Margaret Atwood and "The Handmaid's Tale"

Holy smokes the show is sooooo good. Watched every episode twice already!

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Also I want to mention specifically that the protest scene in episode 4 was absolutely spine-chilling. If you’ve been there… I’m not gonna express this correctly. Disturbingly real.

I also find myself dwelling on the little beautiful moments of the show, particularly the instances of solidarity and empowerment. Those human, humane depictions make the otherwise unbearable bearable, while at the same time heightening the sense that the ideology which drives the Republic of Gilead is not fantasy, not one bit.

TLDR; I need to read the book, and honestly disappointed with myself over this fact.

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  1. Thank you for correcting my “your” – I may or may not have had wine whilst watching said show.

  2. Well, you’re welcome, but it’s very, very true and as @milliefink says, if only the MRAs would recognize this truth: Patriarchy hurts us all. In “The Handmaid’s Tale” we see the male commander desperately needing a personal, I might even say intellectual, connection in order to perform his sexual duties with his handmaid. If you’ll forgive me, I’ll get somewhat, um, technical. For women, it’s not necessary that they are aroused. For some, non-arousal is actually preferred, such as dry sex: 'Dry Sex' Is the African Sexual Health Issue No One’s Talking About. But for men, arousal has to happen, unless I misunderstand sex (entirely possible). In short, the men, they gotta get a hard-on to procreate. I truly hope that the men I know would not be able to violate a woman in such a way without psychological damage, even to the point of impotence. This is not to excuse the commander’s behavior (it’s deplorable, and FFS, he could rebel – the most courageous rebelling happens when something is actually at stake, i.e., your loss of power), but this hopefully exaggerated version of the future hurts men too. We all lose.

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I’ve read the book, and I saw the god-awful film version, but I just can’t mentally deal with this series right now; not until we get through this fresh hell of the current administration.

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The film version is terrible. If we get through all of this, we’ll throw a party with crazy red dresses and a multitude of margaritas. I can’t watch “American Gods” because of the spider. And just FYI, if anyone posts that spider, I will not return. It’s pathological, but I’ll do aversion therapy on my own terms, thank you.

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I do believe I did use the words god awful.

*lolz

You got it; that’s a date!

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Oh, Issac. Mrs. Starnes used to babysit me on Friday nights and we always watched “The Love Boat.”

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I watched it with my Gram; it was part of her ‘nightly shows’ line-up.

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So in Canada, its airing on Bravo but we’re only on episode three… I think you guys are two weeks ahead of me?

We watched E3 last night. SO GOOD! Go Moira! (no spoilers please, let me have hope for a little while!)
Also, “Arlington” looks a lot like the back of Toronto’s City Hall and Bay Station. :slight_smile:

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I assure you Arlington looks nothing like that.

Maybe when urban sprawl finally hits Boston…

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They’ll need to scare up some extra land whilst finding a way around the most ultra NIMBY attitudes in the country, natch

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That explains why Arlington could never look like that. Arlington is not Boston, and it never will be Boston, even though it’s about five miles from Boston. It has crunchy liberal Cambridge in between, cushioning it from filthy old Boston.

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There’s truly no need to venture beyond Davis Square, at all (well ok there’s some good breakfast spots in Medford but that’s the other way)

It is amazing how rapidly the architecture changes once you pass rt 16 on Mass Ave.

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I read this today, “Why Saudi Women Are Literally Living ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’”: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/24/opinion/why-saudi-women-are-literally-living-the-handmaids-tale.html?_r=0

It’s a reminder that all the components of Atwood’s book were comprised of real-life incidents, some of which are happening right. now.

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Just got done with episodes 6 and 7. Man, episode 6 was heartbreaking. it’s a difficult watch, but a really good difficult watch.

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UGH - Canada is doing that thing we do where we air things two weeks late! UGH!!!

NO SPOILERS!

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Will someone please give the heads-up when all episodes are out so that some of us can start our free trial month at that point?

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Yes – there are 10 episodes and we are at 7 in US, so I think mid-June? But I’ll put a note here too.

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It is up to Episode 8 now. If you start your Hulu trial now, you should be able to get caught up and watch the finale when it’s released.

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Yeah, this is a great series, but I wouldn’t binge it. I’d use the whole trial to take it in small amounts. The third episode probably deserves a night all to itself :-p.

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