From the moment its first episode aired, the Marvel TV show She-Hulk: Attorney at Law has taken a significant amount of hits from fans, and not-so much fans, and fans-cause-it-gets-us-YouTube-viewers, etc.
The sad part is that a lot of the criticism is warranted, though much will be dismissed as "gripes from basement dwelling manbabies" (Because that's the reaction to any criticism on a project such as this). Don't get me wrong, there are a goodly amount of those out there, but, having watched six episodes of the series now, I can say even some of their complaints seem valid. So I thought I'd address some of the problems I find from a storytelling aspect.
When I heard Tatiana Maslany would be playing the title character I was intrigued. She was amazing in Orphan Black and I was excited to see what she might do with this. And in that first episode, I saw a spark of what she could do with the character. A spark of what could be done with the character. But it all seemed so disjointed.
The show is meant to be a comedy, but it carries with it the weight of a superhero show that automatically brings to it elements of action and suspense. Marvel has shown that they can mix comedy, action, and suspense successfully. In She-Hulk, however, neither the comedy nor the superhero elements really hit their mark.
This could be due in part to the running time of the episodes. If it were handled as a true situational comedy, 30 minutes might be enough time to provide a satisfying show. But 30-minute long episodes in a 9-episode season doesn't give a lot of time to set up a character's origin, current situation, how the new powers affect her current situation and any story arcs they may be trying for to tie the show into the larger Marvel Universe (which is pretty much a thing now with every Marvel property).
Still, I think they made a major blunder by not using the character's origin story from the comics to start the series off.
Admittedly, I'm not comic book reader. I think they're a great art form, but I prefer my stories in a more linear fashion. I found the couple of comic books I've tried irritating to read, despite the glorious illustrations. I do, however love superheroes and have always been a big fan of the movies and TV shows.
So I was unaware of the comic book history of Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk when I began to watch the show. And the fact is that typically, the histories of these characters and the storylines that appeared in the comics are toyed with and tweaked a little when movies or TV shows are created for them. Sometimes the storylines used span several issues or more of the comics and involve a variety of concepts that just can't be fitted into a two hour a movie or a 9-episode TV show. Sometimes ideas are altered to reach a larger audience that includes, like myself, people who aren't familiar with the comics or different age demographics.
It's an interesting balancing act that producers and writers of this genre have to undertake. I just don't know if the writers for She-Hulk are up to the task. And unfortunately, it doesn't seem as if the writers are getting very good direction from the top.
From the moment we meet unassuming Jennifer Walters, we know she can become She-Hulk because she breaks the fourth wall in mid-scene and tells us so, which I guess is something that the character does in the comics. But to me it was a jarring introduction to the character. A TV show or movie such as this needs to embroil the audience in the fantasy. It goes back to that delicate balance. For however long the episode or movie lasts, the audience is being asked to forget the real world and take part in the make believe.
When a character breaks the fourth wall, that can break the grip the piece has on the audience. If done right, it's a whole different kind of fantasy that the audience is invited to take part in. If done wrong, it just makes the viewing awkward. While breaking the fourth wall may have been something done in the comics, I don't know if it was the best choice for this TV show. Or if they wanted to use it, I believe it needs to be employed in a much better fashion. When Jennifer Walters (or She-Hulk, depending on what form she's taken) speaks to the camera it doesn't seem a natural part of the story. It seems like a device used because the writers didn't know how else to make a point.
To tell She-Hulk's origin story, we're flashbacked to when Jennifer Walters was enjoying a visit from her cousin, Bruce Banner a.k.a Hulk (cameo by Mark Ruffalo) who is not in Hulk form. The cousins are involved in a car crash and Bruce is knocked unconscious (one would question why the "big guy" didn't come out at that point, but...). Jennifer saves Bruce from the burning car but as she's doing so, some of his blood just happens to stream into a deep cut she sustained on her arm, infecting her blood stream with his gamma enriched blood.
And THUS She-Hulk is born. Or created, or whatever you call it.
It is possibly one of the most ridiculous origin stories ever dreamed up. It is a sin of convenience and is nothing like the origin story that appeared in the comics. Here's where I think the writers had their first misstep in terms of the story itself.
In the comics, Jennifer Walters, cousin of Bruce Banner, is also the daughter of Los Angeles County Sheriff William Walters. Coincidentally on the day that Bruce is meeting with her to tell her of his condition, henchmen of crime boss Nicholas Trask gun her down and Bruce is left with a terrible decision. Knowing he's of the same blood type, he gives her an emergency transfusion knowing full well that his gamma enriched blood may cause the same condition in her that he is currently battling.
