August 4, 2017 • 35 mins
Margaret Atwood's best-selling dystopian novel has new life as a Hulu special that's hitting close to home. Bridget and Emilie unpack why this cinematic thriller feels like it's hitting so close to home.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Emily and this is Bridget and you're
listening to stuff mom never told you. So I'm so
excited for today's episode because something you know about me
if you follow me on Twitter, is that I love television.
(00:28):
Nothing I love more than TV. And today we're breaking
down a television series or Hulu series. I guess I
should say that a lot of y'all have written in
wanting to unpack and we're excited to unpack it. We've
been watching along with you and now is the time.
So today we're talking about The Handmaid's Tale. I should
say a two quick things. If you haven't seen The
Handmaid's Tale, spoiler alert, spoiler alert, spoiler alert, we're going
(00:52):
to get into the plot details. You haven't seen it,
and you want to see it and you don't want
it spoiled, skip this one. Skip this one for sure. UM. Also,
trigger warning, this show is one of the most traumatic
things I've ever seen. UM. It deals a lot with
really heavy issues around UM rape, rape and violence against
women and UM a whole lot of really heavy stuff.
(01:15):
So just trigger warning that that is what's happening in
the show. So that's something that's gonna be tough. Just
know that, and if it's not safe for you to listen,
you don't have to. And if it is going to
be later, you can always come back. But I remember
getting a lot of tweets when he first launched the
show of women requesting and we got tons of emails
from you all requesting the handmads tail as a topic.
(01:37):
And I was reticent to start the series. I was like,
I already feel like I'm living in a dystopian nightmare.
I don't want to get my entertainment from a like
a really scary dystopian future and which women were persecuted
because I already feel like that is my reality. And
then Bridget was like, are you watching? You need to
watch and I was like, okay, I'll do it for
(01:58):
the podcast. And once I was in, I was hooked.
But it was traumatizing. It's heavy. I watched it. I
had to space it out. I watched like, well, I
couldn't watch more than one in a day, and when I, oh, god, no,
I binge watched it. And when I would watch it,
I would have to have a palate cleanser. So I
would have a couple of episodes of Bob's Burger's cutea
or something real silly, just just so I could sleep
(02:20):
at night. That's a good tactic if you want to
watch it, but you don't want to be horribly, horribly
bummed out and depressed about things. I rely heavily on
the sub breddit. I bleach, Oh, it's like puppies and
kittens and we've fallen into too deep a hole on
the internet. Gets your eye bleached ready for this one,
because it's a it's a tough watch. Um So if
(02:43):
you don't know about the show or the book. Basically,
what's going on in The Handmaid's Tail is that there's
been a takeover of the government by Christian fundamentalists and
there's been basically, women are no longer full people with
full rights. And it happens sort of bit by bit
people to sort of realized what was going on. Women
aren't able to work or have money. Um, all the
(03:05):
women who are employed have to get kind of mass fired,
and their bank accounts are frozen and they have to
give their money if they're married to their husband's um,
which is sort of chilling. And then rape culture comes
into an effect in which social standards for what is
deemed an appropriate woman versus a slot. It becomes very
(03:27):
clear and communicated. To women who are out jogging, for instance,
they're they're shunned and shamed for wearing shorts or wearing
tank dups and things like that. Right, like the sleeve
band that was just placed, the sleeveless dress band that
was just implemented in the United States Congress correct. Um.
So in this kind of unsettling world of Gilead, that's
this this scary, messed up place. Uh. Fertile women are
(03:51):
handmaids and they basically sort of serve as wombs for
high ranking men in the government called commanders. Every month,
they have a ceremony where they have to lay in
between the legs of the commander's wife while the commander
basically rapes them and holds their hands down. And it's
very very scary and very very messed up. It's it's
called the ceremony. And that's some real like double speak
(04:11):
going on there. Um. But divorced women, gay people, you know, academics,
they either are strung up on the wall and sort
of killed in public, or they're sent to what they
call the colonies, which is a nuclear waste land. So
it's a scary situation. Um, but that's the sort of
rundown of the plot of the show. And important to
note that the reason these women have been turned into
(04:32):
wounds essentially is because there's a total lack of of
fertility that becomes rampant. Yeah. So this lack of fertility
means nobody's having babies, and reasons for that is left unknown.
It's an environmental reason, like they allude to a few
things like the plastics in the water have made them
(04:52):
not able to have kids or something. Everyone. Yeah, most women, Yeah,
that's right, most men are not able to have kids.
In those women are not able to get pregnant. So
the very few women who are are basically kidnapped and
turned into handmaids, which in this case is indentured you know,
servitude type. And then there are wives of these commanders
(05:14):
who don't necessarily need to be reproductive, but they are
part of the system of very similar to cast systems,
which there are different levels of classes of people and
women included who are treated very differently in this system
of oppression. Right, so older women who are no longer fertile. Um,
I think there are the Martha's, well, some of a
(05:37):
lot of people are sent off to the colonies. They're
camps like a lot of people. And then Martha's are
women who are kind of like the s s. I
can't help but drop parallels. Okay, so they're these are
self policing, and by self policing, I mean women policing
other women. So Martha's are basically armed forces, controlling, commanding,
(05:58):
training the hand aids. And then they are what are
the wives called? Do they have a name? Commander's Wives? Yeah,
they wear teal. I just think of them as the
teal ladies. Yeah, Chrissy Teagan, who I feel like we
talked about a lot. She's had a great tweet that
was a picture of a long green dress with really
long sleeves and she said, the commander will love this.
(06:20):
So the tal ladies and then all the handmaids wear
red and heavily and like heavily combined with religious speech
and very structured lives for these women. They can't go
anywhere alone, they can't read, they can't gather in groups.
They have to walk in twos. And what I think
is fascinating about the show is the way that it
plays on this idea that you never know who you're
(06:43):
talking to. If they're an eye, they're gonna if they're
gonna wrap you out for you know, doing something the
wrong way, And so you're never quite sure who to try,
who to trust. And so I thought the relationship between
um off Fred and um what's her name, the character's name,
but they both think the other is this like pious?
(07:04):
This pious? You know, because some women have bought into
this system? Oh yes, oh yes, um. But yeah, it's
interesting how it how the show uses shows womanhood in
terms of it being sometimes you can't trust other women.
Sometimes other women have bought into it. Sometimes other women,
Like there's a really compelling woman who has sort of
(07:25):
bought into it because she used she's like a former addict,
and she said, you know you probably my life isn't
gonna get any better. You probably had a good job
and shop the answer apology, My life is not like that,
was not like that. This is a better situation for me,
which is hard to believe. But there you had it.
That's such a good point. So we could go all
day in talking about the intricacies and like the summary
(07:47):
of this intensely amazing and rich um program. I need
to just as a disclaimer say that I never read
the Margaret Margaret Atwood book Render Share of This that
this is based on. So I know the rendition of
this as told through Hulu. You read the book many
years ago. I read the book in high school. I
think a lot of people did. Yeah, it was it
(08:08):
was I also I went to Catholic high schools. It
was really interesting. Yeah, reading about a fun a really
heavy fundamentalist religious takeover of a government while you're in
Catholic school was an interesting situation. So I know the
show sounds really far fetched. But according to Margaret Atwood,
she's often talking about how she based this on things
(08:29):
that have happened in real life. Um. She says, Handmaid's
Tale is not a fantasy. It is a reality based book.
