Hulk Smashed! The Rhetoric of Alcoholism in Television's Incredible Hulk

Hulk Smashed! The Rhetoric of Alcoholismin Television’s Incredible Hulk

JOSEPH F . BROWN

THE FIRST THING THAT A VIEWER NOTICES ABOUT THE 1978 SERIES

The Incredible Hulk is that for all of the spectacle that LouFerrigno’s Hulk brings to bear as he crashes through walls,

tosses cars, and growls angrily at the camera, it is the contemplativesadness of Bill Bixby’s David Banner that truly characterizes the show.Indeed, it is hard to imagine the show without conjuring up its haunt-ing piano melody, “The Lonely Man,” and the image of Banner hitch-hiking his way to the next episode. This atmosphere is engenderedeven as early as the show’s pilot episode. At its conclusion, Banner is aman who has lost everything: his wife, his profession, and his identity.While many viewers tuned in, no doubt, to enjoy the mayhem ofBanner’s inevitable “hulking-out,” so too did they watch Banner’salienated odyssey through the American landscape and his relentlessstruggle to control “the raging spirit that dwells within him.” Indeed,the atmosphere of alienation and sadness is so pervasive, closer studysuggests that while the Hulk is the stuff of fantasy, the burden thatthe Hulk symbolizes is much closer to reality.

In the opening minutes of the 1988 made-for-television movie,The Incredible Hulk Returns, Banner cryptically explains his afflictionas his “Mr. Hyde” from his “long period of self-destructive behavior”to his new love interest, Maggie. She wonders how Banner has con-trolled himself in the some two years that she has known him. “It’s alittle like AA,” Banner offers, “you get through one nightmare at atime.”

Banner’s analogy to Alcoholics Anonymous is significant because itis an overt example of a subtle affinity the show had with the rhetoric

The Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 44, No. 6, 2011© 2011, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

1171

of addiction and alcoholism since its inception. It is important toremember that the Hulk was invested in the literary tradition ofaddiction even from its beginning. The Incredible Hulk, the 1962comic created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, was heavily influenced byRobert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.Indeed, a central idea of the Hulk and of Stevenson’s text, the under-lying conflict of identity, derives directly from a shift in conceptionsof alcohol addiction throughout history. In addition, the show’s nar-rative format mirrors AA’s emphasis on what addiction scholars havetermed euphoric narration (Warhol 98). In other words, Hulk epi-sodes are like the first person narratives so characteristic of AA meet-ings because both the recovering alcoholic and David Banner sharethe belief that while they are talking about their burden in the con-text of a meeting or to a romantic interest, they cannot be indulgingit. Meanwhile, there are other correlations between addiction, alcohol-ism, and the Hulk. The show’s two-hour pilot and first two regularepisodes (“A Death in the Family” and “The Final Round”) all overtlydeal with illegal substances, substance abuse, or addiction. Addition-ally, whether in the comic, television series, or the two major films,the Hulk narrative has always relied on the introduction of a sub-stance, gamma radiation, to cause Banner’s transformation. As wewill see, this play on “substance” reflects a typical rhetorical move inthe alcoholism debate of the twentieth century. Ultimately, however,it is David Banner’s story that makes the most persuasive argument.With his vagabond lifestyle, his fugitive status, his uncertain iden-tity, and his somber alienation, Banner is coded as a recovering alco-holic. Each episode is built around the premise of Banner’s search fora cure, his excruciating attempts at control, and the spectacle thatensues when that control is lost.

If science fiction is, as Darko Suvin’s influential definitionsuggests, the literature of cognitive estrangement, then what TheIncredible Hulk offered its viewers was no less than the estrangementof the mundane facts of alcoholism among the elaborate erection ofan alternative world in which gamma radiation can turn a man into agiant green hulk. However, that thinking must coincide with theunderstanding that when those same viewers recognize some aspectsof their own world in the show, when cognition occurs (to utilizeSuvin’s terminology), the sadness and the burden of alcoholism arefelt unfettered by ideology or despairing personal experience and new

1172 Joseph F. Brown

possibilities can be imagined for recovery. After all, the Hulk is ahero and what the popular 1978 television show offered was a newway of thinking of the alcoholic, alcoholism, and the language weused that framed our conceptions of both.

The Hulk has had the good fortune of appearing in a variety ofdifferent forms and texts over the years. Beginning with the Marvelcomic in 1962 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the Hulk has appeared ina live-action television show, cartoon shows in 1966, 1982, and againin 1996, multiple made-for-television movies associated with theBixby/Ferrigno television show, a major motion picture in 2003directed by Ang Lee widely considered to be a bust, and another filmreleased in 2008 starring Edward Norton and Liv Tyler that saw sub-stantial box office success. The Hulk has never been known for play-ing well with others and the different texts within the franchise areno exception. To say that the relationship between the franchise’s twomost popular forms, the Hulk comic and television series, was and,for many fans of both, still is antagonistic is putting it lightly. Criti-cisms over changes that the show made to the Hulk mythologypersist even to the 2008 film. The two groups, it seems, cannotagree even on Banner’s name. While fans have suggested that thechange from Bruce (in the comic) to David (in the television series)was made because Kenneth Johnson, the show’s executive producer,thought the original name was not manly enough or because of adisdain for comic-bookish alliterating first names, the decision, laterconfirmed by the commentary on the first season release to DVD, wasmade out of a desire to put distance between the new television showand its comic book origins.1 Such a sentiment was echoed by BillBixby in numerous newspaper articles covering the show’s excellentratings in 1978. In one article, he offered that the show’s success wasdirectly related to how quickly the writers ran from the Hulk’s origi-nal concept. According to Bixby, the writers were trying to “make itas real as we can” (Weissman). “The more we stay with reality,”Bixby suggested, “the better the Hulk will be.”2 While all Hulkincarnations appear to participate in this dialogue with the languageof alcoholism and addiction, the television series has been chosen asthe focal point for this analysis for two primary reasons. Without adoubt, the television series has been the most popular text of theHulk franchise. Even the staunchest comic fans would concede thispoint. For example, Kit Kiefer, author of Marvel’s encyclopedia entry

