Best Album from Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale from the mixtapes the story is supposedly reconstructed from according to the Historical Notes in the back

Always loved those. And the answer is the third, obv.

I'm unclear if "Twisted Sisters" means Dee Snider or the Aline Kominsky-Crumb comics group, or some bizarre dystopian supergroup featuring both.

Folk Songs of Lithuania ftw.

Intriguing review from the NYT.

Folk Songs of Lithuania ftw.

I did an independent study unit on this book in Grade 11 but I have zero memory of the reference to these albums.

Offred is a captive. Nevertheless, she persists.

jfc

First episode was fine, but I'm maybe a bit let down that the show is such a literal adaptation of the novel. Like, given the series format, why not tell the whole thing chronologically, rather than the constant back and forth of flashbacks? This structure worked in the novel, but a series has the breathing room to flesh out aspects of the novel that were only glimpsed in passing. Did they think the takeover of America and her and Luke's attempts to escape the country with their child wouldn't be suspenseful enough? Doing this would also delay the eventual problem of how to expand the story beyond the novel, which will likely be an issue in the future, given that the series seems to be a hit.

Also, putting the novel's (arguably) two most horrifying moments--one of which occurs very late in the novel--in the first episode is odd, unless the rationale is that they are really trying to hook people.

it's not such a literal adaptation; it's widely expanded, there are many things that have happened so far that, as far as I remember, never happened in the novel.

I think it's been very good so far though I disliked the end of the 4th episode with all of them walking stridently in slow motion, it was too...something

also, allegedly this is going to be expanded out from the novel and will span multiple seasons. kind of hoping it doesn't take us into a revolution and turn into an action series.

I'm caught up now, and I'm becoming more interested the more I see what they are doing within the spaces of the novel that allow for deviation/elaboration. The evocation of one hot-button feminist issue, not included in the novel, at the end the third episode (trying to spoiler guard here) was...nervy, to say the least. Some of the musical cues ("You Don't Own Me," "Don't You Forget About Me") are too on the nose, and I wish that the whole thing didn't have that ugly, murky look (mostly in the interior shots, of which there are many) which is typical of a lot of film/television these days, but I'm compelled enough to keep watching.

Episode 3 just destroyed me. Between the offglen/emily storyline and the sudden changes in society that brought about Gilead, i needed to go for a walk after watching.

Does Atwood have much, or any involvement in the show? Cause doing multiple seasons in, hem hem, the 'Handmaid universe' sounds like it could devolve real quick into bad fan-fiction. Although that might not necessarily be avoided even if Atwood is involved.

wat if o'brien from 1983 come to Handmaids tale but help rebels cos Oceania at war with Gilead now

John, the 'savage' from Brave new world come to Gilead but he likes it and is bad now

This is very nice to look at but the logistic problems that plague dystopic fiction are made even more explicit in this show and as such I'm finding it very hard to stick with.

how do you mean? (haven't seen the show)

Dystopia generally relies on a change of state - war, plague, etc to create a weakened mindset that gives in to fascism/some-other-ism and allows everything to change in relatively short order and is normally told a couple of generations down so the revolutionaries against the state only know the dystopia and are searching for something new.

The Handmaid's Tale is literally immediately after the takeover, explicitly shown as three years, and yet nigh on everyone has already accepted the new state of affairs with a light shrug. Gilead appear to have already taken over the Government before they take over the government (the restriction on women working, sequestering of their assets etc is all very realistic, however, it's all just accepted by everyone which must mean Gilead are already in control and exerting martial law), so why the sudden sea change to the Handmaid state?