I call it DJ in reality condensing reality into a
into a mash up. And so I mean I think
that she it's this is her interpretation of of what's happening.
So I don't know that all the things that happened
in the book are basic reality. Yeah, that's I have.
(08:52):
I've raised my eyebrows at that, thinking like, okay, where
in the world are women's like the wives holding the
Handmaids down? For the men she basically raped them and
intend taking part in this. I don't I don't know
where that's happening, but I think her broader point is,
look at what happened in the seventeenth century with Puritans
settling America. Look at what has happened in the past
thirty years alone in Afghanistan, where women went from having
(09:15):
significant rights to a culture that of of modesty as
an oppression, you know, and and religious extremism. Um. That
has completely transformed the role of women in Afghanistan society too,
in Romania, where decreased seven seventy dealt with a plummeting
birth rate in the nineteen sixties by outlawing the use
(09:36):
of contraception and abortion. Like this is what was so
terrifying to me watching the show were the flashbacks which
I heard weren't in the book, right right, Um, I
completely agree. It's these little I mean, people can argue
about whether or not this is you know, possible situation,
but asked someone who works at the at the intersection
(09:57):
of um, you know, politics and reproductive health, I can
tell you that this is it's not it's not untrue
that we are living at a time where attacks on
women's health and reproductive freedom and body autonomy is being threatened.
But it's absolutely a true fact, and I can I
think the flashbacks make the point that it happens bit
(10:17):
by bit by bit, and we don't really notice, and
we're so overwhelmed by it that wen there. We don't
even watch the news. It's too much. It's this idea
of it's totally rational to be a little bit complacent
as your rights are rolled back and chiseled away on
the slippery slope to watching a democracy crumble. And that's
the other part of this that you know, democracies are
not guaranteed. We know this. Many other countries you know
(10:41):
that have had longer, uh serving democracies than our government
have crumbled, have collapsed. We've seen governments crumble, and I
never really fathomed what that could look like because I
have the privilege of living in the United States in
the past twenty nine years where we haven't seen that happen.
And it just makes it so palpable what it might
(11:05):
look like to slowly have your rights rolled back to
the point where a government coup could transform your own
geographic reality, and the inability to escape that region you know,
that's the refugee experience to right, Um, it's terrifying. And
I do think I mean people and we'll get into
(11:25):
this a little bit later, but people pushed back on
the idea that everyone was calling the show timely in
the age of Trump, and I think there might be
credence there, but I don't think it's incorrect that we
are living at a time with our attacks on women's
body autonomy and that that kind of thing could happen incrementally.
And when you say body autonomy, what do you mean
(11:47):
by that? I mean the ability to make choices for
your for your own body, yourself. And so if you
live in certain states, you don't have the choice to
go to Planned Parenthood and get an abortion because the
government has closed down your clinic. Yeah, but by virtue
of the practical application of that so called right, which
was supposedly one by the way right in the courts
(12:09):
in the nineteen seventies Roe v. Way it was supposed
to put that issue to rest. But a right that
is constrained by practical UH legislation that has made it
impossible for clinics to actually be abortion providers, which they've
done state by state as many ways as they can.
Means that this is a right that's in theory only
(12:31):
and does not apply to all women equally. I think
this is part of the reason why intersexual feminism is
so important, because our victories of feminism, like reproductive freedom
have not been equally applied to all or haven't been
equally realized for all women. So if you look at geography,
if you look at race, if you look at class
(12:52):
or or economic security, when you look at those intersections
of gender and all of those things, not all women's
experiences are the same. Not all women have that right
in real life totally. And I think that's so important
to notice. Also, things like legislation that says, okay, well,
if you want to exercise your constitutional or your supreme
predicted right to get an abortion, we have to give
(13:14):
you a transnational ultrasound for no medical reason. You know,
things like that. It is it's so creative, and I
think that's what the show illustrates, that these things they're
not medically sound, or they're not done for your own safety.
They can make you think they're done for your own safety,
but it's not. And that's what it's all about. It's
about control. It's about control, and it's about seeing women
(13:35):
not as human beings but as vehicles for for life,
for vehicles for someone else to create. Right, That's what
was so chilling about the way they talked about women's
bodies in The Handmaid's Tale and the way that women,
the handmaid's bodies were used like livestock truly, I mean
(13:56):
they used cattle frauds and yeah, exactly, and you know
how I feel about the whole meaning mystery in this
world anyway, So the idea that women were seen as
in this very benevolent way, some of their torture, some
of their rape, some of their oppression was veiled in
this God ordained sort of religious rephrasing and reframing benevolence
(14:22):
of God has given you this gift. You should feel
very lucky. You have the privilege to be a handmaid
because God has shined kindly upon you. What like open
is the fruit or whatever? Yeah, may the Lord open.
It's like every time I heard that, I was like,
please stop talking and metaphors about you know, your vagina.
Can I say that, you can say that, I can
(14:44):
say that. It's just come on, people like, this is
a woman, this is her body. She is an agent
of her own body, but that is so stripped from
the Handmaids and I think, um, what's your name, Moss,
Catherine MOSSA, thank you, Elizabeth Mosta such a prof down
job as an actress in this in showing what the
psychological trauma of being ripped of your personhood looks like,
(15:07):
of being stripped away and made to feel like you're
not a human being. Yeah, And that's one of the
things that I think on the show is so salient,
is how things like jokes, how things like you know,
playing scrabble, How these things remind her getting a magazine,
These things remind her of her life before and what
it was like to be a person, when it was
like to have opinions, and what it was like to
(15:29):
you know, be able to express those opinions. And that's
something that it's completely stripped away from her life as
a handmaid. Yes, so I think they should talk more
about some of the inner workings of Gilliad Race, the
role of women. After a quick break and a word
from our sponsor and Rebecca and we were just getting
(15:53):
kind of fired up about this really intense show, Handmaid's Tale.
Um one of of things that is so fascinating about
the show is the role of women and how women
are really architects of this very anti woman oppressive system.
You have folks like Mrs Waterford, who her viral book
about women's rights is what made this system kind of
(16:16):
possible in the first place. Yeah. Um, you have women
like aunt Lydia, who is very cruel but also weirdly
can be kind of loving in a kind of way,
like she seems to be the only patronizing patrick patronizing um,
but certainly as a woman who is architect or an
agent of keeping this anti woman system alive. Um. And
it really that reminds me so much of reality, because
(16:37):
you actually do see women who are kind of architects
of the oppression of other women. Like think about you know,
folks like women against feminism, like people who loudly talk
about why they don't need feminism. Think about folks like,
you know, women in the Trump administration who are helping
to in a very literal way, helping the takeaways of women.
