She-Hulk engages directly with fan culture and contemporary pop cultural dynamics.
There’s a minor character, a colleague to Jen, who is so deluded in his entitlement and self-aggrandisement, he actually believed he was dating a very well-known celebrity instead of a shapeshifter.
His comments about women in the workplace are appalling and you can’t help but feel that’s She-Hulk’s writers, led by creator Jessica Gao, making a very pointed comment about the types of people who exist in the fandom and in the wider world – and who have (to be generous) antiquated views about 50 per cent of the world’s population.
There’s a montage of in-universe public reactions to the revelation of Jen and her alter ego which is distressingly familiar – but also hilarious in how it bitingly captures the real discourse around female superheroes.
She-Hulk makes a convincing argument – not that we still need to be mounting those defences – about the place of women in public spaces, including in superhero movies and TV shows.
And it powerfully comments on female rage through a character that supposedly “hulks out” when they’re angry. There’s a “yes, yes, yes” moment in the first episode that directly tackles what every woman has said and felt at many points in their lives.
This is what makes She-Hulk specific and relatable.
