Anger management: why She-Hulk is such a powerful symbol of female rage | Emma Brockes

Unlike her male counterpart, this superhero has total mastery over her Hulk side - something all women have to learn

For a while during the presidency of Donald Trump, female anger was a big topic of discussion. Women in general and American women in particular had, as the Australians say, had a gutful, and via movements (#MeToo), books (Good and Mad by Rebecca Traister), and the 2017 Women's March, public expressions of this feeling were prominent. Things have deteriorated since then, thanks in large part to the ultra-conservatives on the supreme court, but five years after about half a million women marched on Washington, at least we have a handy new symbol of female rage: She-Hulk.

You're familiar, of course, with the original Hulk, a scientist, Dr Banner, who, after accidental overexposure to gamma radiation", turned green and threw things every time he got mad. In the late-70s TV show, he was played in his transformed state by the bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno. More recently, Mark Ruffalo and a lot of CGI carried the character in the Avengers franchise. Now Disney+ has updated the idea with a large, green lady monster who works in LA and would rather not be a superhero, given the lack of benefits or career progression. She is the former deputy district attorney Jennifer Walters, or as the show's title has it, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.

Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist

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