The Handmaid's Tale (Hulu Original)
What on Earth did I witness in this 2 and half seasons of New Age Gilead/Old Age United States fortune telling horror reality on Netflix?
Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu is definitely a series that will make you open your eyes to the injustices against women happening in real life today and the battle we fight daily to have ownership over what happens to OUR bodies.
I appreciate the men in my life that are horrified by what happens in this show, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are so many more men out there that are fighting to have our real world turn into the fictional world of Gilead from this series. These are the same men that ripped my ancestors from their homes, built America on their backs, and had the nerve to credit themselves as our saviors because of their diluted perspectives of who we are as PEOPLE. Black people are not savages and women are not baby incubators or sex toys created for the pleasure of men!
If you don’t understand how this ties into the real world, look at the abortion laws being passed to control what we do with our bodies. I know I’m late on the topic and it’s because it’s a sore spot for me, but all of these laws passing taking our rights away that help us have a say in when and if we push out human beings no matter the circumstance is for the birds.
When I was a senior in high school, I remember a being in this meeting of sorts with people talking to us about college life and things to look out for or to expect when entering into any institution of high learning. In that meeting, we were informed 1 in 4 women on college campuses are raped and/or sexually assaulted within their college career. ONE IN FOUR! After successfully graduating, being a Resident Assistant for 3 years, and having a multitude of involvement on campus through different organizations and groups, I’ve had my share of experiences with this statistic; which I’m sure is a very different ration now. Unfortunately, I’m pretty positive I can say anybody reading this knows somebody (whether in your knowledge or not) that has been a victim of sexual assault and/or rape.
It took me a while to sit down and watch the Handmaid’s Tale series, not for lack of interest but because of time. I wanted to commit the time to watch it all, digest it all, and allow myself to be angered by it the way I knew I would be. These laws passing and seeing comments referencing them to the show was the catalyst to me getting my time together to truly understand why anybody would suggest that.
If you haven’t seen it and don’t want spoilers, this is where you may want to stop, but if you have seen it or it doesn’t bother you to know the plot in advance come on down this rabbit hole with me then.
WARNING: Spoiler’s below!
June (Elizabeth Moss) is an amazing character that was developed so perfectly for this story. I appreciate the adaptation from the book although I have not read it yet, and I know this story was one that definitely needed to be brought to the big screen. June lives under a totalitarian government which is now known as Gilead, in a time where the human population is in danger of extinction due to a dramatic decrease in births; the future of the US. Women aren’t allowed to own property, work regular jobs, and are themselves considered property of the state to men. The few remaining fertile women are placed in sexual servitude to the commanders of this government and their wives to reproduce and provide these barren women with the children they are unable to bare themselves; they are known as handmaid’s. The remaining women, that are acknowledged as such, play specific roles in the day to day lives of the men in this world; Wives - typically barren women that handle the inner workings of the house hold and take care of their men, Martha’s - barren women that cook and clean, and Aunt’s - barren women that prep monitor and assign handmaid’s into their servitude. But of course there are women that cannot be controlled and are punished for their uselessness and or treason to the society. They… are unwomen; stripped of their dignity and thrown to the colonies to shovel toxic man-made disease filled dirt and die on the outskirts of each city.
How disgusting!
June and her Best Friend, Moira (Samira Wiley - Orange is the New Black), show us two different perspectives in this world. Although, they are different, they are both rebels in their own ways, and help this story unfold to show us just how hard these women have to fight to be considered human; and even then they’re still treated like cattle only destined to serve man. Handmaid’s undeniably have it the worse, however. They are beaten when they step out of line, tagged with a metal clip presenting their serial number, have had their biological children ripped away from them upon being thrown into this slavery, are stripped of their identity to be given a name created from that of their commanders first name to show whom they below to (Of-Fred, Offred), must participate in ceremonial rape once a month to conceive a child for their host home at that moment (as though artificial insemination isn’t a thing we’ve already discovered), complete grocery shopping needs for the home, and stay locked away in a room prepared just for them away from the rest of the inhabitants in the home. Then, on top of all that, if they are so “blessed” to conceive, after carrying a child for 9 months they watch their child be ripped from their arms, placed into the hands of the wife they are handmaid to, and then they’re shipped off to their next posting to do it all again for another family and never see that child again (preferably) either.
I went through so many mixed emotions watching this show, and honestly it’s not a series that I could re-watch. It hits hard, and you have to make it personal because it’s a personal attack on everything we are trying to preserve. It also got me hot to see the blacks and how they react in the show. To be clear, Gilead is a fairly new concept and the American government is still active and trying to regain control over US land from their embassies around the world. June has been in servitude as a handmaid for 3 years, I believe. This isn’t something that’s 100 years down the line and people have only read about slavery and the time before… the time before was literally 2 seconds ago and some of the blacks participating in this tom foolery as though they’ve forgotten what our people already endured in this country.
I’d especially love to slap the little black girl know as Ofmatthew (Ashleigh Throp) in Season 3. I loved her as Delilah in the 100 (another must watch) but this little girl is running up my blood pressure, and I just want her to get her life together! It looked like she may be coming to her senses now that she’s pregnant AGAIN, at the end of Season 3 Episode 5, but who really knows.
Well, there’s not much more to say other than watch this show and start/continue your fight to protect the women you love in this world TODAY, before we make our way to Gilead tomorrow.
Praised be… may the Lord open.
Be D.O.P.E. America… and protect your valuables, stop being children and breaking everything God blessed you with!
Series Premiere Date: April 26, 2017
Where I watched: Hulu