Ahem…
I’ve read Atwood’s harrowing but excellent book, and seen the abysmal 90’s film version; but I cannot yet bring myself to watch this series for the same exact reason that I couldn’t watch Pursuit of Happyness when it first came out; the subject matter hits far too close to home for comfort.
I had just moved out the Bay area with my own young child, and our living circumstances were looking uncertain for a hot second there, so there was no way in hell that I could watch a film about a single parent who ends up homeless as any kind of entertainment.
In that same vein, I cannot watch the Handmaid’s Tale at this point in my journey.
Because as far fetched as it may seem to certain people of privilege, the premise of women in this country losing all agency as independent human beings isn’t as wildly implausible as some would like to think.
And it wouldn’t necessarily take a catastrophe of ‘extinction level event’ magnitude for that twisted excuse for a society to come into full fruition.
If nothing else, recent sociopolitical events show that all our laws, traditions and moral standards are pretty much meaningless if they are not upheld and enforced.
While it’s true that ‘nothing happens overnight,’ the attempts control and subjugate women and minorities have been going on for a long time, and images like this serve as a stark and sobering reminder that the truth is often stranger than fiction, and twice and as freakin’ scary:
Again, that’s weapons grade toxic masculinity at work there, and it’s a real, legitimate threat.
All that said, it would be nice if just once, we could have some meaningful dialog about this particular dire aspect of our reality without any tone deaf mansplaining going on, from anyone.
But that’s just too much like “right”; I guess.