(17:00):
Um here in America. I don't think it's I think
it's true to life that women have a role in
the oppression of other women sometimes definitely and I feel
like I think of the cast system in India as
an example of how class can sometimes trump gender in
(17:23):
in drawing those boundaries between us versus them. So there's
very little solidarity and common identity shared between Lydia between
this is Waterford, between a handmaid and between the cook
you know in the house, Like yeah, sure, they share
the same gendered experience, they share the same oppression in
some ways. You know, even Mrs Waterford is not getting
(17:45):
invited into you know, her opinion is not really welcome
in the political arena. But they lord over each other,
you see at different points in time, when um Mrs
Waterford is feeling shut out of the making process, she
penalizes offer it right, she she lashes out, and she
sort of says, well, at least I can lord over
(18:07):
this other person. And it's interesting how intersectionality comes back
into play here because in that sort of um the womanhood,
that common denominator is less salient definitely the other differences
of power and privilege. Well, and I think you see
that so much in the criticisms around the show and
race and how race is sort of completely erased in
(18:29):
the show. Um So in the book, the only way
that race. Where they comes up is that they say
that all the blacks have been sent back to Africa
quote unquote, and then um, and so that's like the
only race component of the book. What a convenient way
to just not have to She's like, I'm an author,
I can do what I want. I'm just going to
(18:49):
simplify this entire plotline by forgetting about women in this
like very minority position of race or religion. It's like,
there there is an artist who, um doesn't know how
to draw hands until they always draw characters with hands
and pockets because throughout the deal with it, just get
rid of them hands always in pockets. That's great. Yeah uh.
(19:10):
And so the show has what they call color blind casting,
where there are black characters but the race is not
mentioned or does not come up. And so one of
the actresses is Samara Wiley, who you might know as
Poussee who are just the new Black who I am
like deeply, deeply obsessed with and think everything everything she
does is sunshine to me. I follow her on Instagram
and I'm like first comment every time, Yes, way to
(19:34):
go to the beach. I love her so much. Um.
But yeah, so she's a handmaid, and they don't really
explain are the handmade are would a black handmaid be
a handmaid for a white commander. I don't think there
are white, are black or non white commanders, but there
are non white men, like there are non white guards,
there are non white drivers and stuff. So it's not
(19:56):
clear to me how, how or if race is playing
a role in this situation. Well, the way that those
behind the Hulu series described their decision there was by saying, well,
this is a post racial society, which I find a
little bit comical and like kind of a huge cop out.
So you're telling me that we've regressed when it comes
(20:16):
to gender, but we are somehow woke and tolerant and
inclusive on race, like those two things could ever coexist
throughout history. I loved this article um in The Undefeated
by Saya Nadia McDonald um. She says, so Gilead is
post racial because the human race is facing extinction, and
that prompted Americans to get over several hundred years worth
(20:39):
of racist education and social conditioning that depicted blacks is
inferior and less than human because Jesus, you know, I
I have our time. By that that would be the case.
That seems really unlikely for me to swallow that because
the oppressive government took over and women are now less
than human. We were all we're all we're all kumbaya
(20:59):
roll kumbay on the race front. I don't buy that
at all, but the show would have you believe that. Yeah,
And I feel like, I mean, I see the intent
here though. They were trying to be inclusive in their casting,
but it really required more creative energy around the storyline,
don't you think. Yeah, I mean that's what the producers
(21:19):
of the show have said that they you know, when
Samia Widy walks into a casting room, you cast her
because she's beautiful and amazing and talented and smart and
please call me. But I'm just kidding. That sounded creepy.
I like it called the show. Oh my god, I
would I would. I would die to see her and
freak out. I would die of happiness. I would die that.
(21:41):
I'm going to try to make it. Um But yeah,
so and part of me gets that, And I actually
love as a woman of color. I actually love when
casting directors say we casted for the best person. Um.
I saw that with Louie Louis Taka his on the show,
his kids are clearly white, and when they show their
their biological mother, she is a woman of color, and
(22:02):
they don't explain how like what the situation is, and
he just said, yeah, she was the best person for
the roles to be cast her. Um. It also happened
in the one of my favorite movies, The Craft. Um
the character the black character in that movie, she wasn't
written to be a black woman, and she just came
in and was the best and so they put her in.
So I, on the one hand, like that, but also
I think it warrant a little bit more explanation or
(22:24):
a little bit more of teasing out I think for
a show like Handmaid Stale, I agree completely. And I
would add to that that there is another problem with
race that's not dealt with in the show, but it's
sort of omnipresent that no. Uh. Burlatski at The Verge
wrote about um that what they're really doing, in addition
(22:49):
to eracing race and and sort of people of color
from the story narrative, from their race being significant in
their characters, is they're actually using the history of oppression
that stems from very real institutions of oppression like slavery
in the United States, and very real oppressive behaviors and
(23:13):
customs and histories in the Middle East in Afghanistan, and
the use and inclusion of female genital mulation, and the
inclusion of stoning as a form of punishment of of
of a death sentence via stoning. All of these things
happen in this world, oftentimes in our lifetimes two actual
(23:34):
women of color. But here we are watching The Handmaid's
Tale repackaging the history of black people, the history of
of women of color, to provoke empathy for the suffering
of white people. I think it's such a legitimate criticism.
Right in the nineteen sixties and seventies, Mexican and Mexican
American women were went into hospitals for c sections and
(23:55):
got sterilized without their consent. The same thing happened to
black women in this country not even that long ago.
And so, you know, people have made the point that
the kinds of really really oppressive systems that these women
are living under, things like not being able to gather
in groups, not being able to read public spectacles of
their of their deaths, that happened that happened in America
(24:16):
to black women and black men. The fact that that
they're using these very real his, these very real horrors
that have historical precedent for women of color as a
storytelling device. I think it's fair to ask whether that's okay. Yeah,
And I wonder what the answer is because I read
article and was left thinking, well, if we have a
(24:39):
predominantly white audience in the United States and you're using
historical realities but with white characters to engender wokeness, to
trigger fear, to create a sense of we all better
wake up America, we better make sure or write down
(25:00):
rolled back, do the ends justify the means? And I'm
not saying they do, But I don't think it's fair
to say, like, this is definitely all terrible and bad,
like you're suffering, uh from this one historical group of
your I don't mean any one group, but whatever this
you know, this this suffering from history. Can that not
(25:23):
be repurposed? Can that not be reassigned? Is it not
okay to just not include any women of color as
victims in the show? And I think that's a that's
a stretch. In fact, I hear what you're what you're saying,
speaking of Samera Wiley, I mean, that is the argument
that folks make about Orangers The New Black where the
creator there mind that show for a lot of spoiler
(25:43):
alert if you haven't watched that either, but the creator
mind a lot of real women who are really in
prison their stories. Um when when spoiler alert, when Samera
Wiley dies on the show that she says, I can't breathe,
and when when asked about this, the creator of the
show said, it was really important to me to highlight
(26:04):
the stories of women who were often marginalized, women who
were behind bars. And people wouldn't do that if it
wasn't people would not scrapple with those stories if it
didn't have you know, Piper, Piper, Piper as the as
the white as the white protagonist who was telling these stories.
But it is different because she is showing she created
(26:25):
I mean, we were all sobbing watching that character, Samera's character.
I mean, that was like the most terrific episode of
anything I've ever watched, maybe until Handmaid's Dale came out.
