‘She-Hulk’ Star Praises How Series Creator Used Marvel Show To Attack Fans: “What’s Fun About It Is That She Built Into The Story That People Were Going To Troll Us”
In yet again running defense for one of the few series that objectively does not deserve it, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law star Tatiana Maslany has once again praised how series creator Jessica Gao crafted the Marvel television outing to specifically attack the franchise’s ‘sexist’ critics.
The first actress to portray the Jade Giantess in live-action offered her latest compliments to Gao’s intentionally-combative direction on the near-universally panned Disney Plus Show during an April interview given to UK news outlet The Independent.
Asked by the outlet’s Tom Murray how she was able to “handle the inevitable wave of sexist backlash” to the series – a disingenuous accusation, as despite its protagonist’s gender, if She-Hulk had actually been a quality production, the storm of criticism leveled towards the series would have been much quieter, if not non-existent – Maslany affirmed, “I think what’s exciting – ‘exciting’, ha – I think what’s fun about it is that Jessica Gao built into the story that people were going to troll us.”
“When we started to get the same responses that she had actually baked into the writing, it felt like part of the fun,” she added.
As noted above, this is not the first time Maslany has praised Gao’s work on She-Hulk.
Pressed during an October 2022 interview with Variety as to how she felt about the series’ season finale tackling “some of the exact same trolling comments that Marvel fans have been making”, the actress affirmed, “Jessica Gao is a genius and knows about the culture we’re living in and her position in it when she’s writing these stories about a woman superhero.”
“She knows what that response is going to be,” added the Jennifer Walters actress. “As a cast, it was delightful sending each other these troll responses, like ‘Oh my god, give them a week and then they’re going to literally see this pop up verbatim in the show and become the villains of the show.’ It was thrilling.”
Met with a follow-up question of whether or not she was “expecting to face the trolls when you signed on the for the show,” Maslany further asserted, “Reading the script, it was so true. There’s so much resistance to a woman just existing in the space of superheroes.”
“There’s always going to be that,” she added. “I sort of anticipated it. It’s why I also feel it’s important. There’s such an entitlement to space held by certain people, and to even exist as She-Hulk is like a f–k-you, and I love that.”
As to Gao’s intention with the series, questioned during the same interview as to how it felt “to accurately predict what the trolls would be saying”, the series creator herself explained, “Our writers room opened three years ago. The fact that we were able to predict what the reaction was going to be, what a lot of the trolling comments were going to be, really shows how very tired and unoriginal these trolls are.”
“That really tickled me because the little troll that lives inside of me really loves trolling the trolls,” she said.
As of writing, it is currently unknown whether or not Maslany’s incarnation of She-Hulk will ever make another appearance within the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe.
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