten the huge roles that really can show off that talent? Which is part of why this show feels like such a coup. For she grounds everything with seeming ease. And so often, you see her light-hearted charm in these little moments with perfect glee (like her little smile when mentioning the X-men). But the thing about the show’s approach is that I ultimately end up recognizing a couple tricky dynamics at the edges of her character. First off, because the show is constantly edging into pure unhinged comedy, it crafts these moments that rely on pure comedic timing / voice, and I’m not sure that’s fair to ask of someone with Maslany’s skill set? I mean, does this mean I’d rather someone else in the role? Lord no. I’m saying it’s a thing that would likely tie into more fine-tuning in direction where you need to play the joke to her delivery. And at the same time, the fact the show goes pure comedy also means I sometimes feel like I want moments that are better at mining her off-the-charts dramatic talents and more into the pathos of character. Which brings us to the second anchoring matter:

The Storylines!

I’ve been writing about the MCU for 12 years now and let’s get something out of the way: for every movie that delivers a beautifully tight story, there’s been four that have been a bit messy on the story front. But even the messiest of efforts have had this inescapable shine to them. An innate charm that smooths over our audience concerns and distracts us with the new fun thing right in front of your eyes (which is also part of the long runway I’ve talked about). Unfortunately, this is part of the tonal expectation. Which means I’ve seen some descriptions of this show as being “messy,” which I can assure has little to do with the show’s aptitude for A / B plotting and the like. It is much more a product of the fact it’s comedically shooting from the hip and having the hit / miss ratio like I mentioned above. Moreover, if you think show creator Jessica Gao doesn’t realize what this show is going for, then you don’t understand that she’s written some of the best episodes of television ever and understands the mechanics of all this more than we do. The thing is that really, truly doesn’t care. Which is exactly why it sometimes soars and yet, sometimes feels in search of its own solid ground.

But for whatever it’s worth, I think there are two episodes that are really quite good at integrating Jen’s life with the comedic tone / lawyering / smashing / and overall MCU nonsense. That would be episode four “Is This Not Real Magic?” with Wong and Madisynn and “Ribbit and Rip It” which marks Daredevil’s appearance. Why do these two feel the most “lived in” as they say? Is it merely all the more successful MCU integration? Gosh no. It’s because they are both episodes that show a more central vulnerability from Jen and more specifically, feature her in a state of active want from the early point. Which gets into a larger thing at the center of the series. Because right in the pilot I made a note at the end of the episode, one which ended up tying into a lot of the series: “I know how Jen feels about things and what she doesn’t want, but I still don’t have a grasp on who she is and what she wants.” So yeah…

Who Is “Just Jen?”

At one point in the story Jen turns to the camera and tells us that “this isn’t even a reluctant superhero story, I’m just getting screwed over.” Which is true. She is. And more importantly, it characterizes the way She-Hulk is so utterly about the manifold ways that women are screwed over in and by society. To the point that I’m hard pressed to think of a show that does so with such breadth, assurance, and guile. For it is a show that understands every terrible part of workplace culture, online trolls, dating, and media coverage. It even relates this right back into how she is able to immediately control her Hulk powers. It is living squarely in the fabric of modern conversation. And as it goes on, it even finds the perfect spot to express the character’s central metaphor. It starts with episode six’s “Just Jen” where it readily identifies the push / pull of the moment where she wants to shine for everyone at her friend’s wedding. But it comes to clearer light during episode seven’s “The Retreat,” where she is able to directly verbalize it: there is the “She Hulk” part of her. The strong, polished, exciting part that people treat as a hero. And then there is the “Just Jen,” which implies the normal, internal messy part of ourselves that we are always beneath the surface, and all part of the terrifying danger of being known. I think the show demonstrates the balance of those sides clearly, along with the way society treats those two sides… but in the end - and I say this more as a question than a comment - I’m honestly still not quite sure what the messy internal part of her really is? But to better illustrate that question, let’s get into the show’s central storytelling mechanism…