But she has a black beloved character die and makes
us all weep over her. And that's that's justified. That's defensible,
you know what I mean, Like, that's different. I hear
what you're saying. I don't know. I just think it's
(26:46):
I think I think it's complicated. I honestly, I see
both sides. I guess. I know a lot of folks
were accusing her of torture, porn or something like, you know,
like let's just show a bunch of you know, really
sweet women of color die and have it be like
on a graphic almost in the I understand an argument.
I also see the argument of wanting to uplift these
stories to inspire change, and the author behind or just
(27:08):
the New Black the book has actually been involved in
the real Piper has been involved in prison issues and
prison activism, so, you know, shout out for that. UM.
I think it's important to talk through some of the
issues that kind of have real world impact from the show.
When we come back from a quick break from our
sponsor and we're back, we're just talking about some of
(27:36):
the nitty gritty of the show Handmaid's Tale. And one
of the things that I think is so fascinating about
this show is that in real world, you know, not
in Gilead, here in Earth, UM, what is currently the
United States of America, folks have been using um handmaids
as a form of protest against handmaids like outfit, outfit
(27:57):
a cosplay. So um, when Trump went to be more
of a thing protest cosplay, I like it. I like it. Um.
So when Trump went to Poland, lots of women dressed
as handmaids and the red outfits and the and the
white winged head covering to protest his visit. Here in
(28:18):
the America, women rocked their wings and red outfits to
protest Trump's trump Care, which defunds planned parenthood. They gathered
on Capitol Hill wearing their outfits to sort of send
a signal that they that this wasn't okay. Do you
think that's been effective? Do you think that is accurate? Like?
I I almost see that as a symbol for is
(28:41):
it is it fair to use the metaphor of a
red herring? Right? It's like be aware, it's like sending
in a mixing all my metaphors here, but canary into
the coal mine? Right? Like? Does that apply here? This
idea of a warning shot for women to wake up
and make sure that rights as they're being rolled back,
especially as it pertains to women's reproductive rights, are being
(29:01):
associated with handmaid's Tales dystopian future because it's it definitely
seems very far away and very implausible. But by evoking
the handmaid, you know image, what they're saying is this
is what could happen. I see both sides of that argument. Um.
Writing at The Guardian, Jessa Crispin is like, not sure
(29:21):
at all that we should be associating Handmaid's Tale with
with Trump and and things like that. She writes, if
this propaganda is not being used to sell us a war,
we should be interested in what it is selling us instead.
That so many women are willing to compare their own
political situation living under a democratically elected president with no
overwhelming religious ideology with the character's position as sexual slaves
(29:42):
and baby incubators for the ruling class shows us that
it is always satisfying to position yourself as an as
the oppressed, bravely struggling against oppression. UM, So I don't
necessarily like, wow, that was pretty harsh. Yeah, I want
to go that far right. I I sort of get
what she's saying, just that we it's fair to level
side and ask where we are actually at. But the
show makes the point that it happens incrementally so I
(30:04):
don't think anyone is saying we are living in giving
I get I bet they are, though, Um and Jess
as saying, your victimhood, while it might be real, is
nowhere near the victimhood of institutionalized, you know, oppression at
the extent that was being a handman correct, which is
(30:25):
definitely fair, right, I think that's fair. I also think
that the point that the show is making is that
we should be stay staying alert about these things. I
think it's also fair, and so I don't think it's
I don't think it's not fair to draw parallels, because
I definitely see parallels. Um, but I think it's it's
worth it to take a step back and not necessarily
(30:47):
go overborn. What I always come back to is the vigilance,
like the lack of vigilance that led to this past
electoral outcome. Most people thought Trump couldn't be elected. Most
people didn't say Trump would be elected. Most most of
America assumed it was a shoe in for Hillary. I
think back to the coffeehouse scenes between Elizabeth Moss and Wiley, So,
(31:12):
the two of them getting coffee at that same coffee
shop where they were called sluts and totally disrespected by
uh men's rights activist member or just a total misogynistic
dude who didn't see them as full human beings to them.
The presence of paramilitary people are military presence that we
(31:33):
start to see on the street to that same coffee
shop being the center of a gun you know, a riot, right,
remember how they were protesting Allah Women's March style Black
Lives Matter style. Where they're I mean, they're there. I
absolutely have seen in real life my own eyes a
(31:54):
intense paramilitary forces just on the street, tanks exactly. So
then the government takes this incredibly harsh crackdown that was
the beginning of the coup that was the beginning of Gileads,
you know, uprising taking over of Boston, and you can
just see from the same perspective, from the same scene geographically,
this one coffee shop, just how incremental and how much
(32:17):
your life can change. And that to me really sounded
like what a lot of Afghanistan has gone through in
the past thirty forty years. And being in your own lifetime,
in your own neighborhood, watching your government change, I mean how,
I mean, how do you even survive? How does your
identity survive? Through that. I went into this episode ready
(32:39):
to pump the brakes on the Gilead comparisons. Now I'm
packing up, Go bad, you're a prepper. I'm gonna leave
today the studio and gonna go back. I love it.
Brad and I have long had a zombie apocalypse plan
in place, just in case my friend and I we
have a situation if we are ever in a horror
movie situation and one of us gets out, we have
a pat But if you go back for the other one,
(33:02):
I'll go back for you. Emily, I'll go back for Yeah.
All right, you heard it here first. All right, let's
let's wrap this baby up. This is I'm dying to
hear from our fans and what they thought about this.
I'm sure there are more nuances. I could talk all
day about this, and um, I'm curious to hear whether
y'all think it's appropriate to compare and what you learn?
(33:24):
What did you take away from the show? And also
what have you heard bridget about the future of the
show from Who is Prospective? So two exciting things. What
already got picked up for a season two? Because lord
knows that Cliffhanger left me one more? Um, but so one,
they've already made a promise to tackle Race more um
(33:44):
in the second season. The show producer says that he's
had a lot of time to rethink what's going on
with Race, and he really wants to tackle it because
you know, he wants to be UM. Yeah, so great,
it is great. Um. And then a little uh, kind
of juicy morsel her my hip hop fans out there,
Margaret Atwood wants Drake to cameo on season two, so
(34:06):
we'll see if that happened because he's Canadian and they
get to Canada. Oh okay, that makes a little more sense.
And also she's a huge drink fan. No, I'm kidding
actually right now, if you read this it's an interview
with them, it really actually sounds like she loves Drake
and it's like, why did you Strake come up on
the show so much? We never intend to, like talk
(34:27):
through not even a huge fan. I know well that
this is what happens. Every time we mentioned Shake, We're like,
do you like him? And we're like, I don't know, man,
all right, So I think I think we can put
this chapter, at least this season of Handmaid's Tale to
rest for right now, I am dying to hear from
all y'all on what you thought about Margaret Atwood's book
about the Hulu rendition, what you learned through watching Handmaid's Tale,
(34:52):
So make sure to hit us up with your thoughts
at mom Stuff Podcast on Twitter, Stuff Mom Never Told
You on Instagram, and of course we always love receiving
your emails at mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com.