The sterility stuff makes no sense either. Offred is explicitly chosen to be a Handmaid because as a mother they know she's fertile, yet other Handmaids are lesbians and (presumably) haven't raised the same burden of proof. I get that this is supposed to be a subjugation thing (althoug hwhy subjugate a willing and accepting victim?) but Offred is raising suspicion and is punished by the Aunt because the Commander can't get her pregnant so why isn't this a common theme? And why would you as an Aunt/Wife introduce that risk to your house, since we're shown it's them that make the choice? Also in the show (I can't remember if it's in the book) Mexico is suffering the same sterility problems which Gilead/America alone can save them from. Why do they believe they don't have fertile women too and/or why is America alone immune? Also is Canada similarly affected and just dgaf?

goddamnit why did you point all that out, now it's going to bug me

(the main one being: we did see that they took over the government by killing congress and taking the WH; but yes, you did see in an earlier scene that they restricted women's bank accounts. did tha thappen before or after congress was killed? because I'd think that killing congress...people would have been a little more freaked out)

lol congress, more clowns than the circus amirite

heres something we can all agree on

Restricting women's bank accounts was after banning them from work, and there was a small hint at elevated police state at that point from which I think you're supposed to infer they were already in charge.

This is probably challopish, but. The global infertility epidemic is essential to the plot of the book, movie, and series. Without widespread infertility there would be no need for the handmaid system.

Gilead without a fertility crisis would still be an oppressive theocracy, and noncomforming women's lives would certainly suck (as would the lives of nonconforming men). But if the wives of the Elect could have had their own! babies, then they would have simply done so, and you'd basically have a continent-sized Utah on Steroids.

When people say that contemporary American conservatives are treating THT as a handbook rather than a dystopian cautionary tale, they omit this key wrinkle. I'm sure some conservatives harbor lots of desire to implement Gileadean policies. But without infertility, Jeff Sessions wouldn't necessarily be issued an Ofjeff.

I agree with you but that undermines the use of people who haven't been proven as fertile as Handmaids. And while America could uniquely have all the fertile women left in the world because plot reasons, the apparent fact that Mexico will set up an illegal skin trade because of it but Canada dgaf is just weird.

These are a lot of presumptions to undermine the plausibility of what remains a sci-fi show, Aldo. The lesbian character might just have had a child by being pregnant. The Canadian governement might to be still too practice trade slavery.

There is definitively no 'light shrug' as we are seen characters trying to escape (Moira), show immense pain (June), others thrown into the abyss of mental ilness (Janine), suicide (previous Offred), and some even rebelling (Ofglen).

Better just to link the horrors of Gilead to horrors of the past and present, and ideologies of some politicians.

One lesbian could have had the kid, but not both (as happened).

I think my point on Canada isn't that they're not practicing slavery, more that after 3 years with no kids they're going "pff no biggie". Genuinely Mexico are the only country asking questions about whether Gilead can help them?

5 counter examples (or even 5%) out of half the population counts as a light shrug in my book when it comes to an overnight conversion to farming women.

aldo otm Atwood drives me up the wall - a shitty writer imo, given a pass because of her provocations but is ultimately surpassed in the exploration of her themes by other, better, lesser known (at least in mainstream lit) "genre" writers (Tiptree, Butler, LeGuin, Russ etc.)

That is about 80% of the characters we see on screen. If you really just get the sense from that show that the light shrug is the de facto behaviour from woman, and not some way to pretend to the men in power that things are okay because any act of rebellion is met with hanging (or bullets, in the case of the protest), then there is something you don't get about how cinematic language works or maybe you underrate how dictatorships can happen so quickly? I doubt the east germans met their fate with a light shrug.

and artificial insemination is a thing. Ofglen can get pregnant.

'ha if only, if only women had rebelled earlier, not just met their fate with a light shrug maybe they wouldn't have been the victims of abusive patriarchy for more than 3000 years'

I completely get how cinematic language works, that it doesn't have to make sense in the real world but equally that doesn't make it immune to people pointing out that it doesn't. (And this is my bigger point about dystopic fiction I suppose, that the world building often doesn't stand up when you pull back from the narrow focus of the protagonists.)

I think we see more Handmaids than you think. There's at least 100 of them in the crowd that kick that one to death, for example. I wasn't suggesting these 5 are the only ones (and I completely accept many are internalising their pain) but the overwhelming majority are at a minimum accepting what's happening and at worst gleefully complicit.

