[dagmx]

She-Hulk is “hulk for everyone” and is also clearly targeted at adults. This is clear because it’s rated TV-14 but sets the tone pretty early that it’s not a children focused show.

That the protagonist is a woman doesn’t mean it’s for girls btw.

If you’re looking for a more child focused Marvel series with a female protagonist, Ms.Marvel would be it.

The Marvel episodic content is (with the exception of Falcon and the Winter Soldier) is a lot more diverse in style content than the films, and unapologetically so. This is where Marvel is experimenting and providing a more varied range of content.

[khazhoux]

> That the protagonist is a woman doesn’t mean it’s for girls btw.

Yeah, I didn't really mean that the show is "for girls", but just that here was a new female-protagonist show. Ms. Marvel was fantastic, by the way (for many reasons).

I didn't notice the TV-14 on She Hulk at first, but did catch on pretty quick that the series leaned more mature. Still, the Avengers movies dropped all the overt sexual references after Iron Man 2 and became more "kiddie-friendly", so I find it odd (and frustrating) to have the maturity level vary within the same set of characters. That is my problem. In the other mega-franchise brands (Star Wars, Pixar, Disney) you know the maturity and sensibility to expect.

[scarface74]

Why would you expect the same set of characters to be one dimensional? And you’re not concerned with your kids being exposed to violence but you are concerned with them being exposed to sexual innuendo?

[dagmx]

I think really the big thing is that the films are very high budget and therefore Disney/Marvel are scared to do anything in the least offensive because they want the most return. So it’s not so much intentionally kid friendly as just as vanilla as can be for safety.

Streaming/episodic is much lower budget so they take more risks to try and bring in a different set of audiences that their films weren’t pulling in. My wife for example doesn’t care at all for the films, but really got into Wandavision and She-Hulk because the premise was more interesting to her.

I think the safety of the films might also disappear soon too as China and a few other countries recently rebuffed them. Marvel has tried very hard for years to be very China friendly because it’s a huge market, but recently with Shang-Chi they got blocked. So now they’ve stopped pandering to a more conservative market.

Coincidentally the big up and coming market is progressive youths and I think you’ll see a lot more topics that speak to them (or at least what a Disney exec thinks does). I don’t think Disney gives a crap about being progressive for the morality of it, but after they’ve had a pretty bad few years at the hands of conservatives (China, Florida gay rights etc), they’re now realizing this progressive market is ripe for the picking.

I think She-Hulks tone comes firmly from that pivot. So I suspect what is traditionally seen as child friendly values will see a down turn in their big projects.

That said, media is both a reflection of us and we are a reflection of it. So I think what topics will be considered child friendly will also change dramatically over the next few years.

[unsupp0rted]

Well it’s certainly not for boys, unless boys like being considered incompetent idiots who can never understand why they’re toxic. At least that’s true of every straight male character in the show.

[dagmx]

I’m a straight guy and I enjoyed it. So I think your certainty is not so certain.

Also there’s straight guys on there who were just fine. Wong and Matt for example were issue free. So was Bruce and a ton of extras.

A lot of the women on the show weren’t the nicest either, like Titania and the friend whose wedding she went to.

[unsupp0rted]

Wong, the Sorcerer Supreme, was reduced to watching trash tv on a sofa with a vapid drunk club girl, because he’s a sorority girl now.

Matt, i.e. Daredevil, was reduced to carrying his shoes in his hands in a “walk of shame” (his shoes are uncomfortable heels? He feels shame after sex with a fellow lawyer?), because he’s a sorority girl now.

Bruce, who spent two decades learning to control his inner Hulk and multiple times watched friends die in service of a higher calling was upstaged in 5 seconds by a girl who told him what real anger is because she gets catcalled and asked out on dates by people she doesn’t find attractive.

Whatever boys are supposed to get from this show, they’re probably not getting it. Or perhaps boys are getting exactly what the writers want them to get.

[dagmx]

Wong made a friend. He’s also been the butt of jokes in every male protagonist marvel film with him in it. This is the most I’ve enjoyed his character in a while.

Matt had a good time and then they made a casual joke that you’re reading far too much into.

Regarding Bruce, they had to short circuit her origin story. Nobody wants to see her go through the exact same motions.

Regardless, it seems the show was not your cup of tea. That’s fine.

There’s plenty of straight men out there who enjoyed it, and we have enough shows pandering to our male egos that having one fun show focused on a woman isn’t going to upset my balance of whatever it is you think one must get from a show.

[unsupp0rted]

> we have enough shows pandering to our male egos that having one fun show focused on a woman isn’t going to upset my balance

That's disingenuous. I reject this show for the same reason women reject a show that fails the Bechdel test. It's full of caricatures of men that exist only to confirm the protagonist's (i.e. head writer's) view that men are either toxic leering creeps, oblivious privileged mansplainers or idiotic adult children.

[dagmx]

Except there were men who weren’t shown as weak or toxic. And there were equally women who were shown as bad in this show as well.

Shockingly the men who played the villains weren’t portrayed as good people. So were the women who were the villains.

[scarface74]

You mean a comedy is full of caricatures? Who would have thought?