Hulk Smashed 1173

for the Incredible Hulk, admits, “mention the Hulk in casual conver-sation and you hear, ‘Yeah, I used to watch that’- not, ‘Yeah, I usedto read that’” (14). In addition, Bixby’s observation that the Hulkwas a science fiction show heavily invested in reality speaks to someof the most interesting aspects of the show’s cultural power. Eachnew episode found David Banner entering people’s lives and makingthem better. Whether it was an extortion racket, a natural disaster,or drugs and violence smothering a community, Banner solved prob-lems with his mind or the Hulk’s fist. David Banner, then, was asuperhero who solved problems that people encountered every day. Itseems only fitting, then, that his affliction, rather than the fantasticstuff of comic books, was something similarly encountered in thedaily experiences of viewers.

The Incredible Hulk ran for four and a half seasons on CBS between1978 and 1982 and, at the height of its popularity, was television’shighest rated show in a successful Friday night slot that was followedby The Dukes of Hazzard and Dallas (Kiefer 96). “Our adult audienceis just as large as our children’s audience,” Bixby bragged, “the demo-graphics go all the way from five to ninety-five.” If the show was sucha pervasive cultural product, if the world did exist in the large greenshadow of the Hulk from 1978 to 1982, then what was the show’slevel of investment in and the effect of such a close affinity with thelanguage of alcoholism and addiction?

At the same time that the Hulk smashed through television setsacross the country, significant changes in American conceptions ofalcohol consumption and alcoholism were underway. Starting in1975, Americans saw the alcohol issue beginning to be politicized inways unparalleled since Repeal in 1933 (Roizen 70). Much of thisre-politicization had to do with a new, public health approach toalcoholism awareness and treatment, new epidemiological studiessuggesting new ideas about alcohol’s effects on the population, and asignificant cultural shift in behaviors of consumption. To understandhow The Incredible Hulk reflects and dramatizes these shifting notionsof alcohol consumption and alcoholism, some attention should begiven to how this period was distinguished from the one preceding it.

Perhaps it was the drawn-out debate over Repeal or the emergenceof political issues, such as the Great Depression and the rise offascism ultimately leading the nation into World War II that,according to Ron Roizen, pulled the public’s attention away from


what had been a politically divisive and virulent issue (61). The factremains that in the years following Repeal in 1933 until 1975, thealcohol issue was rendered nearly apolitical. Those interested in study-ing the problem took great pains to distance themselves from the“wet/dry” rhetoric that had so characterized the prohibition dialogue(62). It was during this era that the modern alcoholism movementwas born. Led by advocates such as Mrs. Marty Mann and theNational Committee for Education on Alcoholism (NCEA), propo-nents of this new alcoholism paradigm “suggested that alcoholism, notalcohol, was the nation’s most important alcohol problem and thatalcoholism was a disease requiring greatly expanded treatment andresearch efforts” (Roizen 61). The disease idea encouraged the destig-matization of the alcoholic and provided no small measure of legiti-macy for the alcohol beverage industry (64). After all, under this newparadigm, the alcohol beverage industry was responsible for alcohol-ism only as much as sugar was for the disease of diabetes (64). It is nowonder then that groups devoted to the study of alcoholism as a dis-ease, the Research Council on Problems of Alcohol (RCPA) for one,found significant financial support from the beverage industry (65).

It is best, according to Roizen, to think of the changes thatoccurred to the modern alcoholism movement as it entered the lastquarter of the twentieth century as a re-problematization of alcoholitself (69). The hallmark of this new approach is the intersection ofalcohol consumption and public health that characterized the 1970sand 1980s. It was in 1973 that Fetal Alcohol Syndrome was namedand eventually became a popular issue due in no small part to a NBCEvening News broadcast in the spring of 1977 (69). “The appearanceof new problem focuses,” suggests Roizen, “notably, those aimingpopular attention and opprobrium toward FAS, drunk driving,youthful drinking, and alcohol and violence—redirected the nation’sgaze away from the alcoholism movement’s focus on the alcoholic”(71). This new attention was encouraged in large part by new scien-tific studies that suggested different ways of thinking about the alco-hol issue.

Increased taxation of alcoholic beverages as a means of deterringaddiction has frequently been criticized as useless and unjust since,the thinking goes, the impact would only be felt by moderatedrinkers (72). That is to say, if addiction is irrational consumption,then no price can be too high for the heaviest drinkers. However, in

Hulk Smashed 1175

the mid-1970s, epidemiological studies on alcohol consumption sug-gested that the traditional thinking (that most problems associatedwith drinking were caused by the heaviest drinkers) was false.Indeed, what these studies uncovered was that “reported problemsamong the less-than-the-heaviest drinkers actually outnumberedthose of candidates for the alcoholism label” (73). One of the mostdramatic of these findings suggested that the most serious alcohol-related tragedies, such as car accidents, occurred more often amongnonalcoholic drinkers (that is, drinkers who did not fit the “alco-holic” label) (73). Ultimately, these studies provided evidence thatincreasing alcohol intake was associated with increasing levels of riskfor alcohol-related problems (73). “From the risk-factor vantagepoint,” Roizen writes, “any alcohol whatsoever poured into the flowof national consumption represented a step upward along one oranother risk curve for some drinker somewhere” (73). That was analarming message for a nation whose drinking habits were shifting.In a 1981 study, researchers found that drinking began to shift frombeing an occasional, public act to one incorporated into daily life athome (Blocker 235). While heavy drinking occasions were infre-quent, moderate but frequent consumption became a marker of afflu-ence and leisure (235).