Bridget any last words, I think that's it. Just pack
your go back, get your passports, and does always know
lete t beastdis car bordorum
Hey, this is Emily and this is Bridget and you're
listening to stuff mom never told you. So I'm so
excited for today's episode because something you know about me
if you follow me on Twitter, is that I love television.
(00:28):
Nothing I love more than TV. And today we're breaking
down a television series or Hulu series. I guess I
should say that a lot of y'all have written in
wanting to unpack and we're excited to unpack it. We've
been watching along with you and now is the time.
So today we're talking about The Handmaid's Tale. I should
say a two quick things. If you haven't seen The
Handmaid's Tale, spoiler alert, spoiler alert, spoiler alert, we're going
(00:52):
to get into the plot details. You haven't seen it,
and you want to see it and you don't want
it spoiled, skip this one. Skip this one for sure. UM. Also,
trigger warning, this show is one of the most traumatic
things I've ever seen. UM. It deals a lot with
really heavy issues around UM rape, rape and violence against
women and UM a whole lot of really heavy stuff.
(01:15):
So just trigger warning that that is what's happening in
the show. So that's something that's gonna be tough. Just
know that, and if it's not safe for you to listen,
you don't have to. And if it is going to
be later, you can always come back. But I remember
getting a lot of tweets when he first launched the
show of women requesting and we got tons of emails
from you all requesting the handmads tail as a topic.
(01:37):
And I was reticent to start the series. I was like,
I already feel like I'm living in a dystopian nightmare.
I don't want to get my entertainment from a like
a really scary dystopian future and which women were persecuted
because I already feel like that is my reality. And
then Bridget was like, are you watching? You need to
watch and I was like, okay, I'll do it for
(01:58):
the podcast. And once I was in, I was hooked.
But it was traumatizing. It's heavy. I watched it. I
had to space it out. I watched like, well, I
couldn't watch more than one in a day, and when I, oh, god, no,
I binge watched it. And when I would watch it,
I would have to have a palate cleanser. So I
would have a couple of episodes of Bob's Burger's cutea
or something real silly, just just so I could sleep
(02:20):
at night. That's a good tactic if you want to
watch it, but you don't want to be horribly, horribly
bummed out and depressed about things. I rely heavily on
the sub breddit. I bleach, Oh, it's like puppies and
kittens and we've fallen into too deep a hole on
the internet. Gets your eye bleached ready for this one,
because it's a it's a tough watch. Um So if
(02:43):
you don't know about the show or the book. Basically,
what's going on in The Handmaid's Tail is that there's
been a takeover of the government by Christian fundamentalists and
there's been basically, women are no longer full people with
full rights. And it happens sort of bit by bit
people to sort of realized what was going on. Women
aren't able to work or have money. Um, all the
(03:05):
women who are employed have to get kind of mass fired,
and their bank accounts are frozen and they have to
give their money if they're married to their husband's um,
which is sort of chilling. And then rape culture comes
into an effect in which social standards for what is
deemed an appropriate woman versus a slot. It becomes very
(03:27):
clear and communicated. To women who are out jogging, for instance,
they're they're shunned and shamed for wearing shorts or wearing
tank dups and things like that. Right, like the sleeve
band that was just placed, the sleeveless dress band that
was just implemented in the United States Congress correct. Um.
So in this kind of unsettling world of Gilead, that's
this this scary, messed up place. Uh. Fertile women are
(03:51):
handmaids and they basically sort of serve as wombs for
high ranking men in the government called commanders. Every month,
they have a ceremony where they have to lay in
between the legs of the commander's wife while the commander
basically rapes them and holds their hands down. And it's
very very scary and very very messed up. It's it's
called the ceremony. And that's some real like double speak
(04:11):
going on there. Um. But divorced women, gay people, you know, academics,
they either are strung up on the wall and sort
of killed in public, or they're sent to what they
call the colonies, which is a nuclear waste land. So
it's a scary situation. Um, but that's the sort of
rundown of the plot of the show. And important to
note that the reason these women have been turned into
(04:32):
wounds essentially is because there's a total lack of of
fertility that becomes rampant. Yeah. So this lack of fertility
means nobody's having babies, and reasons for that is left unknown.
It's an environmental reason, like they allude to a few
things like the plastics in the water have made them
(04:52):
not able to have kids or something. Everyone. Yeah, most women, Yeah,
that's right, most men are not able to have kids.
In those women are not able to get pregnant. So
the very few women who are are basically kidnapped and
turned into handmaids, which in this case is indentured you know,
servitude type. And then there are wives of these commanders
(05:14):
who don't necessarily need to be reproductive, but they are
part of the system of very similar to cast systems,
which there are different levels of classes of people and
women included who are treated very differently in this system
of oppression. Right, so older women who are no longer fertile. Um,
I think there are the Martha's, well, some of a
(05:37):
lot of people are sent off to the colonies. They're
camps like a lot of people. And then Martha's are
women who are kind of like the s s. I
can't help but drop parallels. Okay, so they're these are
self policing, and by self policing, I mean women policing
other women. So Martha's are basically armed forces, controlling, commanding,
(05:58):
training the hand aids. And then they are what are
the wives called? Do they have a name? Commander's Wives? Yeah,
they wear teal. I just think of them as the
teal ladies. Yeah, Chrissy Teagan, who I feel like we
talked about a lot. She's had a great tweet that
was a picture of a long green dress with really
long sleeves and she said, the commander will love this.
(06:20):
So the tal ladies and then all the handmaids wear
red and heavily and like heavily combined with religious speech
and very structured lives for these women. They can't go
anywhere alone, they can't read, they can't gather in groups.
They have to walk in twos. And what I think
is fascinating about the show is the way that it
plays on this idea that you never know who you're
(06:43):
talking to. If they're an eye, they're gonna if they're
gonna wrap you out for you know, doing something the
wrong way, And so you're never quite sure who to try,
who to trust. And so I thought the relationship between
um off Fred and um what's her name, the character's name,
but they both think the other is this like pious?
(07:04):
This pious? You know, because some women have bought into
this system? Oh yes, oh yes, um. But yeah, it's
interesting how it how the show uses shows womanhood in
terms of it being sometimes you can't trust other women.
Sometimes other women have bought into it. Sometimes other women,
Like there's a really compelling woman who has sort of
(07:25):
bought into it because she used she's like a former addict,
and she said, you know you probably my life isn't
gonna get any better. You probably had a good job
and shop the answer apology, My life is not like that,
was not like that. This is a better situation for me,
which is hard to believe. But there you had it.
That's such a good point. So we could go all
day in talking about the intricacies and like the summary
(07:47):
of this intensely amazing and rich um program. I need
to just as a disclaimer say that I never read
the Margaret Margaret Atwood book Render Share of This that
this is based on. So I know the rendition of
this as told through Hulu. You read the book many
years ago. I read the book in high school. I
think a lot of people did. Yeah, it was it
(08:08):
was I also I went to Catholic high schools. It
was really interesting. Yeah, reading about a fun a really
heavy fundamentalist religious takeover of a government while you're in
Catholic school was an interesting situation. So I know the
show sounds really far fetched. But according to Margaret Atwood,
she's often talking about how she based this on things
(08:29):
that have happened in real life. Um. She says, Handmaid's
Tale is not a fantasy. It is a reality based book.