And THUS She-Hulk is born.
The origin story used by the comics is ripe with possibilities. A cacophony of story lines that could be explored as the series progressed. Starting with Jennifer trying to get a grip on these new found powers as she tries to live as normal a life as possible. Mixing comedy and pathos is entirely possible to do successfully. Most of the Marvel movies have achieved this mix.
But according to an article that appeared on the Website Inverse, the folks at Marvel felt the mob hit story didn't work well with the tone they wanted to set for the show. Again, it's hard to tell what tone they were actually going for, but I'm assuming they meant a comedic tone.
Also, according to series creator and head writer Jessica Gao, "You'd have to set up a ton of backstory...You can't just drop that in."
Which goes back to the severe time limit the creative team has to play with for the series, which might make establishing a backstory a challenge. Still, I believe you could use that or a similar origin story, with its supposed ton of backstory to set up Jennifer and her series. It might have meant a one hour-premiere episode (or two episodes) as opposed to the 30 minutes they started with. You wouldn't even need a mob hit storyline. Jennifer could have been simply hit by a car and needed an emergency transfusion which only Bruce could supply. It's doable, but the writers of the TV series chose the easy route, to, I believe, the detriment of the series itself.
Yet, while Gao seems concerned about dropping in backstory when setting up the show's universe, she has no problem ignoring it when it entails characters they want to use for the show. Perfect example, at the end of the first episode, after we've had the info dump portion where Bruce tries to help Jennifer understand her condition (and it turns out Jennifer can transform at will), we finally see Jennifer the lawyer at work in a courtroom. Without warning, a woman crashes through the wall and throws a table at the jury, which Jennifer, now Hulked-out, catches easily. This woman that we discover later is named Titania lunges at Jennifer who punches her back into the wall where the attacker sprawls, dazed.
Now fans of the comics will probably know that this woman is an arch nemesis of She-Hulk and they may have been quite excited by her appearance, but those like myself who don't know the comics had no clue who she was.
So the whole scene seemed like either a desperate excuse to have She-Hulk use her powers in the courtroom, or a set up to a storyline to be picked up in the second episode. Unfortunately, it wasn't picked up so outside of some slight exposition from news stories, explanations of this apparent rivalry is ditched in favor of watching Jennifer lose her job at the DA because they think her tie to She-Hulk would be detrimental to the office (her saving the jury led to a mistrial being declared on the case she was trying when it happened).
Titania doesn't make a substantive appearance until episode 5 when we learn that she is a popular influencer who had the smarts to copyright the name She-Hulk, a name Jennifer herself has been trying to step away from. Which could be a fun premise for an episode of a show that involves lawyers if there still weren't so many unanswered questions. We still don't know really what Titania was looking for when she burst through the wall of a courthouse and started taking people down. Is she an influencer or a criminal? Is there a pre-existing rivalry between Titania and Jennifer or did the rivalry start there? In episode 6, Titania's fury at She-Hulk is so great that she shows up at a wedding of one of Jen's old friends (the wedding storyline itself being a confusing mix of tones) and demands that she turn into the green goddess so they can have a throw down.
So rather than establish any sort of backstory in the rivalry between She-Hulk and Titania, Gao and her writers instead chose to just, "drop it in." The audience, I guess is supposed to just run with it. It's a concept used so poorly it's as if the writers forgot how valuable character history and context can be for a story.
Possibly the longest exposition occurs after the car accident.
In the first episode, Bruce tracks Jennifer down after her first "hulk-out" and takes her to an island gifted to him by Tony Stark where Bruce hopes to prepare his cousin for what she may now find herself facing as someone with the Hulk condition. You see, Bruce knows a little something about being a Hulk having lived with the condition and its violent potential for decades, and even though he's acquired control over the power, he fears how easy it might be for it to overpower his cousin.
Oh, but he needn't have worried. The writers of the She-Hulk television program have decided that their Jennifer Walters will not face the serious, and infinitely more interesting challenges that the Jennifer Walters of the comics faced. No, from day one on that island we discover that she can control the thing it took Bruce half his life to control. Jennifer Walters can turn into She-Hulk at will and keep from becoming her when angry. Why? Well because, as she tells Bruce, as a woman whose been catcalled and mansplained all her life, she has had to control her anger for fear that expressing it might lead to her being viewed as unreasonable because of her gender.
As I watched this scene, and as a woman, I honestly winced at how ham-fisted it was.
