OPINION: I’ve been loving Marvel’s She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. But I’ve got one BIG gripe with the Disney+ show. She’s too short!
The show centres on Bruce Banner/The Hulk’s cousin Jennifer Walters, a woman who juggles her career as a lawyer with her ability to transform into a giant green superhero. But in the MCU ‘giant’ is a relative term.
The Incredible Hulk appears around 246cm or 8ft.1 in the MCU movies, that’s a superhuman height matched by his superhuman muscles. A far cry from anything that exists in human reality. You know… literally superhuman.
Meanwhile the Disney She-Hulk is 200cm or 6ft7.
![hulk she-hulk height chart](/home/scandal/2022/09/as-a-tall-girl-im-fuming-marvels-shehulk-is-too-short/_jcr_content/root/container/container/container_337396831/container_317665506/articlecontentcontai/articlecontentfragme/par3/image.coreimg.jpeg/1662000468221/height-chart-graphic.jpeg)
If all women looked like Ariana Grande that would be a super human height, but I’m a 6 ft 1 woman and I have shoes in my wardrobe that make me that tall! And I wear them!
SO SUPER? REALLY? I’m going to paint myself green, don some stilettos, and bam! I guess I can walk right into the Avengers.
Judging from recent photos Tatiana Maslany, the actress who plays She-Hulk is around the same height as Mark Ruffalo, so why this massive difference in the size of their Hulk forms?
‘The Hulk's not that much larger’ I hear you say. Um… please look at their hands!
We can get into the nitty gritty of the difference in gamma-ray exposure that gave Bruce Banner vs. Jennifer Walters their green Hulk-smash powers, and how ‘that means she’s less powerful according to the comics’ or some other BS.
![hulk hands](/home/scandal/2022/09/as-a-tall-girl-im-fuming-marvels-shehulk-is-too-short/_jcr_content/root/container/container/container_337396831/container_317665506/articlecontentcontai/articlecontentfragme/par8/image.coreimg.jpeg/1662000533336/hulk-hands.jpeg)
But it’s 2022 kiddos. If the old story was sexist, we can fix that.
The Disney She-Hulk is basically just a green version of Valerie Adams - a stunning and powerful woman with a body-type shared by countless other REAL women. Meanwhile, the male Hulk gets to look like a cartoonish monster. It’s a double standard.
The show's creators are aware the MCU took a different approach to She-Hulk’s body than her Avenger cousin, but it doesn’t seem like they care.
In an interview for entertainment weekly they said "So she doesn't have a bodybuilder's physique, but she absolutely has a very strong physique that can justify the actions that she does in the show. I think people expected a bodybuilder and for her to have these big, massive muscles but she looks more like Olympians."
I’ve been enjoying She-Hulk; it’s a comedy about a woman with more traditionally masculine qualities like trouble controlling anger, ambition, physical strength and you don’t see that too often! But her character design lets the message of She-Hulk down.
![Serena Williams Valerie Adams and Gwendolin Christie](/home/scandal/2022/09/as-a-tall-girl-im-fuming-marvels-shehulk-is-too-short/_jcr_content/root/container/container/container_337396831/container_317665506/articlecontentcontai/articlecontentfragme/par13/image.coreimg.jpeg/1662000578730/tallwahine.jpeg)
It’s exactly the sort of thing I expect from the studio that waited 12 years to give Black Widow her own film.
Arlette Barraclough is a Digital Content Producer for The Edge