USC Comedy at the School of Cinematic Arts, Marvel Studios,
and USC Visions and Voices: The Arts and Humanities Initiative
invite you and a guest to attend
 

Spotlight on Marvel Studios'
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law

Screening & Conversation with
Series Creator/Head Writer/EP Jessica Gao
Moderated by USC Professor J.D. Connor

The event will begin with a screening of the Season 1 Finale: Whose Show Is This? (37 minutes)

3:30 P.M. on Sunday, February 26th, 2023

The Ray Stark Family Theatre, SCA 108
900 W. 34th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007

FREE ADMISSION. OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. RSVP REQUIRED.
 

CLICK HERE TO RSVP

Presented during the USC Comedy Festival, Vol. 6,
taking place from February 24th - 26th, 2023

Visit the USC Comedy Festival, Vol. 6 Homepage: http://cinema.usc.edu/ComedyFestival
Follow the USC Comedy Festival, Vol. 6 on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/USCComedy
Follow the USC Comedy Festival, Vol. 6 on Instagram: @USCComedy
Follow the USC Comedy Festival, Vol. 6 on Twitter: @USCComedy

This year, the USC Comedy Festival is pleased to partner with Postmates!
Attendees at the Festival will be eligible to redeem a code good for $25 off your Postmates order.
Codes will be available for attendees only. No order minimum. One per user.

 

About Marvel Studios' She-Hulk: Attorney at Law

In Marvel Studios’ She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, Emmy®-Award winning actress Tatiana Maslany (“Orphan Black”) stars as Jennifer Walters—an attorney specializing in superhuman-oriented legal cases. She leads the complicated life of a single, 30-something who also happens to be a green 6-foot-7-inch superpowered hulk.

The nine-episode comedy series stars Tatiana Maslany as Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk; Ginger Gonzaga as Nikki Ramos, Jennifer’s best friend and paralegal; Jameela Jamilas superhuman Titania, She-Hulk’s nemesis; Josh Segarra as new friend and attorney Augustus “Pug” Pugliese; Jon Bass as Todd, a bad date and new client; Renée Elise Goldsberry as fellow and steadfast attorney Mallory Book; and Tim Roth as surprise new client Emil Blonsky/Abomination. She-Hulk: Attorney at Law features special guest appearances by Mark Ruffalo as Jennifer’s cousin Bruce Banner/Hulk,and Benedict Wong as Wong. The series is directed by Kat Coiro (Episodes 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9) and Anu Valia (Episodes 5, 6, 7) with Jessica Gao as head writer. Executive producers are Kevin Feige, Louis D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Brad Winderbaum, Coiro and Gao.

About Jessica Gao, Head Writer/Exec Producer/Created for Television by

Jessica Gao won a 2018 Emmy Award for her “Pickle Rick” episode of Rick & Morty, which has been described as “a breakthrough for the series,” and has been featured prominently in various articles. Gao penned the feature Step Dude for Jack Black at Sony, and a Chinese art heist feature with Jimmy O. Yang and Ken Cheng for Warner Bros.

Previously, Gao was a supervising producer on Comedy Central’s Corporate, and she has also served as a staff writer on Robot Chicken and HBO’s Silicon Valley, during which time it was nominated for an Emmy for outstanding achievement in television, new media, news, radio, and promotional writing for new series and comedy series.

On the feature side, Geo recently wrote on the Illumination feature Super Mario Bros. and finished writing the feature Sweet Valley High for Paramount. She has written for a film in the Lego universe, did production work on Lego Ninjago for Warner Bros, and also did punch-up work for DreamWorks Animation’s Croods 2.

About J.D. Connor, USC Professor/Moderator

J.D. Connor is an Associate Professor in the Division of Cinema and Media Studies. He is the author of Hollywood Math and Aftermath: The Economic Image and the Digital Recession and The Studios after the Studios: Neoclassical Hollywood, 1970–2010.

He received his PhD in from the Humanities Center at Johns Hopkins University. Prior to joining USC in 2016, he was on the Art History and Film & Media Studies faculties at Yale and the Visual & Environmental Studies and English faculties at Harvard. His research and teaching focus on the art and industry of contemporary Hollywood.