Don't understand what you mean by either your East German or your insemination references, not to mention your third strawman.

but the overwhelming majority are at a minimum accepting what's happening and at worst gleefully complicit.

that is one assumption i'm not ready to make.

how would this state even function if an overwhelming majority *weren't* complicit

and isn't that a recurring theme of dystopian fiction in general - societies' willful, even eager, participation in their own oppression

Then you're reading something into it which isn't on screen (although I accept the metatext is supposed to be "OBVIOUSLY everyone is against this because it's so OBVIOUSLY wrong, but then that also plays to the romantic " and of course we didn't go along with any of it" told by every survivor of a dictatorship ever, he says struggling to avoid Godwin's Law or similar). Xpost

I don't know, if my friends were hanged for being catholics
and a protest I participed was met with bullets raining down on me, if didn't have access to cash or any form of legal power, if state surveillance was widespread then I doesn't really matter if i were complicit or not. Personally, I know I would fall in line, like so many people have done in the past, I would accept that is what is happening because sometimes in life you really have no choice. The character of Offred express remorse at not seeing this happen earlier.
The quasi-absence of female solidarity is also important here, some people are eager to participate in this new republic because it gives them power.

And women have lived under abusive patriarchy for a very long time now, are they complicit or eager? Maybe I'm wrong, I am not a woman, but from I gathered the answer is no.

To quote myself from about 5 posts ago

the overwhelming majority are at a minimum accepting what's happening

or, as you put it, "accept that is what is happening"

at worst gleefully complicit

or, as you put it, "eager to participate in this new republic".

This show has really bad music (that Heart of Glass cover BARF) and the filters on the cam get real fuckin twizzy it looks like a goddamn Marilyn Manson video smh.

I don't care for series most of the time, but this one is ace.

Facebook acquaintance just yesterday attended the opening of a new restaurant called Twisted Sisters

Cause doing multiple seasons in, hem hem, the 'Handmaid universe' sounds like it could devolve real quick into bad fan-fiction.

it just occurred that mark's canada journey could be a backdoor pilot for fear the handmaid's tale

Restricting women's bank accounts was after banning them from work, and there was a small hint at elevated police state at that point

Bank and work things happened at the same time, and there was an explicit mention that they are under martial law.

One lesbian could have had the kid, but not both (as happened).

Ofglen said she had a wife but she escaped to canada? So, one fertile lesbian handmaid.

the overwhelming majority are at a minimum accepting what's happening and at worst gleefully complicit.

What I thought the first episode made chillingly clear was how easy it would be to force people into acceptance, for the fear that anyone you talk to might be gleefully complicit.

Haven't got to anything about Mexico yet but Canada, idk maybe there are some countries in the world that have managed to decide that even in the face of such a plague, brutal enslavement of half the population and slaughter of resistors is nagl.

the ending of ep 4 might have seemed a little less inappropriate if that penguin cafe orchestra track hadn't already been used in a fucking bank advert.

bank advert callback probably deliberate.

I'm another who doesn't think fertility crisis adds much- High status males impose sexual slavery on low status younger females in the name of religion, with co-operation/acquiescence of high status females. As Atwood has said, most of the stuff in HT is drawn from history- fertility crisis seems out of place here.

Book related query (rather than answering the thread title) but if I had a vague idea that I might read this ... is it one to make sure I've read before the end of the series or will it be just as good having watched the series?

I'm only up to ep7 but this thread hasn't been too spoilery yet. Can someone explain who is meant to believe that the system of ritual monthly rape of handmaids is supposed to produce babies? I was going along with the idea that it's all part of oppression of women etc but in the last ep or two it seems like Gilead genuinely WANT babies - as a symbol of something they can trade. So why this weird system where commanders, wives etc are ok with rape but only in a way that's almost guaranteed to minimise any chance of pregnancy? (I.e. just once a month, by someone whose fertility is totally unknown, no doctors etc)

*as a symbol of something they can trade, if nothing else

The ceremonies are meant to sync with the handmaidens *most* fertile period, from 5 to 0 days before ovulation.

yes, I know. But doing it once per month is not a good strategy for babbies even if you are Captain Fertile.