Fueled by new scientific and cultural data, political participationconcerning the alcohol issue increased. Groups such as MADD(Mothers Against Drunk Driving), RID (Remove Intoxicated Driv-ers), and SADD (Students Against Drunk Driving) launched grass-roots campaigns in the late 1970s and early 1980s (70). Otherspromoted increased taxation, reduced alcohol advertising, and mon-itoring of the beverage industry (70). Financial support, some inthe form of philanthropic foundations such as the Pew CharitableTrusts, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and the Rockefeller FamilyFoundation, began flowing again to new temperance groups (70).Finally, as a testament to the perceived heightened politicization ofthe issue, beverage industry organizations, such as Distilled SpiritsCouncil of the United States (DISCUS), the Beer Institute, and theCalifornia Wine Institute, began to appear in an effort to counteralcohol-control measures (71). Many of these groups have todaydeveloped into full-fledged congressional lobbying organizations.

What is clear is that The Incredible Hulk aired during a period ofincreased political activity in the alcoholism debate and, specifically,


during a period in which alcoholism was primarily a public healthconcern, born out of new scientific and medical data, that caused arethinking of the established categories of addicts, victims, and recov-ery. How the Incredible Hulk participates in the discussion at thisinteresting historical moment, how it renders these differing, perhapscontradictory, conceptions of alcoholism, and how it maps the Hulk’stradition of alienation onto a new conception of the addict as super-hero, are the focus of the next section of this article.

Many scholars have noted the inherent difficulty in discussingalcoholism. As was seen earlier, consensus evades even a fundamentalunderstanding of the addiction, its causes, and, certainly, anyattempt at describing treatment. In addition, some scholars havenoted a linguistic and rhetorical difficulty arising from this funda-mental misunderstanding of alcoholism. William White, for exam-ple, refers to the difficulty scholars and medical professionals havehad historically in even naming the addiction. Providing such exam-ples as dipsomania (taken from the Greek meaning “thirst frenzy”),inebriety, and barrel fever, White emphasizes the role of languagein the struggle scholars and medical professionals have had insearching for an appropriate diagnostic term (35). Citing economic,social, and political concerns within and outside of the medical com-munity, White aptly highlights the discriminatory nature of lan-guage in the promotion of some terms over others. For example,White notes that the social and political utility in relegating theaddict to “other” status through the use of we/they rhetoric (47) or,in another example, the use of a diagnostically broad term by medi-cal professionals in order to satisfy the economic obligations theirfield demands (53), ultimately suggest that treatment and recoveryopportunities “will continue to be plagued by the many uses suchlanguage must serve” (55).

A similar point is made by Robin Warhol, who argues that theshifting conceptions of alcoholism engendered a slippage betweendisease and self in alcoholism rhetoric that, in turn, gets rendered inAA narratives. According to Warhol, the introduction of the temper-ance movement brought with it an emphasis on psychoanalysis and thedictum that alcohol and drug addictions were the result of “symptomsof underlying conflict” in the alcoholic’s personality (100). In thisunderstanding, alcoholism was thought to result from the alcoholic’sdesire to “self-medicate” for psychological problems at the root of their

Hulk Smashed 1177

condition (100). It is essential to understand, says Warhol, that whenAlcoholics Anonymous was founded in 1935, it was done so in “thecontext of a culture that insisted that drunkenness was the result of amoral failing or a psychological complex, or both, and that alcoholismis a behavior born of circumstances” (100). Simply put, AA attemptsto reconcile an understanding of alcoholism as a disease at the sametime that it proposes a recovery program that is invested in the beliefthat human behavior is alterable (100). Nowhere is this more evident,Warhol suggests, than in traditional AA narratives.

The most obvious place where this slippage gets rendered is in thedivergent narrative types so characteristic to the AA program. Thehallmark of any AA meeting is the telling of first-person accounts, or“drunkologues,” of drinking behavior (98). These accounts are mod-eled off of an AA master narrative based on the twelve-steps (forexample, they usually begin by illustrating the first step’s intonationto “admit we were powerless over alcohol—our lives had becomeunmanageable”) (98). However, these narratives are broken up intotwo differing types, euphoric and dysphoric, and diverge dependingon whether or not the narrative ends with the desired goal of seekinghelp (presumably through an AA meeting) and recovery (98). Eupho-ric accounts, naturally, are positivistic accounts in the sense that theyare told by recovering alcoholics relating their experiences in themeeting. They are fundamentally positive because the story, asWarhol puts it, “reaches closure in the fact that the person is not, atthe present moment, drinking, but rather is speaking of his or herrecovery at an AA meeting […]” (98). The repetitive nature of thesenarratives, simply hearing and telling them over and over again atmeetings, is considered by members to be essential to the AA processof recovery. Some recovering alcoholics reported, for example, attend-ing meetings daily and, in some cases, multiple times a day upon firstattending AA before they “felt safe enough to be somewhere besidesan AA meeting” (Wilcox 57). On the other hand, dysphoric narra-tives are distinguished primarily because they do not conclude withthe hope of recovery. They are generally told second-hand, usually asthird-person narratives about “alcoholics who ‘went-out’ of AA orwho ‘died of this disease’” (98).

