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And it’s unclear whether the commander is giving them to her because that’s literally what he thinks she’s intellectually capable of, or because it’s this subtle form of psychological torture because they index a different life.
I don’t think it’s the former. I think Fred knows that June has some measure of intelligence. Yes, she’s not on *his* level but no one is in his mind. But she’s clearly not dumb as proved by their sessions of Scrabble and I get the feeling that the Commander knows June knows this is a game. He’s priding himself on letting her play, think that she’s getting somewhere (even if it’s just realizing it’s all a game) only for him to always have the upper hand. She’s never had the upper hand or even been close. So, yeah, psychological torture.
If the Commander treas anyone as intellectually inferior, I think it’s Serena Joy. He feeds her tiny tidbits of information of the outside world–his world–only because they’re married and I think that’s part of the unwritten code in this world (in the perfect world they envisioned, not the one that is actually in effect) but the moment she starts to have ideas, he shuts her down and walks out.
[adrotate group="5"]"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"If the Commander treas anyone as intellectually inferior, I think it’s Serena Joy. He feeds her tiny tidbits of information of the outside world–his world–only because they’re married and I think that’s part of the unwritten code in this world (in the perfect world they envisioned, not the one that is actually in effect) but the moment she starts to have ideas, he shuts her down and walks out.
So I watched the new one last night, and I’m so curious about what you thought about the backstory there. I thought it was fascinating — many of the flashbacks are so interesting on this show.
Huh.
Well, I’ll need a day or two before I can properly comment but the writers of the TV show did something extremely clever (and stomach churning) with Serena. In the novel she’s not given too much backstory outside of being a former TV evangelist but the TV show went in a whole other direction–they cast her in the mold of Ann Colter and Tomi Lahren and that ilk. It was effective and this was maybe the hardest episode to watch because it was all too *real*
I don’t want to have pity for Serena and fresh off of watching this episode I might hate her more than the Commander but still there’s some part of me that felt bad for her in certain moments. Complicated emotions.
I’ll try to post more properly soon!
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"I’ve had a day to suss out my feelings and they are fairly complicated and so I’m going to talk about this episode in piecemeal because I honestly think I need another rewatch of it. This is going to be pretty scattered….fair warning.
This isn’t from the novel at all which I interpret as the show writers doing very deliberately. They could have done just about anything with Serena but they went a very deliberate route. They’ve modernized their interpretation of the novel in other ways–the grocery store, the aesthetics, ect–but this is maybe the first time they’ve been so forward about it.
Serena is obviously the big story here and her complicit nature in how this universe came together. Serena Joy is emblematic of a very particular type of woman–the uber conservative who believes women have a certain role, a certain place and a certain obligation as women that only they, again as women, can fulfill. This is boiled down to the typical three-parter: wife, mother, keeper of the house. But what I’ve often found frustrating and infuriating about these types of women is that they preach their version of womanhood as if it were their career. They make money and a name for themselves being antithetical to what they are actually saying. Don’t they get that they are working within a system that allows them to do the very thing that they don’t want women to do!
Serena Joy has conference calls and writes articles and books and has a busy schedule full of public speaking, rallies, and apparently getting arrested. She’s not home 24/7 in the place she’s advocating for. Her entire life isn’t serving her husband and making sure he’s taken care of. She’s independent to him, even if they are a team. To the show’s credit they call Serena Joy on her hypocrisy when the Ambassador asks if Serena imagined this type of world–a world where women can’t even read the book she wrote about a woman’s place.
But this isn’t what angers me most about Serena Joy. What angers me most is that it’s largely her ideas about Handmaid’s and reproduction as a national commerce that have gotten women like June to where they are now. How does it not register with Serena Joy that she’s sending hundreds of women off to be raped? To have their children ripped from them? A woman doing this to another woman is…I can’t even come up with a proper word. But at the same time how am I surprised when hundreds if not thousands of woman laughed and said bragging about sexual assault was just locker room talk.
