Monstrosity, Patriarchy & the Legal System in “She-Hulk”

We’ve discussed the relationships between monstrosity and patriarchy in She-Hulk, but there’s a way to extend that argument to include Jennifer’s role in the legal system, one that sees her monstrosity empowering justice for an otherwise subjugated feminine voice. 1/8.

In “Paradoxes and Patriarchy: A Legal Reading of She-Hulk,” legal scholar Dale Mitchell argues that “She-Hulk provides a case study in what occurs when ‘great power’ meets the ‘great responsibility’ of the legal professional” within a patriarchal legal system. 2/8

For Mitchell, the patriarchal order was always present in She-Hulk. “She-Hulk is a literal and metaphorical creation of man. As Eve was born from the rib of Adam, so Jennifer’s affliction was born from Bruce Banner’s (The Incredible Hulk) genetic material.” 3/8

Mitchell argues that Jennifer’s “superpowers do not make her immune from the struggles faced by the female voice within the legal system… It is within the law, the most important patriarchal tool of all, that Jennifer is truly oppressed.” 4/8

“She-Hulk is an enigma, continually investing her faith in formalism, justice and the legal system, whilst paradoxically fracturing these structures as the abject, a being whose very existence is representative of the unlawful.” 5/8

“Yet She-Hulk offers a solution to this exclusion – the realm of the abject, the monstrous, splintering the law to protect her client’s interests. She-Hulk reveals that superhero powers are needed to overcome the challenges of feminist lawyering.” 6/8

This is, for Mitchell, the transformative power of the character: through her superpowers, Jennifer is able to render a monstrosity with emancipatory potential over her subjugation to both the male gaze and to the patriarchal order of law. 7/8

It’s a fascinating read, 37 pages long, and covering decades of She-Hulk continuity, even moving beyond the patriarchal order: “She-Hulk promises a way of thinking differently about the law, of turning rejection by the law into something that can challenge it.” 8/8