It also follows an annoying trend that goes back at least a decade of slow, “serious” covers of old pop songs on contemporary tv series. The ads for the Dynasty reboot feature a draggy cover of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” and I remember one of the teen shows from a few years back having a similar cover of OMD’s “If You Leave.” I suppose the “Mad World” cover from Donnie Darko is to blame.

makes the show absolutely unwatchable for me but i understand i am a fuckin weirdo

I suppose the “Mad World” cover from Donnie Darko is to blame.

oh yeah, this has ruined everything

judging from comments on here I think I'll avoid this like the plague. Also Moss being such a fucking vacuous scientologist puts me off watching anything with her in it now, yeah probably ridiculous - but it's the way I roll!

judging from comments on here I think I'll avoid this like the plague.

95% of it is excellent though

this is very good btw, despite stating the obvious

Also Moss being such a fucking vacuous scientologist puts me off watching anything with her in it now, yeah probably ridiculous - but it's the way I roll!

Your loss, pal. I hate Scientology as much as anyone but no way are her beliefs going to make me miss some of the greatest acting I've ever seen.

otm, also most scientologists are victims

lol! stop it! I'll take the loss, only a finite amount of shite one can watch in a lifetime!

this show is torture porn

Really wish there had been a proper thread started for the TV series, rather than we Moss fans having to use this stupid never-ending poll thread. Anyway, it's too late now.

I doubt the Commander will be killed in the blast but things are warming up nicely

this show is torture porn

I haven't watched beyond the first episode of Season 2 (even though it ended on an intriguing note) for this very reason. Now that the show is unmoored from the source material, I'm not sure I trust it.

this week’s episode has floored people and is getting some incredible reviews, but to me it felt like the torture porn was (repeatedly) contrived to elicit the most gut-wrenching reactions from viewers. especially that last big set piece in which the writers were so desperate to wring every last drop of pathos out of the scene that you could see them pulling the strings. apart from “some of these people are really bad” (especially in that earlier scene, yes you know the one) i don’t get exactly what narrative/character point they’re trying to make apart from staging some visceral theatre for its own sake.

the subtler aspects of this show continue to work really well though, like the unique complexity in the situation serena’s got herself into, and june’s incredible trump card which pretty much wouldn’t work the same way in any other story.

> this week’s episode

which episode? different countries are airing them at different times. uk channel 4 aired S02E05 Seeds last sunday...

sorry koogs, i meant date of very first broadcast, so s02e10 in the us and everywhere that fast tracks it (although i left out spoiler details for people/countries who are not on the same schedule)

Yes, I noticed, and appreciated that. And then wondered what you were talking about before realising it's probably not the one I saw.

I guess uk Netflix is probably on the same episode.

Will try and remember to check back in a month 8)

so it turns out the commander was nick all along, which is why you never saw them in the same room

i refuse to believe that car couldn't ram through the garage door.

"so it turns out the commander was nick all along, which is why you never saw them in the same room"

is that meant to be a joke?

I found it entirely believable that the car couldn't get through the door.

who do we think shot and nabbed nick and why, btw?

also nick's wife is annoying but her crying episode was some of the most realistic convincing crying I've ever seen an actor do.

let me tell you my nick impersonation: "mumble mumble mumble" *loom off-kilter in the frame while looking at the ground stoically*

i assumed the commander worked out nick was the father, after june told him the kid wasn’t his

well yes, but I don't know what you meant by "turns out the commander was nick all along"

also I don't think the commander had nick nabbed and shot.

well yes, but I don't know what you meant by "turns out the commander was nick all along"

that was a very bad joke about spoilers for uk viewers

I thought it was a good joke. I lolled at any rate.

The commander killing nick is intriguing but let’s remember Serena told him a while back the baby wasn’t his because he’s ‘not man enough’ to make babby.

Speaking of which, if all of the gilead men are sterile, why isn’t nick?

I thought it was a good joke. I lolled at any rate.

<3

The commander killing nick is intriguing but let’s remember Serena told him a while back the baby wasn’t his because he’s ‘not man enough’ to make babby.

completely forgot about this! there is so much going on in this show that it’s impossible to remember it all.