At the risk of combining the comics too much with the series, this is the Wikipedia article on Brian Banner, Bruce's father.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Banner
And if one wants to keep with the cinematic Hulk (and not including Bill Bixby's brilliant version of the creature), Ang Lee's unfairly maligned 2003 movie offered us a story line in which Bruce's father actually conducts experiments on him and that, combined with the gamma radiation Bruce endures while saving someone else, turns on the genetic switch that leads to The Hulk. Now an unpredictable creature of destruction, Bruce must leave his love and run from the military, going into hiding until Natasha Romanov tracks him down hoping to bring him onto the Avengers initiative. From there he's tested continuously as he tries to help save the world and having to accept that he is useful in both his Banner form and his Hulk form. Still the destructive power of The Hulk is such that he sends himself into space out of fear of the damage he can cause.
But yeah...catcalls. Okay. To be fair, misogyny does occur and can have serious consequences for women suffering from forms of it. There's no problem with putting a message in the dialogue. But in this scene it seemed out of place. And again, because we knew so little about Jennifer to begin with, it didn't resonate as well as it could have perhaps in another scene. So not only did it unbalance the scene, the message itself was too heavy handed to be appreciated.
And that could be the key problem with She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. There are really no stakes for Jennifer Walters. She's not had a bad life up to the car crash, and after, she has nothing to lose becoming She-Hulk because, not only can she turn into She-Hulk at will, unlike the versions of Bruce's Hulk before Professor Hulk that we see in Endgame and this series, she doesn't lose her intelligence or sense of self. She is Jennifer Walters, only taller, greener, stronger and physically gorgeous.
She even gets a job in her chosen profession thanks to She-Hulk.
The writers seemed so afraid of backstory that they didn't really establish one for their lead character aside from her being Bruce's cousin and a lawyer in the DA's office. We don't really know what makes Jennifer tick. We don't know what challenges she's faced in life. So consequently, often times her disparaging remarks about how her life has changed after She-Hulk entered it come off as slightly whiney considering that while she was let go from the DA's office, she was out of work for a millisecond before landing an even better job.
Of course there is the drum beaten in every episode. Apparently she's faced a stereotypical level of misogyny in her career. That's a huge running theme throughout the show. Jennifer Walters has faced so much misogyny in her life that she's learned to control her temper to the point where even a genetic mutation can't break down her defenses. Of course as you watch the show, aside from a male co-worker cartoonishly written as a misogynist, you really don't see her assailed by that much misogyny. The worst part of her post gamma-ed life seems to be that Jennifer tends to attract men who are more interested in Jennifer when she's in her She-Hulk form than they are when she's regular Jen.
In fact, this seems to be the one true dilemma that they've allowed the character to face: She is resentful of She-Hulk because her alter ego seems to be more popular than she is. One can appreciate that. We've all had that uber-popular friend who can light up a room while we're hiding in the shadows. The difference here is, Jennifer is that uber-popular friend. Unlike the Jekyll and Hyde existence that Bruce has been living, Jennifer slips in and out of She-Hulk like a party dress. And since we're not really given a gauge on what Jennifer's life was like before She-Hulk stomped into it, we're not really sure if regular Jen has ever had to take a back seat to anyone among her peers before.
We're also not sure how successful a lawyer Jennifer is because despite the title of the show being She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, and post gamma-ed Jen being hired to head a superhero division of a law firm, there's precious little in the way of actual law being practiced.
Gao's original vision for the series had included more law scenes. In fact, she had considered making the storyline that featured the Abomination (a past nemesis of The Hulk) in a multi-episode trial. But the writers all came to the realization that none of them had experience writing courtroom scenes. Theoretically this would be a fixable problem. Even a couple of viewings of Boston Legal could help. But rather than do the work needed to bring them to that level, they chose instead to turn away from the more legal aspects of of the story, ditching the more compelling concepts for yet one more cliched take on a woman not feeling complete unless she can find a boyfriend.
The frustrating thing about the show is that there is a glimmer of something there. The duality that Jennifer must face in her life. The creation of a "superhero" law division. Jennifer occasionally having to jump into the fray herself (or rather, as She-Hulk) and all the ramifications inherent in that. If handled well, this show could be exactly what, presumably, the producers and writers were hoping it to be: A smart, fun, fantastical comedy. But there needs to be more meat on the bone for this story, and a better sense of direction. And actually, a little better character development wouldn't hurt either. It's a bit hard to root for characters when you don't really know them.
Some shows take a little more time to find their way, but we live in an age where if a show isn't ultra successful from the first viewing, the productions companies behind it have little patience to nurse it along until it hits its stride.
I hope She-Hulk: Attorney at Law gets the chance to smooth over the wrinkles to become that smart, fun, fantastical comedy they're trying to make.
No comments:
Post a Comment