His work has been published in journals such as Jump Cut, Media Industries, The Journal of Visual Culture, FlowTV, and the Los Angeles Review of Books and has appeared in edited collections that include In the Studio, The Films of Albert Brooks, Transmedia Directors, and the volumes on Directing and Art Direction and Production Design in the Behind the Silver Screen series. He is working on a third volume in the history of Hollywood’s representational economy, Leviathan under Secession: Aspects of the World Cinematic System; a history of diagrams, The Image of the Social; a theory of tape recording, Archives of the Ambient; an exploration of contemporary comedy, Comedy Equals Comedy Plus Time; and a study of the origins of cinematic worldbuilding. He is a founding member of Post•45, a collective of scholars of American literature and culture. He tweets @jdconnor and his website is johnconnorlikeintheterminator.com.

Cast & Crew Notes on She-Hulk

“What I love most about Jen aka She-Hulk is the fact that she’s a contradiction,” says Maslany. “She’s so completely fixated on work, and yet she has this huge heart. She loves being She-Hulk, but at the same time resents it. There’s a lot of fun tension to play with in those contradictions.”

Director Kat Coiro, who helmed six episodes of the series, has long been drawn to the emerald-hued hero. “I was a huge fan of She-Hulk as a child,” says Coiro. “I lived near a comic-book store and she was a really badass female superhero who had her own book,” says Coiro, who recently discovered her husband had an entire collection of the comics. “We went to his mom’s basement and I got to go back through the comics and remember what was so exciting about She-Hulk. She’s irreverent, big, strong and bold.”

Created by Stan Lee and John Buscema, the character was introduced on Feb. 10, 1980, in “The Savage She-Hulk” comic series. She-Hulk went on to become a member of the Avengers in 1982 and was featured in the “Fantastic Four” series beginning in 1984. Writer/artist John Byrne infused the character with her signature fourth-wall-breaking sense of humor in his “Sensational She-Hulk” comic series that ran from 1989-1994, and the character has made regular appearances in various forms ever since.

“What I loved about the She-Hulk character in the comics was that she was driven to become a lawyer by a passion to dispense justice and create a more equitable society, something we incorporated into the character in the show,” says co-executive producer Wendy Jacobson. “I was also intrigued by the character’s ability to change back and forth from Jennifer Walters to She-Hulk, as well as the struggles that a modern woman goes through on a day-to-day basis—trying to advance in her career while making time for friends, family and dating. A lot of the humor comes from these really grounded and relatable scenarios—like an obligatory family dinner.”

Head writer Jessica Gao was eager to explore the humorous side of the She-Hulk presented in the comics. “I love that she’s funny,” says Gao. “I love that she breaks the fourth wall. I love that she’s super confident with a great attitude and, in later runs, has a realistic relationship to the idea of being a Super Hero. She has a sense of humor about her powers and has come to really appreciate the advantages. There’s an aspect of it that is very aspirational.”

For director Anu Valia, who helmed three episodes of the series, the depth of the character’s personality piqued her interest. “I’ve never seen a show about a Super Hero that shows so many shades,” says Valia. “Jen/She-Hulk is able to share her vulnerabilities, her disappointments and her fears. When I read the scripts and saw that they were making a modern legal comedy that’s really about a professional woman in her 30s navigating her professional career and personal life, I could completely connect and relate to it. I think it’s so special to show the intricacies of what she’s dealing with emotionally.”

About the USC Comedy Festival, Vol. 6

The 6th Edition of the USC Comedy Festival returns to campus in person this February to celebrate community and share laughter, while exploring the changing nature of comedy in contemporary society.

The festival kicks off with standup comics Niles Abston, Jena Friedman, Alyssa Limperis, Christina Catherine Martinez, and Moses Storm debating the topic: Does Comedy Have to be Funny? with Vulture Senior Editor Jesse David Fox. On Saturday, the Women of Cinematic Arts (WCA) return with the ever popular Women of Comedy panel, this year featuring two unique sessions - one featuring showrunners, writers and directors, including Debby Wolfe (Lopez vs. Lopez), Brittani Nichols (Abbott Elementary), and SCA Alumna Thembi Banks (Only Murders in the Building), and one highlighting on-screen performers, including Emily Hampshire (Schitt’s Creek), Lauren Ash (Superstore), and Andrea Savage (I’m Sorry, Veep). Saturday afternoon, Jesse David Fox will explore The Changing Flavor of Series Comedy with Showrunners Rachel Bloom (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend), Steve Levitan (Modern Family, Reboot), and Gina Yashere (Bob Hearts Abishola). The festival's Saturday night program will honor legendary comic actress and Emmy-winner Catherine O’Hara (SCTV, Beetlejuice, Home Alone, Waiting for Guffman, Schitt’s Creek), recipient of our 2023 Jack Oakie and Victoria Horne Oakie Masters of Comedy Award, in conversation with John Michael Higgins (Best in Show). Our final day will shine a spotlight on the 2023 Best Picture Nominated feature Triangle of Sadness with Best Director Nominee Ruben Östlund, followed by Marvel’s She-Hulk: Attorney at Law with Series Creator Jessica Gao, and conclude with An Evening with Billy Eichner, hosted by Emmy-winner Wayne Federman.

