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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