On Fleabagging

Central to the character of She-Hulk is that she was Marvel’s first fourth wall breaking hero. And yes, she did it before Deadpool (which a lot of guys seem to be finding out this week, not that it will really change their seeming disdain). But let me say this first. I think that comics, by their very nature of being read, are a medium that have a different relationship with time and headspace. You control the pace and the space between panels and do so much more with an active imagination. But using meta in movies? That’s a trickier beast because the image is what’s controlling time and pace and your headspace is almost purely about being “in it,” at least for so many viewers. So it’s always going to be a tricky adaptation. And in 2022, it also can’t help but bring us in the hyper-modern conversation because it invokes an inevitable conversation with the masterpiece that is Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag.

In that show, she does so much of the same thing as Jen. Shooting comments, barbs, declarations of obvious irony and mistreatment. But central to the conceit is the way she is, you know, a fleabag. Thus half the comments are a scathing self-examination of her own flaws, guilt, insecurities, and hysterical impropriety. And it’s part of what made a whole generation of viewers immediately gravitate to her. But wait, wait, wait, why are you comparing, aren’t they dramatically different characters? Of course they are! And I don’t want to imply that I want Jennifer Walters to be Fleabag-ized, nor is this even about requiring characters to be low status, and god help us let's avoid even using the term Mary Sue. We’re merely talking about the parameters of how and why we relate to characters. We’re talking about how comedy is often rooted in self-detrimental actions. We’re talking about self-introspection being at the heart of the old adage of “writing is easy, you sit at a typewriter and bleed.” And without doing those things, it sometimes creates a character that, for better or worse, is always just reacting to the world or always projecting outward. Which isn’t an inherent problem, mind you. People can relate to situations. Just as people can relate to characters who demonstrate the best of us. It just creates a different kind of relationship where the character acts more as an avatar for conversation. And in that space, it will always rely on the nature of the conversation you are having.

On Telling A Preset Conversation

When you see how a conversation is going to go and when you know how a person is going to react, there is this inevitable feeling where you want to try and get out in front of it. Sure, sometimes that leads to misjudgments, but most of the time, you do it because you know the conversation is going to lead to bad faith conversations, inevitable resentment, and a lot of time-wasting sanity-sapping. This is so hard to explain to people who don’t go through it on a regular basis (especially with family members and such who still feel like they’re living in a 2-D non-hyper-online world). Thus, I implicitly understand the urge to get out in front of it. For it’s the hard thing about, say, spending twelve years on twitter and dealing with cyclical conversations about media (and I know a lot of writing staff has had similar experiences). And She-Hulk is a show that is absolutely trying to get out ahead of the conversation. It’s not just the documentations of mistreatment of Jen within the show, or even how the bad guys are the very trolls who hate the show / character on sight. But it’s a huge part of the fourth-wall breaking where Jen will talk about how certain beloved guest stars are like “giving the show twitter armor for a week.” It is directly in conversation with us, but in the way where it’s trying to get out in front of everyone, too. Which leads to a question: because as one friend of mine put it, she basically alluded to “it’s basically saying all the things I love and think, so why is it not resonating for me harder?”

I can’t really answer that. It’s part of all the things we’ve been talking about. But I will say that I think what it’s trying to do is tricky. Not in terms of subject matter, though. It navigates its subject matter with laser-like focus and knows exactly what it wants to say. The thing is that anytime you get into this big open meta conversation with both your fans and critics, no matter how accurate your insight, you realize that you’re essentially dramatizing a one-sided conversation that exists solely in your own head. In doing this, you realize that beating people to the punch often doesn’t really do all that much. In fact, it often makes them feel like you’re skipping over them. Which brings up the question of why they’re even there or would want to listen. Believe me, I make this mistake a lot. It shuts things down instead of opening them up. And the sad truth is that going through the motions is a terrible, terrible part of life (again, like trying to explain to a family member that X isn't just asking a question, it’s arguing in bad faith). To be clear, in many ways, I think She-Hulk understands this implicitly. I mean, she has to deal with the daily cavalcade of shit she does not want to put up with and yet putting up with is what she must do. It understands how all of this is completely, utterly maddening. Which is why it takes so much effort to scream out anyway. To have the whole conversation. To examine the societal conditions of women’s rage, along with the endless requirements of - and the limits of - control. Especially the way that “one slip” can punish you beyond measure. And ultimately, it’s about pushing beyond those limits. Right down into the desire of having Jen to take control of her own narrative…