Visit the USC Comedy Festival, Vol. 6 Homepage: http://cinema.usc.edu/ComedyFestival
Follow the USC Comedy Festival, Vol. 6 on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/USCComedy
Follow the USC Comedy Festival, Vol. 6 on Instagram: @USCComedy
Follow the USC Comedy Festival, Vol. 6 on Twitter: @USCComedy

About USC Comedy at the School of Cinematic Arts

In 2010 USC became the first university in the nation to offer a program dedicated to training filmmakers in the art of comedy. USC Comedy at the School of Cinematic Arts offers instruction in the writing, directing, production as well as the history and theory of comedy. Students work with a distinguished, award-winning faculty of comedy professionals to discover and develop their comedic voices, while getting unrivaled access to the field through workshops, internships, demonstrations and screenings and festivals.

USC Comedy boasts an award-winning faculty that includes Jack Epps Jr. (The Secret of My Success, Legal Eagles, Top Gun), Barnet Kellman (Murphy Brown, Mad About You, George Lopez), David Isaacs (Cheers, Frasier, M*A*S*H*), Robert Townsend (Diary of A Single Mom, The Parent Hood), Rob Schiller (The King of Queens), Andy Cadiff (Last Man Standing, Spin City), Jay Kogen (The Simpsons, Frasier), Chris Guerrero (BuzzFeed, Super Deluxe), Dave Goetsch (The Big Bang Theory), F J Pratt (Sullivan & Son) and Tim Marx (Young Sheldon), to name just a few.
 
Our students benefit from the expertise and participation of SCA Comedy Alumni such as Jay Roach (Austin Powers, Meet the Parents), Tim Story (Barber Shop, Ride Along), Judd Apatow (Girls, Superbad, Knocked Up),  Paul Feig (Bridesmaids, Spy), Peter Segal (Tommy Boy, Get Smart), Gabe Sachs (Freaks and Geeks), Jason Reitman (Juno, Up in the Air), Nahnatchka Khan (Fresh Off The Boat), Prentice Penny (Insecure), Cathy Yuspa & Josh Goldsmith (What Women Want, King of Queens), Thembi Banks (Only Murders in the Building), Tracy Oliver (Girls Trip, First Wives Club), Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians), among many other luminaries and industry professionals.

For more information, visit: http://cinema.usc.edu/comedy

About USC Visions and Voices: The Arts and Humanities Initiative

Visions and Voices is a university-wide arts and humanities initiative that is unparalleled in higher education. The initiative was established by former USC President C. L. Max Nikias during his tenure as provost in order to fulfill the goals set forth in USC's strategic plan; to communicate USC's core values to students; and to affirm the human spirit. Emphasizing the university's commitment to interdisciplinary approaches, the initiative features a spectacular array of events conceived and organized by faculty and schools throughout the university. The series includes theatrical productions, music and dance performances, conferences, lectures, film screenings and many other special events both on and off campus. Each program invites students to dialogue and interact with artists, writers, professors and special guests. These interactions provide a dynamic experience of the arts and humanities and encourage active exploration of USC's core values, including freedom of inquiry and expression, team spirit, appreciation of diversity, commitment to serving one's community, entrepreneurial spirit, informed risk-taking, ethical conduct and the search for truth.

Visit the Official Visions and Voices Website: https://visionsandvoices.usc.edu/
Follow Visions and Voices on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VisionsAndVoices
Follow Visions and Voices on YouTube: @uscvisionsandvoices7970
Follow Visions and Voices on Instagram: @USCVandV
Follow Visions and Voices on Twitter: @USCVandV
Follow Visions and Voices on TikTok: @USCVandV

#visionsandvoices

Contact Information

Name: Alessandro Ago
Email: aago@cinema.usc.edu