In this way, The Incredible Hulk closely mirrors both the euphoricnarrative of recovery and the dysphoric narrative and thus, veryphysically renders the conceptual slippage between these historical


notions of alcoholism. In other words, it is significant that Banner’saffliction is rendered as both physiological (the gamma radiation thatcauses a “startling metamorphosis” in his cells) and as psychological(Banner’s attempts to avoid anger and its resulting effects). However,in terms of the show’s rhetoric, the show’s opening narration mirrorsthe kind of account one might expect to hear in an AA meeting. Atthe beginning of almost every episode, the opening narrationexplained Banner’s history, his affliction, and, most importantly, toldof his quest for a cure:

Doctor David Banner, physician, scientist. Searching for a way totap into the hidden strengths that all humans have. Then, an acci-dental overdose of gamma radiation alters his body chemistry. Andnow, when David Banner grows angry or outraged, a startlingmetamorphosis occurs. The creature is driven by rage and pursuedby an investigative reporter. The creature is wanted for a murderhe didn’t commit. David Banner is believed to be dead. And hemust let the world believe that he is dead until he can find a wayto control the raging spirit that dwells within him.

The narration could be considered euphoric because the emphasisis on recovery. Banner’s journey, the audience is told, is to find a cureor some method of control. The recovery narrative is underlined bythe fact that every episode begins with Banner in a new city preciselybecause he is tracking down some doctor who might help or somenew technology which might cure him.

On the other hand, the narrative could be considered dysphoricbecause neither Banner nor the Hulk tells his own tale. Instead, itfalls directly into the mold of the second hand story, the dysphoric,indeed polemical, narrative of the soul to be pitied. Such an observa-tion is reinforced by the fact that every episode is characterized bythe spectacle of Banner’s inevitable relapse: his transformation intothe Hulk. Therefore, the introduction renders the slippage betweenthese two rhetorics of alcoholism by suggesting that David bothattempts the process of recovery and fails spectacularly because ofsome innate reason.

In addition, the introduction especially mirrors an AA account inthe way that it makes Banner’s affliction part of his identity. If everyAA account begins with something similar to, “Hi, my name is Bill,and I’m an alcoholic,” then Banner’s account similarly begins by

Hulk Smashed 1179

matching the identity of Banner to the Hulk. This fact is especiallyemphasized by the introduction’s famous final split-screen image ofBill Bixby’s face matched to Lou Ferrigno’s.

Identity is precisely what is at stake in the dysphoric narrative.Other scholars have noted the frequency with which some alcoholismrhetoric has attempted to deny the alcoholic identity and agency. Forexample, White notes that one of the unfortunate functions of alco-holism rhetoric works to transform “one’s contact with an addictfrom an ‘I-Thou’ relationship to an ‘I-It’ relationship” (48). In addi-tion, in her study of Victorian narratives of alcoholism, Warhol foundthat protagonists of dysphoric stories, especially minor characters,“are usually granted no subjectivity” (101). “That is,” Warhol writes,“they are described from the point of view of other characters or of anarrator, but they do not give voice to their own condition, either indialogue or in narrative passages focalized through their perspective”(101). In addition, those characters, Warhol found, are frequentlydehumanized to the point of being referred to in the text as an“it”(102). For example, Warhol points out that Mrs. Blackpool inCharles Dickens’s Hard Times devolves from being described generallyas “woman” to eventually being called “creature” (103). What thisdoes to the figure at the center of the dysphoric narrative, accordingto Warhol, “is make them objects for the reader” (104). They becomea spectacle and a lesson to the recovering alcoholic hearing the tale.

What is the Hulk if not the dehumanized version of DavidBanner? Wild behavior, torn clothes, and intense growling was whattelevision audiences came to expect from the Hulk. Not once in theshow’s four seasons did Lou Ferrigno’s Hulk speak.3 The Hulk’ssilence in the television series is especially interesting given the factthat the Hulk speaks from the very first issue of the comic. The Hulkof the comic book is much more antagonistic to his human counter-parts and, indeed, his human identity. In one of the Hulk’s earliestappearances, Rick Jones hands the Hulk a picture of himself as BruceBanner. The Hulk recoils from the portrait: “It is weak—soft! I hateit!” (Lee 10) and, in an earlier panel, asks, “Why should I want to behuman?!” (9). Such an image does not fit the atmosphere of recoverythat characterizes the television series and that difference is emblem-atic of the slippage characteristic to alcoholism rhetoric. The earlyHulk’s explicit disavowal of his humanity and his criticism of otherhumans emphasizes a greater distinction between the identities of


Banner and the Hulk. Simply put, it is easier to think of them astwo separate people. When that happens, the identity model that AAsuggests collapses. Being the Hulk is just something that happens toBanner. This would explain why in those early comics, Banner’stransformation into the Hulk only occurs at night and is not contin-gent on his behavior (as it is in the later comics, television series, andfilms). The comic Hulk retains his subjectivity, erecting in competi-tion with his identity as Bruce Banner an entirely new, antagonisticand destructive identity.

However, the television show portrays this dehumanization whileat the same time blurring the line between Banner and the Hulk andwithholding subjectivity from Ferrigno’s Hulk. The Hulk is so muchof a part of Banner’s identity that the audience has trouble knowingwhere Banner’s identity ends and the Hulk’s begins. Such an overlapis especially clear in two early episodes that question whether or notthe Hulk has committed murder. In both episodes, the series pilotand “Of Guilt, Models and Murder” the same reasoning is offered.An early scene from the pilot in which Dr. Elaina Marks tells Davidthat because he will not commit murder the creature will not, is usedto lay down the limits of the Hulk’s behavior and bind his actions toDavid’s. If the creature cannot commit murder because Banner willnot, such a strong statement about interdependence between theseidentities matches the lack of subjectivity inherent in the traditionalAA dysphoric narrative.