Does Serena even feel a measure of guilt for any of this? I doubt it. I don’t think she’s happy with how it turned out (turns out the place she ends up isn’t all that she thought it would be!) but she’s happy enough to continue benefiting from this system even though it’s clear that the Commander took a lot of her ideas, passed them off as his own, and doesn’t bother crediting her at all. That’s…different from how I thought this would play out. So Serena does contribute in his mind but he needs everyone to think he’s the one with the real ideas/power. Do we think he ever really fought for her to have a voice? We see him say he’ll keep trying to convince “them” to let Serena talk and share her ideas but I doubt he did much other than mention it a few times. Fred seems to agree with his fellow Commander that “we let them forget their place” because of academic and career pursuits (that line had me pause my computer so I could walk around the room and vent some anger…)
But through it all, as much as I do hate Serena in light of this flashback and her plans for the future, there was a small part of me that felt bad for her. She’s found herself in the world she advocated for and it sucks. She’s not even allowed to have sex with her husband anymore, something she clearly liked doing. (side note: was VERY surprised we got a Commander/Serena sex scene. I thought they’d stop honestly). Like June she had to give up her entire identity in order to fit into this new world and I think internally she’s realizes that her identity does not match with what she preached when she was allowed to do so.
Other notes for now
–“Awesome.” I love Elisabeth Moss
–The scene with the children and the faces of the Handmaids was haunting
–Oh, so we’ve reached the point in the novel where it might be possible to get a message to Luke?
–I’m interested in the world outside of Gilead. They appear to only know rumors of Handmaids and the sort of life that’s happening on the East Coast of former America.
Ok, hopefully more later!
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Ok, some general thoughts on the Serena topic, though I might still be a bit under the influence of this article — I don’t necessarily completely agree with its critique of the show, because like many leftist critiques it tends to reify class struggle at the expense of all other forms of domination, but it does make a valid point.
Anyway, Serena. I think the way the show handled that was absolutely brilliant, not just because it casts Serena as a hypocrite (though it does so quite effectively), but because we see a process of ideological emergence that is absolutely chilling. So it’s not that the Commander and the other men of Gilead are these closet religious fundamentalist from the get go. This isn’t exactly a hostile takeover by a preexisting force — they emerge as such over time, as part of a dialogue not just with each other, but apparently with women like Serena, that allow them to feel like they can speak on all women’s behalf. And you actually see this transformation in the Commander — Serena for a long time is oblivious to the writing on the wall, and that’s something that makes her character both tragic and ridiculous. That scene in the cinema where she is preaching her ideological position while totally oblivious to the conditions of possibility that make this preaching possible in the first place is such an amazing and uncomfortable moment.
There is another theme in this episode around the sort of libidinal economy of this society, and how it works on a geopolitical level (the Handmaids as essentially reproductive chattel slaves, presumably commodified for export) on the one hand, and on the personal level on the other. In other words, because we only learn about sexual relations through the Ceremony — and their apparent absence or illicitness in other contexts — it is unclear whether the sorts of taboos on non-reproductively-aimed sex (even, say, within marriage) apply to everyone, or only to the elites. I can’t remember this from the book. But for example, are servants allowed to have lovers? Because if there’s a generalized taboo on sexuality except for reproductive sexuality mediated through the Handmaidens, and if the goal is to fix the demographic collapse, then this is a pretty exceptionally inefficient method of going about it.
The micro-level aspect of this seems to concern Serena directly. As in, what was the show trying to say with that sex scene b/ween Serena and Fred? My guess is that the message is that the more Serena occupies the socially allotted role they both fought so hard for, the less attractive she becomes to Fred. During the Handmaiden gala scene, Serena comes to occupy a position of relative power — both because she is the speaker/host and because the whole event is a spectacle of domination of the Wives/Commanders over the Handmaidens. And that, apparently, makes the Commander interested. In fact, the Commander as a character seems to be defined by a kind of profound fragility of male desire (also apparent in his relationship with Offred).
Also, do we think Luke might actually be alive?
That scene in the cinema where she is preaching her ideological position while totally oblivious to the conditions of possibility that make this preaching possible in the first place is such an amazing and uncomfortable moment.
Yes, this. Serena is sitting in a theater (after telling–not requesting–but telling her husband they were going out) watching a Hollywood movie, with popcorn, free to discuss what they are discussing (if in hushed tones), to give and share ideas and opinions freely and she’s advocating and preaching the removal of all this.
As much as I don’t like Serena I think we need another flashback because I think we need to get inside her head more. She’s such a rigid contained person; as if at every moment she’s keeping a tight lid on her emotions to project an air of control. But when the government of Gilead began taking away things that Serena couldn’t have imagined–sex with your husband, reading,–and implementing the Handmaids what were her thoughts? Did she lie to herself and tell herself this is what she wanted and did her brain try to rationalize it, spin it as the best possible solution? Or did she have tiny rebellions like we see sometimes with Offred? For example, does she have a stash of books somewhere?
it is unclear whether the sorts of taboos on non-reproductively-aimed sex (even, say, within marriage) apply to everyone, or only to the elites. I can’t remember this from the book. But for example, are servants allowed to have lovers? Because if there’s a generalized taboo on sexuality except for reproductive sexuality mediated through the Handmaidens, and if the goal is to fix the demographic collapse, then this is a pretty exceptionally inefficient method of going about it.