Another question I had last night: what happens when all the handmaids are too old to bear children? WhTs the plan in Gilead then? Are they prepping some of the children for future handmaid roles? Who knows

I thought it was interesting that the black dude was having a baby with his wife.

So clearly not all the men are sterile, just a lot of them, maybe most.

Another question I had last night: what happens when all the handmaids are too old to bear children?

this is covered really well in the book, iirc they become marthas

i know i’m harping on about the torture porn aspect, but it’s so magnified and so heavily played out that it’s completely taken me out of the show. i can’t see it for what it is any more, all i can see is the writers’ room trying its hardest to manufacture horrifying crescendos.

Yeah, I'm done with the show for that very reason.

A shame, as I just heard Bradley Whitford is joining the cast.

I dropped out after the first episode of season 2 cos of the torture stuff. Was wondering whether it'd be worth going back, but if that kept up then no chance.

it kept up. some of the set pieces just escalate the point that this is a terrible place with terrible people, like the way they found new and progressively more horrifying ways to stage rape scenes (not a spoiler for this show tbh).

bradley Whitford is a new kind of fucking horrible monster

or....maybe not. it's hard to tell yet.

being the architect of gilead's economy (?) puts him up there, but then every gilead architect/official is a horrible monster so

yeah I think the jury's still out on Lawrence, he could turn out to be some kind of heretic or even the covert leader of the resistance.

So it looks like I was kind of right about Lawrence. Incredible final episode.

i mean

also moss’s ~face acting~ is well beyond farcical at this point

i just, i don’t get that ending at all, i don’t get why anyone would choose to stay in THAT (avoiding spoilers here), apart from guaranteeing there’ll be a third series of this particular show and not, say, a thoughtful spinoff series set in canada

and even the notion that we’d ever feel even a tiny bit sorry for the woman who was heavily instrumental in the show’s most brutal and horrifying rape scene (which reminded me of those bits in downfall when hitler was being nice to his receptionist or whatever)

I have no problem with posting spoilers here. If you don't want to know what's happening you should avoid the thread until you've caught up. That's what I did in the Americans thread.

I think the idea is that she wants to stay behind to rescue her daughter.

exactly; in fact it would have been weird, really, for her to have left completely.

critical reactions to this finale seem really off the mark to me, saying it's left the series nowhere to go. if she'd escaped, that would have been true. there's certainly many places it can go.

think the ending made perfect sense. the first time she tried to leave, she hadn't seen her daughter except from a passing car, and Gilead was still fairly strong, so she probably felt like she had to accept starting over without her daughter.

now that Gilead's starting to crack (*26* commanders died, Canada expelled their diplomats, strict embargoes/sanctions), she's briefly reunited with her daughter Hannah, and she's formed much closer bonds with the Handmaids and knows them all by name, she's having a hard time saving herself and not staying behind to help everyone she loves in the fight against Gilead's government, now in a weakened state.

Her M.O. in almost the entirety of the last quarter of episodes is ensuring her daughter isn't born in a hostile, oppressive environment, and begging to see her first daughter. she's started to put her own needs aside and even smacked Commander Fred knowing that he could have her killed for it.

it isn't as if she's staying cos "ey, I kinda like it here now" or "boohoo Serena"....she's been through a lot with her fellow handmaids since the first escape attempt!

i agree that it makes sense that she would stay to try to rescue Hannah. I do think she can't really go back to the Waterfords' sans baby though, so might be interesting to see where she ends up - whether she'd go into hiding again or be sent to the colonies/some other horrible punishment.

Anyone still going with this? I'm halfway through season 4 and I don't think I can take another season of she gets captured, she escapes, she gets captured, she escaped, for ever and ever

A bit of discussion (not much) here:

Thread for discussion of the Hulu adaptation of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale

thanks! Thought I would've had it bookmarked but hadn't!

I see I commented there that I'd started S3 so I must have finished it, but no interest in S4 (because of what I thought of S3).