At this point, it should be unsurprising that the Incredible Hulkshares a great deal with its literary predecessor and, according to StanLee, its model: Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekylland Mr. Hyde. In fact, in his study of addiction in Stevenson’s work,Daniel Wright addresses this very same issue with identity andaddiction. Wright sees previous scholarship’s emphasis on divided or“split” personality in Stevenson’s work as a diversion from the narra-tive’s much stronger emphasis on addiction (254). A reading thatprivileges an understanding of Jekyll and Hyde as split personalitycannot work specifically because, Wright explains, “Hyde is not otherthan Jekyll; he is Jekyll” (255). Indeed, this misreading, Wright sug-gests, is indebted to the rhetoric of denial, which allows for theaddict to erect a psychological framework that “the addict indulgesin the attempt to excuse his addiction or mistakenly regard himselfas one who is not addicted” (255). In such a view, it is clear that the

Hulk Smashed 1181

show posits Banner as an addict and not as a sufferer of split personal-ities. Simply put, Banner is the Hulk and any attempt to separate thetwo identities would engage in the rhetoric of denial because itwould excuse Banner from responsibility. Banner does not seem toshy away from his responsibility for the Hulk. Indeed, part of thesadness that characterizes Bixby’s Banner is the sense of guilt his per-formance conveys. The point only becomes clearer when Banner iscompared to Jekyll, who, in the fashion of classic denial and the illu-sion of self-control, insists to Utterson that “the moment I choose, Ican be rid of Mr. Hyde” (Stevenson 270). Banner makes no suchclaims and recognizes, if anything, that he cannot control the Hulk.What explicating this connection emphasizes is that Banner is anaddict, like Jekyll, but an addict who is on his way to recovery. Afterall, Banner’s recognition that he has no control over the Hulk isstrikingly similar to AA’s first step.

There are, of course, other significant ways that the Incredible Hulkmirrors Stevenson’s work and its emphasis on addiction. In the courseof his argument, Wright references and applies the four step cycle ofthe addict’s pursuit of the intoxicated state— preoccupation, rituali-zation, compulsive behavior, and despair—to Jekyll’s behaviorthroughout the narrative (257). Whereas Jekyll’s tasking his butlerand Lanyon to find the needed chemicals for his transformation satis-fies the first step of the cycle, preoccupation, for Stevenson’s text, eachepisode of the Incredible Hulk finds Banner in a new town, new job,and new situation but with same sense of worry and inevitability.Indeed, almost every episode is constructed around the premise ofBanner searching for a new medical procedure or some brilliant doc-tor who can provide a cure (and one should feel free to substitute“fix” here). His actions mirror the addict’s in that he has devoted hisentire resources to the search.

Citing the kind of ritual of consumption that substance depen-dency necessitates, Jekyll’s establishment of a degree of drama aroundthe act of consuming his substance, Wright argues, illustrates Jekyll’sfulfillment of the second stage: ritualized behavior (257). Likewise,there is something almost contractual about the formulaic nature ofthe Hulk’s two appearances per episode. In fact, it is something of ajoke among the show’s fans that the show must have mandated atleast two “Hulk-outs” in each hour-long episode. In the show’s firsttwo seasons, after all, only the pilot strays from this formula.


This step leads naturally into the next, compulsive behavior, inwhich the addict actually consumes the substance and engages andrevels in the intended effect of the substance: the state of intoxication(258). For Jekyll, this is his transformation into Hyde. For Banner,this is the characteristic rampage that follows his transformation intothe Hulk. There is an important difference here. The Hulk is a super-hero and his transformation in the television series (and this is animportant distinction) usually meant that villains were punished,good prevailed, and victims were restored. The net effect of hishulking out was positive, as opposed to the child-mangling jaunts ofMr. Hyde. It is interesting that it was this spectacular moment inthe television show, so closely mirroring the addict’s triumph of con-sumption, that was heavily anticipated and even cheered by itsmostly young audience. In other words, the audience was supposed tofeel good about the Hulk, even if David Banner did not. This is thecrux of the final stage, despair, in which the addict experiencesexhaustion from his habit and often suffers remorse, shame, self-pity,and self-hatred (258). It is certainly the case that Bixby’s performanceprovides a somber counter-weight to the spectacle of the Hulk. Ban-ner’s post-Hulk guilt is a continuation of the responsibility he feelsfor the death of his colleague and friend, Dr. Elaina Marks. Her deathin the show’s pilot and his flight, although predicated on his possiblecriminal involvement with her death, falls in line with behavior typi-cal in this stage. Wright explains Jekyll’s behavior at one point dur-ing the narrative as the addict who seeks isolation and who is soovercome with “an aggravated sense of his unworthiness” that heabandons those familiar to him out of shame and seeks, on his own,“to restore himself to health and sanity” (260). Likewise, many havecompared The Incredible Hulk to the 1963 show The Fugitive for pre-cisely its reliance on a similar narrative structure. Like The Fugitive’sRichard Kimble, Banner’s alienation exists alongside his frequentinteraction with people from different walks of life and who, throughtheir involvement with Banner (and the Hulk), are usually left betteroff. In fact, there are a number of shows in the late 1970s and early1980s that operate on this same principle (The A-Team, to name one).The implication being, of course, that with each new experience,Banner moves closer to vindication, to righting that original wrongwhether it is something as concrete as the death of Dr. Marks or assymbolic as moving from addiction to recovery.

