According to She-Hulk: Attorney at Law director Kat Coiro, one of her hopes for the upcoming Disney Plus series is that it will help make it culturally “normal to have female superheroes” – seemingly forgetting the fact that the show’s own advertising relies heavily on drawing attention to the novelty of its protagonist’s gender.
Coiro offered this insight into her goals for the Jade Giantess’ solo outing after being asked by SlashFilm to expand on comments she gave at the official She-Hulk press conference on August 13th.
There, she spoke to her love for the character and recalled, “I remember very vividly being a little girl and seeing the cover of a She-Hulk comic in amidst this sea of male comics and just not knowing who she was or what this was but knowing I was moved by it and that the idea of being large and in charge and taking control, taking up space, was something was something that really resonated with me.”
“Well, look, I think I was speaking about being a little girl in a time where it really wasn’t a part of being a little girl,” said the director of her above comment. “Like, if you liked comics, you didn’t really advertise it. I always liked them, but also never felt like I could like them publicly, if that makes sense.”
She continued, “And now I think that’s changed, and the MCU has done such a great job of bringing female characters to the forefront. And I think this is just part of that evolution and that step.”
“So I was talking about the new generation, just having it be normal to have female superheroes. My dream is that they aren’t called ‘female superheroes’ anymore,” Coiro asserted. “They’re just superheroes, in the same way my dream is to not be ever called a ‘female director’ again, but just be called a director. I want superheroes to join the pantheon, and some of them just happen to be women.”
However, despite claiming it to be a key component of her creative vision for the series, this sentiment ultimately rings hollow in light of the fact that She-Hulk’s own advertising – as well as its own creative team, particularly Coiro herself – regularly points to the novelty of Jennifer Walters’ gender as a series selling point.
After all, fans have accepted and embraced female superheroes for years – She-Hulk alone was so popular upon her debut in 1980 that she was able to carry a 25-issue solo series as a new character, a feat which is seldom seen accomplished nowadays by even Marvel’s most popular heroes.
Rather, it has been Disney and Marvel who have promoted the series by emphasizing the difficulties of her superpowered status on her dating life, attempting to force audiences to acknowledge her as a more capable and superior version of her Avengers-founding cousin, and even outright describing her show as a “must she series”.
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law hits Disney Plus this Thursday, August 18th.