"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Tuesday, April 23, 2019

The Handmaid’s Tale (2017-Present)


I heard about/was interested in this show back when it first came out, but I was hampered by the fact that I didn’t have Hulu.  Fortunately, I discovered this past year that Netflix had the first season available on DVD, so I was able to make a start.  Of course, once I did that, I wasn’t about to stop when Hulu had the next season just sitting there.  In short, one subscription later, I got caught up on the series.

Based on the Margaret Atwood story of the same name, The Handmaid’s Tale brings us to the young dystopian nation of Gilead.  After the U.S. government was overthrown by a radical theocracy, the country’s new leaders established a social order based on strict religious adherence, constant surveillance and threats of violence, and the oppression of women.  A severe fertility crisis is used to justify the creation of Handmaids, a class of “fallen” women assigned to the households of prominent Gilead Commanders to conceive/bear children “for” them and their wives.  Our story follows June, known in Gilead as Offred (literally “of-Fred,” the name of her Commander,) as she struggles to survive life as a Handmaid.

Needless to say, this is a tense, disturbing series to watch.  It’s filled with ritualized rape, state-sanctioned executions and torture (Gilead picks and chooses which parts of the Bible to use, and they’re big on “if thy right eye offends thee, pluck it out,”) and almost total loss of personal and bodily autonomy for the Handmaids.  When one of them gets pregnant, it’s beyond creepy to see how they’re literally treated as a “vessel” for the “pregnancy” of the Comannder’s Wife.  The monthly “ceremony” of the Commander raping the Handmaid while his Wife holds her down is horrifying.  And the Handmaids’ lives are filled with rules they must follow, laws for how they’re able to interact, and all manner of violence, dehumanization, and indignity visited upon them.

And while the Handmaids definitely have it the worst, all women are varying levels of oppressed.  Commanders’ Wives have the most relative power/privilege, but they’re still prohibited from reading and working, and their husbands are the undisputed rulers of the household.  Meanwhile, everyone runs the risk of being informed on for their “sins,” and everyone’s lives are meant to be austere and pious.  This is a grim, brutal world to live in and an incredibly-tense show to watch.

For me, one of the most captivating things about it is how new this dystopian society is.  I’m used to stories about people who’ve been oppressed for a hundred years or more, where things are so firmly established that no one remembers life as anything else.  But Gilead is less than five years old.  The Handmaids’ proscribed outfits are puritanical in appearance, but in flashbacks, these women wore tanktops and used Uber.  Although their lives before the rise of Gilead weren’t exactly like ours – we see the effects of the fertility crisis in different ways, and there are signs of the coming changes – there’s very little distance between the two.  It both demonstrates how radically life has changed for them (five years ago, June was working as an editor, and now they could cut her finger off if she’s caught reading) and resonates closely enough with real life that it’s more difficult to say “it couldn’t happen here.”

Strong acting all around.  Elisabeth Moss leads the show as June, managing the tricky balance of portraying June’s outward show of submission and obedience while still giving us June’s inward revulsion/horror/rebellion.  Samira Wiley, who I adored as Poussey on Orange is the New Black, plays June’s best friend Moira, and Alexis Bledel (Rory Gilmore!) bowls me over as fellow Handmaid Emily.  Other notable performances include Yvonne Strahovski as Serena, the Wife of June’s Commander, Ann Dowd as “Aunt” Lydia (in charge of training/overseeing Handmaids and seriously twisted,) and Madeline Brewer (another Orange is the New Black alum) as a Handmaid named Janine.

Warnings

Lots of violence (including rape, murder, and torture,) sexual content, language (including sexist and homophobic slurs,) drinking/smoking/drug use, disturbing images, and strong thematic elements (including suicide.)

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