Hulk Smashed 1183

The Incredible Hulk’s relationship to the historical context of chang-ing perceptions of alcoholism in the late 1970s and early 1980s isnot meant to imply causality. However, it is clear that, by utilizingovert references to AA and alcoholism and subtle uses of rhetoricfamiliar to the cultural of addiction, the show participated in thelarger cultural discussion over the way alcoholics, especially those inrecovery, were perceived. Nowhere is this more evident than in theshow’s combination of the Hulk/Banner as addict (specifically alco-holic) and superhero. It is an established hallmark of the series, andperhaps the genre, that the Hulk’s superhero status is contingentupon how he improves the lives of those with whom he interacts. Itis especially appropriate that such improvement in a few overt casestakes the form of leading others on the path to recovery. This is thesituation in the second season episode “Alice in Discoland.”

The episode opens with Banner at work at a local disco, Pandemo-nium, cleaning tables. Having discovered that the disco makes itsmoney selling alcohol to minors, Banner intends to quit until he rec-ognizes, out on the dance floor, a young woman from his past. Alice,the flashback explains, is the daughter of a deceased friend and col-league and, as it turns out, is Banner’s god-child. Images of Bannerreading Lewis Carol’s Alice in Wonderland to the young girl, attendingher father’s funeral, and disagreeing with her mother over whethershe and Alice should move to Canada, establish both David’s close-ness to Alice and her family and the events that took them out of hislife. A phone call later and Banner discovers that Alice has been arunaway, on and off, since she was fourteen and that her mother,apparently preoccupied with wealth and travel, is unconcerned.Alice’s presence in the disco, it turns out, is the result of yet anotherslip. Watching her, however, Banner discovers that she is a dancer ofsome skill, having gained a reputation with her boyfriend, Louie, forbeing one of the best couples in town. Alice, Banner learns, is analcoholic to the point that it interferes with her ability to dance and,thus, her relationship with Louie. Banner, deciding to stay and helpAlice, first provides an anonymous tip to the alcohol control boardabout the underage drinking at the local disco. When the alcoholdries up, Alice finds herself going through a withdrawal that leads tostrange hallucinations and to the brink of a plunge from a billboardadvertisement (appropriately advertising scotch). Luckily, the Hulk isthere to smash through the billboard and carry her to safety. The next


morning Banner takes her to meet Joan Roberts, a social worker inthe city’s alcohol abuse program and, together, they attend an AAmeeting for teenagers. At first, Alice is characteristically reticent toadmit she has a problem. After hearing some of the narratives fromthe other teenagers and a startling personal anecdote from the socialworker about the physiological effects of underage drinking, Aliceadmits she has a problem (and thus satisfying the first and, somewould say the most important, of AA’s twelve steps). The rest of theepisode follows Alice’s struggle to remain sober, her and Louie’s suc-cessful performance at the big dance competition, and the Hulk’srather physical dismissal of the two bad guys who threatened Aliceand made their money selling to minors.

What should be clear immediately is how indebted the episode isto the public health approach to alcoholism characteristic of the1970s and early 1980s. The episode takes aim directly at underagedrinking, emphasizing the severe physiological damage alcohol canhave on the developing bodies of teenagers. This point is driven homewhen Roberts, the social worker, tells Banner, “healthy teenagers candestroy their bodies ten times faster than a skid-row bum.” Later, inthe course of the AA meeting that Alice attends, Roberts, who isclearly played by an actress in her late thirties or early forties, revealsthat she is twenty-five, citing the devastating effects of her decade-long addiction to alcohol as the reason for her haggard physicalappearance. Since serving alcohol to minors is illegal, there is nospace for arguing that it is the abuse of alcohol that causes such physi-ological damage and that drinking in moderation is somehow accept-able (the very rhetoric that was a hallmark of the modern alcoholismmovement). The episode, therefore, re-focuses the debate on alcohol(that is, drinking per se) and, thus, participates in the re-politiciza-tion of alcohol that characterized the debate in the late 1970s andearly 1980s.

While the references to alcoholism are overt in this episode, thereare some subtle keys that signal a different way of viewing Banner,the Hulk, and the alcoholic. As Alice has her breakthrough at theAA meeting, when she admits that she has a problem and seeks helpfor it, Banner, standing in the back of the room, clearly gets emo-tional. In fact, in a show characterized more by Banner’s rage, this isone of the few moments when he is seen crying. The scene is signifi-cant because Banner is coded, in typical AA tradition, as the

Hulk Smashed 1185

recovering alcoholic going about his “twelfth-step” work (that is, thestep in which AA members are tasked to help other alcoholics). Infact, Robin Room, in her study of the influence of alcoholism andAlcoholics Anonymous in post-World War II films determined that“the AA tradition of ‘drunks helping drunks’ is so intrinsic to anAA-oriented presentation of recovery from alcoholism, and yet so farfrom usual Hollywood plot conventions, that it can be used as a mar-ker of direct AA influence” (370). The appearance of this popular AAtrope not only suggests that Banner is a recovering alcoholic but italso makes Banner’s response to Alice’s statement, “David, you don’tunderstand, this is something in me I have to control by myself,”ring with an appropriate alternative meaning. Sitting across the table,with a bottle of scotch (given as a present from Louie) placed betweenthem, Banner’s eyes drift down to the bottle: “I do understand.”

