A new clip from the Marvels She-Hulk Disney+ series came out a few days ago showing off the new powers Jennifer Walters (Tatiana Maslany) has learned when she hulks out. The clip looks great! This show is going to be very interesting. In fact, there’s been some criticism for Jennifer’s Hulk form, mainly because she isn’t muscular enough. I do not doubt that after seeing two trailers and the new clip, I must add to the criticism that I wish that Jennifers hair wouldn’t lose much of her curl as she grows she-hulk.
You’ll admit that the dull transformation is weird, right? There is no logical explanation. If she does her best, Jennifer’s hair has curly hair (I could say between 3A and 3B texture, like mine), but when she transforms, it gets longer and softer and dull, so they get all different. What planet is the place you live in? Why? I know that She-Hulk is like in the anime, but the curly-haired Tatiana Maslany have preserved her natural texture in her human form. Why change it when you’re a hulk?
The most likely answer is something that curly-haired people, particularly women, know all too well. According to Western beauty standards, straight hair (with some gentle waves) is considered ideal. How, for example, Rapunzel and Mother Gothel in Disneys Tangled. Rapunzels long hair is beautiful, but Gothels dark curly hair is what makes her happy other people. Straight hairs that is black hair is the standard to which all other hairs are judged.
Black people, especially Black women, are very familiar with this type of racism. Marita Golden writes about that in her book My Black Hair. She describes her hair getting straightened with a hot comb, trying to avoid that awful, horrible place where my hair fell til I started without hurting a person else, but it became coarse, tightly curled and, among the eyes of many around me, in unacceptable fashion. I wasn’t in a position to make the world smile until my hair resembles white girls’s hair.
In fact, the majority of our cultures anti-curl venom is directed at black women, but even those who are curly-haired, get some of them. I’m a Jewish woman who knows how to write it about it. My hair slowly burst into a bittersweet state after the birth of a hurricane. My children called me names and ostracized me in school. I mean they got bizarrely angry about my hair.
The grownup asked whether Id stick a fork in a light socket. Women encouraged me to take chemical straighteners and sleep when my hair is stuffed in tomatoes. Once, I found a curly haircut in a magazine, so my mom brought me to a stylist, so I could see how it’s repeated. Instead, the stylist gave me a blowout and then talked me about how straight it was. Grownups said they love curly hair, but they talked out of both sides of their mouths. You are blessed with natural curls. Now you’ve totally changed your hair!
The problem was partly because I didn’t know that there existed any hair products for curly hair, so my hair was always dry, brittle and frizzy. So when I want anything more simple like cleanser, I need to go to a specialty store or the tiny section of the pharmacy that is empty for textured hair. I have to pay twice as much if I want someone trained to cut curly hair. Curly hair doesn’t necessarily mean normal hair.
To see how much of Jennifer’s hair loses its curl, and then watch her friends in the trailer tell her how amazing she looks? It’s disappointing, and it’s something that I saw too many times.
Can she explain why Jennifer’s hair is so red? Will they at least hang lampshade on them? Maybe. And look, im still going to love that show. I still hurry the MULK. Have some fun, GIRL! Every time Jennifer does something nice. But I will be silently gagging the blonde She-Hulk who could’ve been.
At least I’ll still have my beloved Layla El-Faouly, a.k.a. Scarlet Scarab, who has the best hair from the entire MCU.
(colored image: Marvel)