By David Futrelle
Funny or Die pretty much nails it with this video, which is even better if you’ve been watching the real Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu.
Admittedly, I say that after only having watched the first episode of the show. See, the thing is, it’s extremely well done, much better than the movie version. But that also means it’s so chilling it’s hard for me to watch. (And I’m someone who regularly watches horror movies and Lars Von Trier.) Anyone else having the same reaction to the show? Or a very different one?
H/T — Thanks to the person who alerted me to the Funny or Die video though I can’t find the tweet (I think) in which they did it.
In Gilead, I would be an Unwoman for sure, since I’ve had my tubes tied, am unmarried, and nearing the age when, as far as breeding goes, I’d be considered as good as dead.
In real life (thankfully!), I’m snurking at this parody and thinking that Roosh V must be soiling his unwashed pants over and over again, like Ted Nugent trying to avoid the draft, when he sees his website so unflatteringly yet perfectly mentioned.
(And also giving thanks that the Religious Reich is too disorganized in real life to actually get something like this going on. And mercifully hindered by scandals in Drumpfolandia, too.)
I have yet to see the Hulu series (the perils of my only Internet access -the one I pay for, that is – being a small iPhone 🙁 ), but I may have to look this one up. It sounds like it may have corrected the massive (to me, anyway) flaws the book had.
(I understand the point Atwood was making, and agree with it, but there were still some parts of it that made me go “uuuuuuunh…no” while reading it.)
What were those flaws, Redsilkphoenix? I read the book in about 1995. The show’s pretty good tv. Like some others, I’m not sure about the casting decisions re Serena Joy and the Commander, but the acting is good, particularly in the case of Joy’s actor.
I guess all trans folk would be hanged or sent to work with the toxic waste.
We get part 4 tonight on Channel 4 at 9pm. I am actually enjoying it, if that’s the correct word. I think it’s a good update on the book, and it’s clever to show the things which happened to June which led up to it.
I found that the series has less Atwood-ishness layered dry humour than the book, although that’s not a bad thing. In the book the humour acts to distract you from the horror of the world and keep you focused on the characters; the series abandons that to go full-tilt into a horror world.
BELOW HERE BE SPOILERS. YE BE WARNED.
I disliked the way that they presented Canada and Mexico in the series.
The Mexican ambassador scene came close to ruining it for me, since it came close to presenting an in-world reason why forced birtherism is objectively the correct thing for even non-hostile societies to follow.
As for Canada, I realise that Atwood’s going to rep for her home nation and that Canadians are traditionally very welcoming to newcomers, but as someone who’s volunteered with refugees, I feel that the portrayal was a whitewash. “Being a refugee is great, as people will go out of their way to give you everything you need, in spacious uncrowded buildings, and nobody will hurl abuse at you” is a narrative that feels less plausible than anything else depicted in the series thus far.
@EJ
Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh……………. I don’t think I could really say that with any meaningful confidence. One of my bugaboos is national myths obscuring real problems and “Canada the Good” can be invoked a little too freely in papering over issues our society needs to sort out.
We’re better than most. We’re not going to give newcomers immediate upturned noses and side-eyes, but we’re also going to subject them to a lot more subtle stresses that come kinda hand-in-hand with being a country built on (for all intents and purposes) fealty-to-the-Crown Orange Order Toryism. There’s a lingering white supremacy streak we still haven’t entirely wiped away yet, judging by the way we treat or aboriginal population. We still interned the Japanese. We still put the Head Tax on Chinese workers. We still had the Residential Schools. Those ghosts can’t be exorcised, they’re going to haunt us. And frankly, they should.