What, then, is to be made of this overt coupling of alcoholism andsuperheroism? After all, the Hulk is a hero. Fans of the comic bookHulk will recognize that the Hulk traditionally was a major, if notthe main, character in Marvel’s universe of outsider, alienated, anti-hero superheroes. In fact, according to Bradford W. Wright, a 1965college poll conducted and published by Esquire magazine showedthat college student radicals ranked the Hulk alongside other revolu-tionary icons such as Bob Dylan and Che Guevara (223). However,whereas the comic Hulk’s main desire was to be left alone, illustratedby his self-induced isolation in the deserts of the American southwest(209), television’s Incredible Hulk shows Banner engaging with otherpeople (sometimes falling in love), becoming intertwined in theirlives and their problems, and helping them solve those problems oneway (Banner’s) or another (the Hulk’s). The difference is that theHulk has moved from alienation to interaction and interdependence.In the highlighted episode, for example, Banner/the Hulk is a super-hero only to the extent that he is willing to involve himself in Alice’slife and guide her on the path to recovery. Coming out of a traditionthat rejects the thinking of the alcoholic as victim or immoral degen-erate or both (as in previous movements), what the Incredible Hulkdid, as a product of its historical and cultural context, was to providean image of the recovering alcoholic whose identity and worth werenegotiated, not predetermined, and that such negotiation was contin-gent upon their willingness to get involved, get politically active,and get others on the path to recovery. It is telling, then, that very


little of “Alice in Discoland” has anything to do with Banner, hissearch, and his struggle.

In some ways, the Incredible Hulk in any form, has always been andstill promises to be foremost an interrogation of the culturally shift-ing conceptions of identity. Certainly, this could be said of Ang Lee’s2003 motion picture, Hulk, which was panned primarily because ofthe stifling seriousness with which it explored the question of Ban-ner’s identity and affliction. Even then, we find the same references toalcoholism and addiction confusing and interrupting Banner’s search:the characteristic pattern of domestic violence haunting Banner’schildhood, the reintroduction of Banner’s father, whose physicalappearance likens him to something off of skid-row,4 and Banner’sself-induced isolation as a means of controlling himself.

Alternately, in the 2008 remake starring Edward Norton and LivTyler, Norton’s Banner fiercely asserts, throughout the film, an evenclearer bifurcation between his identities as Hulk and Banner. ToNorton’s Banner, hulk-outs are black-outs and, throughout much ofthe film, this Banner denies any control over the Hulk: saying repeat-edly that the Hulk “is not me.” Yet, his assertion is difficult toresolve with Betty Ross’s (Tyler) experience with the Hulk at pointsin the film in which the Hulk appears to recognize her and even pro-tect her. In addition, Banner’s struggle should be placed within thecontext of the film’s conflict between Banner and Blonsky (Tim Roth)or, that is, the Hulk and the Abomination. After all, the pairing ofthe Hulk and the Abomination pits Banner against what is essen-tially a copycat nemesis. Here, however, Banner’s reluctance is con-trasted by Blonsky’s desire for a younger, stronger body as a means ofbecoming a better soldier. Unlike Banner, Blonsky does not care whathe was before or what the serum (the film’s change to the gammaradiation of the television series) will turn him into. As his rampagethrough New York City illustrates, Blonsky (now the Abomination)does not, like Banner, care about the destruction or death he causes.It is in this articulated difference between the two monsters that theHulk is considered a hero, even though, at times, he seems to causejust as much damage.

All of this plays out alongside some rather interesting references toalcoholism and drinking. Periodically during the film, the audience isupdated by a “Days Without Incident” graphic that, of course, isreminiscent of a recovering alcoholic’s tendency to count “days sober”

Hulk Smashed 1187

or “days without a drink.” When the film opens, the audience learnsthat Banner has been hiding in Brazil and working in, of all places, abottling plant. Finally, the film’s last scene takes place in a bar,where a dejected Thunderbolt Ross drowns his defeat in shots refilledas fast as he can yell, “RELOAD!” It is in this scene, of course, thatRobert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark, from the summer of 2008’s earlierbox office hit Iron Man, makes a cameo in order to recruit the Hulk(presumably via Ross) for S.H.I.E.L.D. (thus hinting at the Hulk’sreturn to the box office some time in the future).5 Such a subtext waseven registered by Roger Ebert, who suggested the Hulk is “as lim-ited as a bad drunk.” “He may be fun to be around when he’s sober,”offered Ebert, “but when he drinks too much, you just feel sorry forthe guy” (“The Incredible Hulk”).

According to an influential government study, about fourteen mil-lion Americans abuse or are dependent on alcohol each year.6 Whiletreatment methods are improving and roughly seven hundred thou-sand people receive treatment on any given day, many still find thepath to long-term recovery elusive. What texts like The IncredibleHulk (in all of its various forms) offer, is a way of truly understand-ing, outside of the barriers of ideology and shifting notions of addic-tion and treatment, the various challenges alcoholism poses to thoseafflicted and to culture at large. For the alcoholic and those theirstruggle affects, this better understanding comes with an optimismthat treatment and recovery are soon to follow. Like Banner, it seems,they are all hitchhiking down the road to recovery.

Notes

1. One particularly amusing attempt at having the last word on the name debate can be found

in Ang Lee’s 2003 film. After Nick Nolte’s character enters the plot, dispels the fake name,

Krenzler, that Bruce (Eric Bana) has been living under, and establishes that his last name is

Banner, Nolte drives the point home: “Your name, it’s Banner. Bruce Banner. Bruce.”

2. It is easy to imagine how off-putting such a statement might have been to fans of the origi-

nal concept. Kit Kiefer, for example, the author of Marvel Encyclopedia: The Incredible Hulk,

blames the television series for the poor comic book sales the Hulk suffered during the years

that the show aired, ultimately arguing that the show’s net effect on the Hulk franchise

“was a wash” (15). While the observation may be guilty of a post-hoc fallacy, it illustrates a

sentiment shared by hardcore Hulk comic book fans that a successful prime-time television

series was not necessarily good news for the Hulk.