On Inventing Your Own Ending

So yes, She-Hulk ends in the most meta way possible where she literally goes onto the Disney lot, into the writers room, and ultimately all the way to confront a GLaDOS-like robot named K.E.V.I.N. (our hilarious stand-in for Mr. Fiege), complete with black baseball cap. There Jen has a meta-conversation about virtually every trend in the MCU, the plotting of her own show, and even the need for showing women’s pleasure (“historically, we are light in that department”). This is undoubtedly the absurd thing that has ever happened in the MCU. But she is essentially making a moral argument for the show itself. In that, it is fighting for everything I’ve ever wanted. It’s verbalizing every storytelling criticism (without mentioning, you know, worker conditions or anything that plays into actual corporate criticism, but hey). It does not want to fall into the same tired fisticuffs of action and instead tell its own personal story. It wants to re-declare its identity as a law comedy. It wants to push the limits of control. It wants to be itself. And in terms of what it wants, it’s powerful in its conviction.

So why may it not seem all that compelling? Is it merely the fact that it went meta?

No. I think it has to do with the fact that the storylines it’s arguing for, we don’t actually get to see the climax. We merely come back to the aftermath. Todd is arrested. Daredevil plops back in, as requested. And honestly I have some questions about Emil’s final muddled heel turn of doing the speaking and going back to jail? I feel like I missed something, but maybe it just rushed by. But that’s the thing, for a show that always wanted to skip to the end point of the conversation, it seems to do that in a way that also skips the dramatic crux of the story that’s been told. I mean, however off the cuff, it was telling a story we cared about. And we have been made to care for whole episodes now in terms of whatever it’s trying to say in terms of Todd’s desire / and we also care about whatever the hell happened to Josh given his betrayal. But even those I can let go with the hand-wave.

The thing we really care about, especially given how much she cares about it, is her relationship with Matt Murdock. For it is the thing that has earned our sentiment. And do the final images of them having the backyard dinner feel nice? Yup! But what we go to stories for is to feel things at the most maximum impact. Even with comedies. We want the things that look right into our souls and give us catharsis - but catharsis comes through dramatized stories. It comes as an answer to a conflict and moments of genuine doubt. It comes in through the utmost belief in what we see on screen. And by making the show’s climax rely solely on the meta conversation? By skipping over the story it tells us it wants to tell and instead going straight to the resolution and aftermath of that hypothetical story? Well, as much as we may agree with the sentiment, it will ultimately undermine the power of how that story comes together. At least for some. But I really think we still could have had the best of both, where we have that meta confrontation and then we come back to the climax of the show it wanted to make, stakes still firmly in hand… but that’s where we hit the 10,000 dollar question: does the show even want that? Or did it just want to have the meta conversation alone?

Honestly, I don’t know, nor could I guess. But also honestly, I still like this show. I like Jen and Matt flirting. I like that it shoots from the hip. I like that it does so in a way where it understands it will hit and miss. I like that it’s willing to fail. I like that it’s willing to, well, not bite exactly, but at least confront the hand that feeds them. And I like that it’s earnest in all of these pursuits. But within all these efforts, just like the character herself, it is going to be a show that is going to bump up against the limits of control. And in always wanting to skip to the end of the conversation, it is going to directly engage with the age-old cinematic question of what it means to “earn something” within a given story. In doing all this, it is going to become a prism for all the ways we reflect in and with characters. So, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: “mileage may vary.” But amongst all these questions, I will still offer a solid declaration: for there is something that we cannot fault She-Hulk: Attorney At Law on any level… something that takes a page from its notable love interest… and something no other MCU show has truly been…

Fearless.

<3HULK