I call it DJ in reality condensing reality into a
into a mash up. And so I mean I think
that she it's this is her interpretation of of what's happening.
So I don't know that all the things that happened
in the book are basic reality. Yeah, that's I have.
(08:52):
I've raised my eyebrows at that, thinking like, okay, where
in the world are women's like the wives holding the
Handmaids down? For the men she basically raped them and
intend taking part in this. I don't I don't know
where that's happening, but I think her broader point is,
look at what happened in the seventeenth century with Puritans
settling America. Look at what has happened in the past
thirty years alone in Afghanistan, where women went from having
(09:15):
significant rights to a culture that of of modesty as
an oppression, you know, and and religious extremism. Um. That
has completely transformed the role of women in Afghanistan society too,
in Romania, where decreased seven seventy dealt with a plummeting
birth rate in the nineteen sixties by outlawing the use
(09:36):
of contraception and abortion. Like this is what was so
terrifying to me watching the show were the flashbacks which
I heard weren't in the book, right right, Um, I
completely agree. It's these little I mean, people can argue
about whether or not this is you know, possible situation,
but asked someone who works at the at the intersection
(09:57):
of um, you know, politics and reproductive health, I can
tell you that this is it's not it's not untrue
that we are living at a time where attacks on
women's health and reproductive freedom and body autonomy is being threatened.
But it's absolutely a true fact, and I can I
think the flashbacks make the point that it happens bit
(10:17):
by bit by bit, and we don't really notice, and
we're so overwhelmed by it that wen there. We don't
even watch the news. It's too much. It's this idea
of it's totally rational to be a little bit complacent
as your rights are rolled back and chiseled away on
the slippery slope to watching a democracy crumble. And that's
the other part of this that you know, democracies are
not guaranteed. We know this. Many other countries you know
(10:41):
that have had longer, uh serving democracies than our government
have crumbled, have collapsed. We've seen governments crumble, and I
never really fathomed what that could look like because I
have the privilege of living in the United States in
the past twenty nine years where we haven't seen that happen.
And it just makes it so palpable what it might
(11:05):
look like to slowly have your rights rolled back to
the point where a government coup could transform your own
geographic reality, and the inability to escape that region you know,
that's the refugee experience to right, Um, it's terrifying. And
I do think I mean people and we'll get into
(11:25):
this a little bit later, but people pushed back on
the idea that everyone was calling the show timely in
the age of Trump, and I think there might be
credence there, but I don't think it's incorrect that we
are living at a time with our attacks on women's
body autonomy and that that kind of thing could happen incrementally.
And when you say body autonomy, what do you mean
(11:47):
by that? I mean the ability to make choices for
your for your own body, yourself. And so if you
live in certain states, you don't have the choice to
go to Planned Parenthood and get an abortion because the
government has closed down your clinic. Yeah, but by virtue
of the practical application of that so called right, which
was supposedly one by the way right in the courts
(12:09):
in the nineteen seventies Roe v. Way it was supposed
to put that issue to rest. But a right that
is constrained by practical UH legislation that has made it
impossible for clinics to actually be abortion providers, which they've
done state by state as many ways as they can.
Means that this is a right that's in theory only
(12:31):
and does not apply to all women equally. I think
this is part of the reason why intersexual feminism is
so important, because our victories of feminism, like reproductive freedom
have not been equally applied to all or haven't been
equally realized for all women. So if you look at geography,
if you look at race, if you look at class
(12:52):
or or economic security, when you look at those intersections
of gender and all of those things, not all women's
experiences are the same. Not all women have that right
in real life totally. And I think that's so important
to notice. Also, things like legislation that says, okay, well,
if you want to exercise your constitutional or your supreme
predicted right to get an abortion, we have to give
(13:14):
you a transnational ultrasound for no medical reason. You know,
things like that. It is it's so creative, and I
think that's what the show illustrates, that these things they're
not medically sound, or they're not done for your own safety.
They can make you think they're done for your own safety,
but it's not. And that's what it's all about. It's
about control. It's about control, and it's about seeing women
(13:35):
not as human beings but as vehicles for for life,
for vehicles for someone else to create. Right, That's what
was so chilling about the way they talked about women's
bodies in The Handmaid's Tale and the way that women,
the handmaid's bodies were used like livestock truly, I mean
(13:56):
they used cattle frauds and yeah, exactly, and you know
how I feel about the whole meaning mystery in this
world anyway, So the idea that women were seen as
in this very benevolent way, some of their torture, some
of their rape, some of their oppression was veiled in
this God ordained sort of religious rephrasing and reframing benevolence
(14:22):
of God has given you this gift. You should feel
very lucky. You have the privilege to be a handmaid
because God has shined kindly upon you. What like open
is the fruit or whatever? Yeah, may the Lord open.
It's like every time I heard that, I was like,
please stop talking and metaphors about you know, your vagina.
Can I say that, you can say that, I can
(14:44):
say that. It's just come on, people like, this is
a woman, this is her body. She is an agent
of her own body, but that is so stripped from
the Handmaids and I think, um, what's your name, Moss,
Catherine MOSSA, thank you, Elizabeth Mosta such a prof down
job as an actress in this in showing what the
psychological trauma of being ripped of your personhood looks like,
(15:07):
of being stripped away and made to feel like you're
not a human being. Yeah, And that's one of the
things that I think on the show is so salient,
is how things like jokes, how things like you know,
playing scrabble, How these things remind her getting a magazine,
These things remind her of her life before and what
it was like to be a person, when it was
like to have opinions, and what it was like to
(15:29):
you know, be able to express those opinions. And that's
something that it's completely stripped away from her life as
a handmaid. Yes, so I think they should talk more
about some of the inner workings of Gilliad Race, the
role of women. After a quick break and a word
from our sponsor and Rebecca and we were just getting
(15:53):
kind of fired up about this really intense show, Handmaid's Tale.
Um one of of things that is so fascinating about
the show is the role of women and how women
are really architects of this very anti woman oppressive system.
You have folks like Mrs Waterford, who her viral book
about women's rights is what made this system kind of
(16:16):
possible in the first place. Yeah. Um, you have women
like aunt Lydia, who is very cruel but also weirdly
can be kind of loving in a kind of way,
like she seems to be the only patronizing patrick patronizing um,
but certainly as a woman who is architect or an
agent of keeping this anti woman system alive. Um. And
it really that reminds me so much of reality, because
(16:37):
you actually do see women who are kind of architects
of the oppression of other women. Like think about you know,
folks like women against feminism, like people who loudly talk
about why they don't need feminism. Think about folks like,
you know, women in the Trump administration who are helping
to in a very literal way, helping the takeaways of women.