3. It was a fact that Ferrigno, in an early interview, expressed some frustration over. “I really

think the Hulk should be speaking,” said Ferrigno, “[…]he’s starting to realize the


difference between crime and justice, good guys and bad guys […] I think it would be a big

thing if he could talk” (“Green Muscles!“).

4. Nolte’s coding in the film is accentuated by the strange extra-textual moment of Nick Nol-

te’s much publicized DWI arrest during filming of The Hulk.

5. It should be pointed out that a major part of the box office success enjoyed by Iron Man was

due, according to many film critics, to the performance given by Robert Downey Jr. and,

specifically, the subtext of excess, celebrity, and recovering alcoholism that his personal his-

tory brought to a character known in the comics for the same. The most recent example of

Tony Stark’s struggle with alcoholism, for example, can be found in Marvel’s 2006 Iron

Man: Demon in a Bottle.

6. The 1992 National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Survey (NLAES) and the National

Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) can be accessed easily

at http://niaaa.census.gov.

Works Cited

Alcoholics Anonymous. New York: A.A. World Services, 1976. Print.“Alice in Discoland.” The Incredible Hulk. Dir. Sigmund Neufeld Jr.

CBS. 3 Nov. 1978. Television.Blocker Jr., Jack S. “Kaleidoscope in Motion: Drinking in the United

States, 1400–2000.” Alcohol: A Social and Cultural History. Ed.Mack P. Holt. Oxford: Berg, 2006. 225–40. Print.

“A Death in the Family.” The Incredible Hulk. Dir. Alan Levi. CBS. 28Nov. 1977. Television.

Ebert, Roger. “The Incredible Hulk.” RogerEbert.Com. 12 Jun. 2008.Chicago Sun-Times. Web. 18 Jun. 2008.

“The Final Round.” The Incredible Hulk. Dir. Kenneth Gilbert. CBS.10 Mar. 1978. Television.

“Green Muscles!: Lou Ferrigno Tells All About His Strength, HisCareer, His Identity.” The Hulk #12. New York: Marvel ComicsGroup. Dec. 1978. 33–36. Print.

“Of Guilt, Models, and Murder.” The Incredible Hulk. Dir. Larry Stew-art. CBS. 24 Mar. 1978. Television.

The Incredible Hulk. Dir. Louis Leterrier. Marvel Studios, 2008. Film.“The Incredible Hulk.” The Incredible Hulk. Dir. Kenneth Johnson.

CBS. 7 Nov. 1977. Television.The Incredible Hulk Returns. Dir. Nicholas Corea. CBS. 22 May 1988.

Television.Kiefer, Kit. Marvel Encyclopedia: The Incredible Hulk. New York:

Marvel Publishing, 2003. Print.Lee, Stan. (w), Jack, Kirby (p), and Steve, Ditko (i). The Incredible

Hulk #2. (May 1962). Essential Incredible Hulk: Vol. 1. New York:Marvel Publishing, 2006. Print.

Hulk Smashed 1189

Roizen, Ron. “How Does the Nation’s ‘Alcohol Problem’ Changefrom Era to Era?: Stalking the Social Logic of Problem-DefinitionTransformations Since Repeal.” Altering American Consciousness:The History of Alcohol and Drug Use in the United States, 1800–2000. Eds. Sarah W. Tracy and Caroline Jean Acker. Amherst: Uof Massachusetts P, 2004. 61–87. Print.

Room, Robin. “Alcoholism and Alcoholics Anonymous in U.S.Films, 1945–1962: The Party Ends for the ‘Wet Generations’.”Journal of Studies on Alcohol 50.4 (1989): 368–82. Print.

Stevenson, Robert Louis. “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde.” The Complete Stories of Robert Louis Stevenson. Ed. BarryMenikoff. New York: Modern Library, 2002. 251–324. Print.

Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and Historyof a Literary Genre. New Haven: Yale UP, 1979. Print.

Warhol, Robyn R. “The Rhetoric of Addiction.” High Anxieties:Cultural Studies in Addiction. Eds. Janet Farrell Brodie and MarcRedfield. Berkeley: U of California P, 2002. 97–108. Print.

Weissman, Ginny. “The Hulk’s Ratings are Incredible.” ChicagoTribune [TV Weekly] 4 Jun. 1978, late ed.: 3. Print.

White, William L. “The Lessons of Language: Historical Perspectiveson the Rhetoric of Addiction.” Altering American Consciousness:The History of Alcohol and Drug Use in the United States, 1800–2000. Eds. Sarah W. Tracy and Caroline Jean Acker. Amherst: Uof Massachusetts P, 2004. 33–60. Print.

Wilcox, Danny M. Alcoholic Thinking: Language, Culture, and Belief inAlcoholics Anonymous. Westport: Praeger, 1998. Print.

Wright, Bradford W. Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of YouthCulture in America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2001. Print.

Wright, Daniel L. “‘The Prisonhouse of My Disposition’: A Study ofthe Psychology of Addiction in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” Studiesin the Novel 26.3(1994): 254–67. Print.

Joseph F. Brown is an assistant professor of English at Abraham BaldwinAgricultural College in Tifton, Georgia. With research interests in sciencefiction, southern literature, and Cold War culture, his published workhas appeared in Extrapolation, the Explicator, and the Journal of PopularCulture.


Documents

Hulk Smashed! The Rhetoric of Alcoholism in Television's Incredible Hulk