‘Batman V Superman’ Writer Slut-Shames The She-Hulk

OK, let me apologize for this post right out of the gate. I try to never be that person throwing fuel on a fire. But what David S. Goyer said in podcast last night shows just how even the most important people in the comic-to-movie world still miss the boat when it comes to women and nerd fandom.

As the website The Mary Sue points out, Goyer appeared on “The Summer Superhero Spectacular” episode of the podcast Scriptnotes, along with writers of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, and with Andrea Berloff, from Legend of Conan. At some point in the show one of the hosts, Craig Mazin, started a discussion about how characters with names like She-Hulk — or “Lady” Whatever — are insulting to women by essentially making them little more than the original male character in drag.

That is a great discussion to have, and it seems like the podcast hosts and guests were about to address this issue in a smart, sensitive way. But that isn’t what happened. With credit to The Mary Sue, I will copy and paste its transcript of the point at which Goyer and Mazin became male troglodytes. For the record, that is about 33 minutes into the podcast.

Craig Mazin: The real name for She-Hulk was Slut-Hulk. That was the whole point. Let’s just make this green chick with enormous boobs. And she’s Hulk strong but not Hulk massive, right? … She’s real lean, stringy…

David S. Goyer: She’s still pretty chunky. She was like Chyna from the WWE.

Mazin: The whole point of She-Hulk was just to appeal sexistly to ten-year-old boys. Worked on me.

Goyer: I have a theory about She-Hulk. Which was created by a man, right? And at the time in particular I think 95% of comic book readers were men and certainly almost all of the comic book writers were men. So the Hulk was this classic male power fantasy. It’s like, most of the people reading comic books were these people like me who were just these little kids getting the shit kicked out of them every day… And so then they created She-Huk, right? Who was still smart… I think She-Hulk is the chick that you could fuck if you were Hulk, you know what I’m saying? … She-Hulk was the extension of the male power fantasy. So it’s like if I’m going to be this geek who becomes the Hulk then let’s create a giant green porn star that only the Hulk could fuck.

Wow, how many awful things can you say in just a few paragraphs? Not only do both Goyer and Mazin show they have no concept of what Jennifer Walters is really like (and has been since her first appearance) they are clearly projecting old-school male chauvinist (what we called “male privilege” back in the day) thinking on the She-Hulk.

Seriously, Mazin? “Slut-Hulk?” I won’t go into all of the reason why it makes no sense from the canon of She-Hulk to say any of what Goyer and Mazin did about her (The Mary Sue writer did a good job with that), but I will point out that the idea that any female comic book character was created solely to be fap material for male comic book readers is ludicrous. Was, and is that still, part of the character design of female superheroes? Sure, but that is the case with almost any character — male or female — created in any form of popular entertainment.

Making Jennifer Walters a successful lawyer right from the start made her a female character that women could look up to in a way that some early characters weren’t.

To be fair, if you listen to the podcast you will hear some things that aren’t in the transcript from The Mary Sue, including some male voices clearly trying to uncomfortably steer Goyer and Mazin out of the giant pile of shit they were stepping in.

But just as startling as the slut-shaming is the notion Goyer expresses that as recently as 1980 (when She-Hulk first appeared) “… I think 95% of comic book readers were men…” So where did all the wonderful women in their 30s and 40s that I know who are dedicated comic book fans come from?

This is one of the primary drivers of the continuation of the type of sexist drivel Mazin and Goyer expressed — the idea that comic books were (or in the minds of some particularly moronic guys, still are) something that interests only guys. It is time to drop this attitude like a MERS-infested bag of airline peanuts.

Women. Like. Comics.

If this beautiful reality doesn’t take hold in the minds of people who should know better, like Goyer, who wrote all the Blade movies, all the Nolan Batman movies and was a writer on the wonderful NBC series Threshold, how are we to expect non-fans to accept it.

Maybe She-Hulk needs to get herself a smart lawyer and sue Goyer for defamation of character. Oh, wait…