(17:00):
Um here in America. I don't think it's I think
it's true to life that women have a role in
the oppression of other women sometimes definitely and I feel
like I think of the cast system in India as
an example of how class can sometimes trump gender in
(17:23):
in drawing those boundaries between us versus them. So there's
very little solidarity and common identity shared between Lydia between
this is Waterford, between a handmaid and between the cook
you know in the house, Like yeah, sure, they share
the same gendered experience, they share the same oppression in
some ways. You know, even Mrs Waterford is not getting
(17:45):
invited into you know, her opinion is not really welcome
in the political arena. But they lord over each other,
you see at different points in time, when um Mrs
Waterford is feeling shut out of the making process, she
penalizes offer it right, she she lashes out, and she
sort of says, well, at least I can lord over
(18:07):
this other person. And it's interesting how intersectionality comes back
into play here because in that sort of um the womanhood,
that common denominator is less salient definitely the other differences
of power and privilege. Well, and I think you see
that so much in the criticisms around the show and
race and how race is sort of completely erased in
(18:29):
the show. Um So in the book, the only way
that race. Where they comes up is that they say
that all the blacks have been sent back to Africa
quote unquote, and then um, and so that's like the
only race component of the book. What a convenient way
to just not have to She's like, I'm an author,
I can do what I want. I'm just going to
(18:49):
simplify this entire plotline by forgetting about women in this
like very minority position of race or religion. It's like,
there there is an artist who, um doesn't know how
to draw hands until they always draw characters with hands
and pockets because throughout the deal with it, just get
rid of them hands always in pockets. That's great. Yeah uh.
(19:10):
And so the show has what they call color blind casting,
where there are black characters but the race is not
mentioned or does not come up. And so one of
the actresses is Samara Wiley, who you might know as
Poussee who are just the new Black who I am
like deeply, deeply obsessed with and think everything everything she
does is sunshine to me. I follow her on Instagram
and I'm like first comment every time, Yes, way to
(19:34):
go to the beach. I love her so much. Um.
But yeah, so she's a handmaid, and they don't really
explain are the handmade are would a black handmaid be
a handmaid for a white commander. I don't think there
are white, are black or non white commanders, but there
are non white men, like there are non white guards,
there are non white drivers and stuff. So it's not
(19:56):
clear to me how, how or if race is playing
a role in this situation. Well, the way that those
behind the Hulu series described their decision there was by saying, well,
this is a post racial society, which I find a
little bit comical and like kind of a huge cop out.
So you're telling me that we've regressed when it comes
(20:16):
to gender, but we are somehow woke and tolerant and
inclusive on race, like those two things could ever coexist
throughout history. I loved this article um in The Undefeated
by Saya Nadia McDonald um. She says, so Gilead is
post racial because the human race is facing extinction, and
that prompted Americans to get over several hundred years worth
(20:39):
of racist education and social conditioning that depicted blacks is
inferior and less than human because Jesus, you know, I
I have our time. By that that would be the case.
That seems really unlikely for me to swallow that because
the oppressive government took over and women are now less
than human. We were all we're all we're all kumbaya
(20:59):
roll kumbay on the race front. I don't buy that
at all, but the show would have you believe that. Yeah,
And I feel like, I mean, I see the intent
here though. They were trying to be inclusive in their casting,
but it really required more creative energy around the storyline,
don't you think. Yeah, I mean that's what the producers
(21:19):
of the show have said that they you know, when
Samia Widy walks into a casting room, you cast her
because she's beautiful and amazing and talented and smart and
please call me. But I'm just kidding. That sounded creepy.
I like it called the show. Oh my god, I
would I would. I would die to see her and
freak out. I would die of happiness. I would die that.
(21:41):
I'm going to try to make it. Um But yeah,
so and part of me gets that, And I actually
love as a woman of color. I actually love when
casting directors say we casted for the best person. Um.
I saw that with Louie Louis Taka his on the show,
his kids are clearly white, and when they show their
their biological mother, she is a woman of color, and
(22:02):
they don't explain how like what the situation is, and
he just said, yeah, she was the best person for
the roles to be cast her. Um. It also happened
in the one of my favorite movies, The Craft. Um
the character the black character in that movie, she wasn't
written to be a black woman, and she just came
in and was the best and so they put her in.
So I, on the one hand, like that, but also
I think it warrant a little bit more explanation or
(22:24):
a little bit more of teasing out I think for
a show like Handmaid Stale, I agree completely. And I
would add to that that there is another problem with
race that's not dealt with in the show, but it's
sort of omnipresent that no. Uh. Burlatski at The Verge
wrote about um that what they're really doing, in addition
(22:49):
to eracing race and and sort of people of color
from the story narrative, from their race being significant in
their characters, is they're actually using the history of oppression
that stems from very real institutions of oppression like slavery
in the United States, and very real oppressive behaviors and
(23:13):
customs and histories in the Middle East in Afghanistan, and
the use and inclusion of female genital mulation, and the
inclusion of stoning as a form of punishment of of
of a death sentence via stoning. All of these things
happen in this world, oftentimes in our lifetimes two actual
(23:34):
women of color. But here we are watching The Handmaid's
Tale repackaging the history of black people, the history of
of women of color, to provoke empathy for the suffering
of white people. I think it's such a legitimate criticism.
Right in the nineteen sixties and seventies, Mexican and Mexican
American women were went into hospitals for c sections and
(23:55):
got sterilized without their consent. The same thing happened to
black women in this country not even that long ago.
And so, you know, people have made the point that
the kinds of really really oppressive systems that these women
are living under, things like not being able to gather
in groups, not being able to read public spectacles of
their of their deaths, that happened that happened in America
(24:16):
to black women and black men. The fact that that
they're using these very real his, these very real horrors
that have historical precedent for women of color as a
storytelling device. I think it's fair to ask whether that's okay. Yeah,
And I wonder what the answer is because I read
article and was left thinking, well, if we have a
(24:39):
predominantly white audience in the United States and you're using
historical realities but with white characters to engender wokeness, to
trigger fear, to create a sense of we all better
wake up America, we better make sure or write down
(25:00):
rolled back, do the ends justify the means? And I'm
not saying they do, But I don't think it's fair
to say, like, this is definitely all terrible and bad,
like you're suffering, uh from this one historical group of
your I don't mean any one group, but whatever this
you know, this this suffering from history. Can that not
(25:23):
be repurposed? Can that not be reassigned? Is it not
okay to just not include any women of color as
victims in the show? And I think that's a that's
a stretch. In fact, I hear what you're what you're saying,
speaking of Samera Wiley, I mean, that is the argument
that folks make about Orangers The New Black where the
creator there mind that show for a lot of spoiler
(25:43):
alert if you haven't watched that either, but the creator
mind a lot of real women who are really in
prison their stories. Um when when spoiler alert, when Samera
Wiley dies on the show that she says, I can't breathe,
and when when asked about this, the creator of the
show said, it was really important to me to highlight
(26:04):
the stories of women who were often marginalized, women who
were behind bars. And people wouldn't do that if it
wasn't people would not scrapple with those stories if it
didn't have you know, Piper, Piper, Piper as the as
the white as the white protagonist who was telling these stories.
But it is different because she is showing she created
(26:25):
I mean, we were all sobbing watching that character, Samera's character.
I mean, that was like the most terrific episode of
anything I've ever watched, maybe until Handmaid's Dale came out.
