“The moment of betrayal is the worst, the moment when you know beyond any doubt that you've been betrayed: that some other human being has wished you that much evil”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale
I fell in love with Margaret Atwood when I was seventeen years old. I don't remember why I picked up a copy of The Handmaid's Tale - had I heard my friends talking about it? Was it the drawing of a blood red nun on the cover that intrigued me? It's been too long, and I'm not going to lie. I don't remember. Somehow, it ended up in my possession and I read it. And I do remember foolishly thinking: "Well thank god nothing like this could possibly happen now."
(insert cringe here)
After reading that book, I plundered the library for anything and everything with her name on it. I discovered Lady Oracle. Poor, fat little Joan, denied her butterfly wings, fleeing to London, losing her virginity to a Polish count, finding success as an authoress of bodice-rippers, faking her death and sacrificing her long, red hair to a box of mud brown dye. I wanted a lime green car coat with toggles down the front. I wondered what might have happened if Joan had agreed to marry the Italian cook who'd fed her breaded shrimp and promised her lots of babies. Would she have been happier?
I snatched Cat's Eye off the shelf the second it was published. I already knew Elaine - the weird, slightly socially awkward girl, bullied by a group of elementary school chums who pretended to be her friends. She was me. She was every humiliating moment I'd ever had, walking home from school with my head down, hoping the popular girls would leave me alone for once, wouldn't make fun of me, wouldn't try and get me to fight. I was meat like you like it. Every time I dropped a glass or a dish henceforth, I would think of the term "shatter patterns."
The Robber Bride thrilled me endlessly. I identified strongly with Charis, the Piscean nincompoop who worked in a New Age store selling tapes of whale songs and sparkly geodes. I loved Roz with her tight, tacky clothes in loud colors, and Toni with her too big dress and her ability to speak backwards fluently. And Zenia, the man stealer, the widowmaker, the liar. Most of all, I wanted to have lunch at The Toxique, served by a dandelion haired waitress.
And so I was stoked - stoked, my friends - when I learned that Hulu would be making a brand new miniseries based on that first book I'd encountered: The Handmaid's Tale. But now, instead of being seventeen, I am forty seven. The year is 2017. The world is rapidly becoming an ugly, frightening place, ruled by hatred, steered by fear, fueled by paranoia and greed. I am afraid every day. I have been blackly depressed for three solid months. My ability to hope is shrinking. In this frame of mind, I sat down and watched the first episode.
 |
| OB-ject, or ob-JECT? |
Oh gorgeousness. Everything is just as I pictured it whilst reading the book. It was beautiful, it was perfection, it was fucking horrifying. The Republic of Gilead, so quaint and well manicured and outwardly serene. Silent sisters walking two by two to select oranges and poultry. The long cotton dresses, the baking of bread and the quilting of fabrics. Had we remained outside of the houses and stores, we might have thought "Oh, how perfect. A simpler time, a return to values, a Kodak moment."
But we don't. We've already seen our protagonist's husband shot, her daughter taken away by force, herself hauled into a detention center, forced into a red habit with white wimple, viciously reprogrammed by a stern group of stocky prison matrons with cattle prods. They have no names, no property, no rights anymore. They are assigned to men. Their only purpose in life is to bear children sired from a government approved program of ritualistic rape. If they fail to conceive, they are punished. If they speak out against the regime, they are punished. If they are caught having relations with anyone other than their assigned male, they are punished. If they are lesbians, they are punished.
I had a massive panic attack at 2:30 am after watching the first episode. I woke from a dream about Gilead, sweating, heart racing. I felt like hundreds of rough hands were trying to pull me back down into the dark. "Sleep. Conform. Obey."
I made it through the second episode relatively unscathed. I could handle this. I'd sat through The Red Wedding, hadn't I? It's just a show, based on just a book. Except it wasn't, and it isn't, and I knew it.
Episode 3. I made it to the first commercial break. I sat staring at inane ads for cars and products in open-mouthed horror. It wasn't even the impending doom that was troubling me, it was the flashbacks, the events leading up to and how it had all happened so quickly, so easily.
The scene in the coffee shop, when Moira and June attempt to purchase coffee, only to find that their credit cards have been shut down. The usual female barista is gone. A male barista has taken her place. My stomach began to sink at the first sign of his scorn and contempt for his customers, whom he clearly has no wish to serve. They are inferior, good for nothing but having babies, too uppity and proud in their tight yoga pants, too secure in their careers, too blatantly sexual with sweat running down their necks and into their cleavage. I knew this man. I've met him before. Many times.
He tells them to get the fuck out. He calls them sluts. Their faces are bemused, their smiles expectant, as if waiting for the punchline. Because this has to be a joke right? Right? But it's not. Their smiles fade. They thought they were safe. They're realizing they're not and never will be again. Their expressions, slowly filling with horror, are also resigned: you know this is not the first time they've been called whores by a complete stranger. But now, he's within his legal rights to do so, without fear of repercussion. They back out of the shop, where only men sit now, and leave, bewildered. What is happening?
Then, June is fired from her job for being female. Every female employee in her building are told to gather up their stuff and leave. And it's not the stunned looks of confusion and growing fear on the faces of the women that horrified me, it was the reaction of her male supervisor: he is terrified. He apologizes. He repeats "I have no choice, I have no choice!" He too has lost his power. It's a terrible feeling: weak and powerless. But we know his will be restored eventually, in some capacity, because he has a penis. He knows the women will never be seen again. He knows this is the beginning of something horrible, and he cannot stop it from happening. He is almost crying. I was shaken down to my toenails. My stomach roiled.
I haven't yet finished episode 3. I'm too sickened and dismayed and crippled by a multitude of panic attacks. I've had three so far this week, one walloping blow after another. Primarily because of this show. And that's exactly why I'm going to force myself to finish it, see it through to the end. Because I'm awake. I know this can't be ignored. Anyone who doesn't watch this show with a growing sense of disquiet and unease is either in a coma, or still stubbornly insists that Trump was the only good choice for America. The premise of The Handmaid's Tale is no longer farfetched. Actually, it never was. I was a sleeping seventeen year old, but thirty years of being female tends to kick you rudely out of your dreams.
Force yourself to watch it. Whether you're male, female, Republican, liberal, white, black, Jewish, whatever... you're not immune. You are not exempt. You have no right to remain asleep anymore. Wake up, now.
Do we really need an upskirt shot on Betty there? I mean, she's got nice legs, but it creeps me out to think that the director might have a Gramma fetish.
