The Handmaid's Tale (2017 TV Series)

[Shadenuat]

Anyone watched the first episode? Reactions are more than good so far.

The Handmaid’s Tale Trailer (Official) • The Handmaids Tale on Hulu - YouTube

[bendk]

Quote Originally Posted by Shadenuat

Anyone watched the first episode? Reactions are more than good so far. The Handmaid’s Tale Trailer (Official) • The Handmaids Tale on Hulu - YouTube

I read this complimentary review just the other day:

The Handmaid's Tale review – timely adaptation scares with dystopian dread | Television & radio | The Guardian

I don't have a Hulu account, but I may try it after the series concludes. I remember when Atwood's novel came out and the many positive reviews. I even liked the film starring Natasha Richardson, Robert Duvall, and Fay Dunaway, although just looking at the RT website it appears I was one of the few that did. This kind of dystopian scenario will always be lurking just around the corner. Men like Pence are the embodiment of this dystopian threat.

[Sam]

I have not read the story, my wife has. We watched the first three episodes and were both repeatedly reduced to leaky-eyed wrecks. As Sean Thompson said, it felt like someone had been stomping on my soul. So yeah, it's really good.

I'll check it out. I could do with a show to watch. The Leftovers is back, but I want to binge that all in one go when the season is done.

[Shadenuat]

The Handmaid’s Tale is the most horrific thing I have ever seen | Ars Technica

[Arthur Staaz]

I haven't read the book or seen the show. I've read enough about them to have a sense of what they're about. I have trouble seeing that there's any real potential for a movement toward a patriarchal theocracy in America. If anything, the society here is becoming more secularized and less religious. All of this talk of the book/show being so timely just strikes me as hyperbole.

My own opinion is we're much more likely to sell our souls to Google and Facebook so that we can be continuously entertained and distracted. This seems a much more real and a horrifying possibility. Consider - does our world look more like 1984 or Brave New World?

[Kevin]

Quote Originally Posted by Arthur Staaz

I haven't read the book or seen the show. I've read enough about them to have a sense of what they're about. I have trouble seeing that there's any real potential for a movement toward a patriarchal theocracy in America. If anything, the society here is becoming more secularized and less religious. All of this talk of the book/show being so timely just strikes me as hyperbole. My own opinion is we're much more likely to sell our souls to Google and Facebook so that we can be continuously entertained and distracted. This seems a much more real and a horrifying possibility. Consider - does our world look more like 1984 or Brave New World?

Definitely more like Brave New World. Entertained to death. "Timely?" Please. The book was published at a time (1985) when Gloria Steinem may have still had some relevance, but now the talk (as distinguished from the show) is, indeed, hyperbole, not to mention verbal histrionics and dated shots against "the (straw) man." There were alot of good things about 1970, but trying to live in it when the year is 2017 is sad indeed.

[Druidic]

These last two gentlemen said it all.

Orwell was right on about the dangers of the manipulation of language. It's called political correctness.

But everything else points in Huxley's direction.

I love 1984 even though it's less timely than Brave New World. Still, the Anti-Sex League is a direction we could have gone off in...

This series may well be good but it's a bit of an anachronism. The Patriarchy is dead or on life support. Good.

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

Only in the luckiest parts of the world.

[Shadenuat]

There are parts of the world, like Saudi Arabia or parts of India, where this is indeed everyday reality for women without any hope of that changing anytime soon. And Saudi elite tends to be extremely well educated, often in the most prestigious Western institutions...
And, people don't realize how easy it is for societies to slide into this in spite of all.