But she has a black beloved character die and makes
us all weep over her. And that's that's justified. That's defensible,
you know what I mean, Like, that's different. I hear
what you're saying. I don't know. I just think it's
(26:46):
I think I think it's complicated. I honestly, I see
both sides. I guess. I know a lot of folks
were accusing her of torture, porn or something like, you know,
like let's just show a bunch of you know, really
sweet women of color die and have it be like
on a graphic almost in the I understand an argument.
I also see the argument of wanting to uplift these
stories to inspire change, and the author behind or just
(27:08):
the New Black the book has actually been involved in
the real Piper has been involved in prison issues and
prison activism, so, you know, shout out for that. UM.
I think it's important to talk through some of the
issues that kind of have real world impact from the show.
When we come back from a quick break from our
sponsor and we're back, we're just talking about some of
(27:36):
the nitty gritty of the show Handmaid's Tale. And one
of the things that I think is so fascinating about
this show is that in real world, you know, not
in Gilead, here in Earth, UM, what is currently the
United States of America, folks have been using um handmaids
as a form of protest against handmaids like outfit, outfit
(27:57):
a cosplay. So um, when Trump went to be more
of a thing protest cosplay, I like it. I like it. Um.
So when Trump went to Poland, lots of women dressed
as handmaids and the red outfits and the and the
white winged head covering to protest his visit. Here in
(28:18):
the America, women rocked their wings and red outfits to
protest Trump's trump Care, which defunds planned parenthood. They gathered
on Capitol Hill wearing their outfits to sort of send
a signal that they that this wasn't okay. Do you
think that's been effective? Do you think that is accurate? Like?
I I almost see that as a symbol for is
(28:41):
it is it fair to use the metaphor of a
red herring? Right? It's like be aware, it's like sending
in a mixing all my metaphors here, but canary into
the coal mine? Right? Like? Does that apply here? This
idea of a warning shot for women to wake up
and make sure that rights as they're being rolled back,
especially as it pertains to women's reproductive rights, are being
(29:01):
associated with handmaid's Tales dystopian future because it's it definitely
seems very far away and very implausible. But by evoking
the handmaid, you know image, what they're saying is this
is what could happen. I see both sides of that argument. Um.
Writing at The Guardian, Jessa Crispin is like, not sure
(29:21):
at all that we should be associating Handmaid's Tale with
with Trump and and things like that. She writes, if
this propaganda is not being used to sell us a war,
we should be interested in what it is selling us instead.
That so many women are willing to compare their own
political situation living under a democratically elected president with no
overwhelming religious ideology with the character's position as sexual slaves
(29:42):
and baby incubators for the ruling class shows us that
it is always satisfying to position yourself as an as
the oppressed, bravely struggling against oppression. UM, So I don't
necessarily like, wow, that was pretty harsh. Yeah, I want
to go that far right. I I sort of get
what she's saying, just that we it's fair to level
side and ask where we are actually at. But the
show makes the point that it happens incrementally so I
(30:04):
don't think anyone is saying we are living in giving
I get I bet they are, though, Um and Jess
as saying, your victimhood, while it might be real, is
nowhere near the victimhood of institutionalized, you know, oppression at
the extent that was being a handman correct, which is
(30:25):
definitely fair, right, I think that's fair. I also think
that the point that the show is making is that
we should be stay staying alert about these things. I
think it's also fair, and so I don't think it's
I don't think it's not fair to draw parallels, because
I definitely see parallels. Um, but I think it's it's
worth it to take a step back and not necessarily
(30:47):
go overborn. What I always come back to is the vigilance,
like the lack of vigilance that led to this past
electoral outcome. Most people thought Trump couldn't be elected. Most
people didn't say Trump would be elected. Most most of
America assumed it was a shoe in for Hillary. I
think back to the coffeehouse scenes between Elizabeth Moss and Wiley, So,
(31:12):
the two of them getting coffee at that same coffee
shop where they were called sluts and totally disrespected by
uh men's rights activist member or just a total misogynistic
dude who didn't see them as full human beings to them.
The presence of paramilitary people are military presence that we
(31:33):
start to see on the street to that same coffee
shop being the center of a gun you know, a riot, right,
remember how they were protesting Allah Women's March style Black
Lives Matter style. Where they're I mean, they're there. I
absolutely have seen in real life my own eyes a
(31:54):
intense paramilitary forces just on the street, tanks exactly. So
then the government takes this incredibly harsh crackdown that was
the beginning of the coup that was the beginning of Gileads,
you know, uprising taking over of Boston, and you can
just see from the same perspective, from the same scene geographically,
this one coffee shop, just how incremental and how much
(32:17):
your life can change. And that to me really sounded
like what a lot of Afghanistan has gone through in
the past thirty forty years. And being in your own lifetime,
in your own neighborhood, watching your government change, I mean how,
I mean, how do you even survive? How does your
identity survive? Through that. I went into this episode ready
(32:39):
to pump the brakes on the Gilead comparisons. Now I'm
packing up, Go bad, you're a prepper. I'm gonna leave
today the studio and gonna go back. I love it.
Brad and I have long had a zombie apocalypse plan
in place, just in case my friend and I we
have a situation if we are ever in a horror
movie situation and one of us gets out, we have
a pat But if you go back for the other one,
(33:02):
I'll go back for you. Emily, I'll go back for Yeah.
All right, you heard it here first. All right, let's
let's wrap this baby up. This is I'm dying to
hear from our fans and what they thought about this.
I'm sure there are more nuances. I could talk all
day about this, and um, I'm curious to hear whether
y'all think it's appropriate to compare and what you learn?
(33:24):
What did you take away from the show? And also
what have you heard bridget about the future of the
show from Who is Prospective? So two exciting things. What
already got picked up for a season two? Because lord
knows that Cliffhanger left me one more? Um, but so one,
they've already made a promise to tackle Race more um
(33:44):
in the second season. The show producer says that he's
had a lot of time to rethink what's going on
with Race, and he really wants to tackle it because
you know, he wants to be UM. Yeah, so great,
it is great. Um. And then a little uh, kind
of juicy morsel her my hip hop fans out there,
Margaret Atwood wants Drake to cameo on season two, so
(34:06):
we'll see if that happened because he's Canadian and they
get to Canada. Oh okay, that makes a little more sense.
And also she's a huge drink fan. No, I'm kidding
actually right now, if you read this it's an interview
with them, it really actually sounds like she loves Drake
and it's like, why did you Strake come up on
the show so much? We never intend to, like talk
(34:27):
through not even a huge fan. I know well that
this is what happens. Every time we mentioned Shake, We're like,
do you like him? And we're like, I don't know, man,
all right, So I think I think we can put
this chapter, at least this season of Handmaid's Tale to
rest for right now, I am dying to hear from
all y'all on what you thought about Margaret Atwood's book
about the Hulu rendition, what you learned through watching Handmaid's Tale,
(34:52):
So make sure to hit us up with your thoughts
at mom Stuff Podcast on Twitter, Stuff Mom Never Told
You on Instagram, and of course we always love receiving
your emails at mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com.
Bridget any last words, I think that's it. Just pack
your go back, get your passports, and does always know
lete t beastdis car bordorum
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