I think not. I have this really vague memory of the Marthas gossiping (in the book) about a Martha who was had a lover and how it was seen as taboo in that situation. In the Pilot of this series, Offred’s voice over mentions something about how Nick hasn’t been given a wife yet so I think that lovers are also illegal. The difference is that servants don’t get Handmaids, those are just for the Commanders.
It’s like the demographic collapse necessitating Handmaids is just an excuse.
Also, do we think Luke might actually be alive?
That seems to “happy ending” but with the show getting a second season I’m not going to rule it out.
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"1×7 “The Other Side”
Man, I knew I should have fled to Canada back in November… (okay, semi-lame political joke aside…)
–Mostly a good episode but I hesitate to say great because I tend to be a bit of a purist when it comes to book adaptions and this is pretty much pure invention on the part of the TV show. It fits well with the world created by Atwood so I don’t have a huge issue with it but I do have to sit and ponder if I’m okay with the show having Luke’s story at all. It’s not just that it’s not in the book but that one of the big points of Atwood’s book is that it’s solely Offred’s story, and it’s told in piecemeal, clunky, and disjointed and you only get bits and pieces of other lives through Offred’s own perspective. It’s not exactly linear and it can have digressions (something that is explained in the epilogue) because her memory isn’t perfect and people don’t tell stories in neat straight lines. I think the show is trying to remove the final frame epilogue and make The Handmaid’s Tale a more complete (not sure if that’s the right word…?) story that encompasses more than just Offred hence why last week we got almost an entire episode devoted to examining Serena Joy and why Ofglen (Emily) has had her life opened up more so than in the book.
–With that said, it was still a really good hour of TV. I like the idea that survival makes strange bedfellows of us all. An army brat, a divorcee (and adulterer to boot), a homosexual, and a nun likely don’t have much in common or wouldn’t have run in many of the same circles in the normal world but here they band together because of circumstance.
–Where is Hannah or for that matter where are any of the other pre-Gilead children? This is another mystery that Atwood deliberately leaves unanswered (again, the epilogue really explains why. At some point I guess we’ll have to talk about the entire epilogue because I really don’t think the show is going to go that route, especially with the show getting a 2nd season).
–“Little America” in Canada. I wonder how that works. Is there a President? A Congress? Did the Canadian government fork over land to the American survivors and say “here!” How do the Canadians feel about this? Do the Canadians view the Americans as refugees and would they be hostile (*cough* keeping them in airports, denying them access to basically any sort of right or privilege? *cough*) I’m guessing not because the “Little America” didn’t seem like a ghetto or The Pale and they clearly have some sort of bureaucratic set up though again how does that work with the official Canadian government? Is Canada likewise undergoing a demographic plague like Mexico? If not, why? Is it because that country has always been a bit more forward thinking in certain social and economic problems?
"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"Man, I knew I should have fled to Canada back in November… (okay, semi-lame political joke aside…)
Lol! Ok, I’m going to watch this tonight, and write up some comments after. I’d love to talk more about the narrative structure of the show vs the book — I always thought that the non-linearity of the book is an extremely effective way of showing the psychological effects of incarceration/dehumanization. In this, I think the book partially belongs to the genre of the carceral novels more generally, and the particularity of its structure, with its lines of flight and jumbled narrative. So if the show loses some of that, it’s a pity.
I am still really having a problem with the character motivation on this show. I just don’t find the world to be realistic. They have to create a world where this could happen and they didn’t do that. They are trying to overlay this world as a possibility of happening in the United States, in Boston, no less. It just doesn’t work for me.
The more they show the backstory, where pretty much everyone seems to be against what is happening, everyone seems like a normal American except for the commander, his wife, and some crazies with guns. So one one side we have normal, majority, yet scared America, and on the other side there is this huge cult of people, in government, all across the country, with the ability to destroy congress, with the ability to keep it secret from most of America that there is this plot with what millions of people in it, with this ability to then control, destroy, most of America through violence, and yet this cult’s existence seems to have no effect on all the other people in the United States until this happens. That just doesn’t work. In Boston?
Once again from what we have seen, something catastrophic has happened, in that people cannot have children. That is the catastrophic event. That is the zombie apocalypse. That is the world ending event. What the world has become is supposed to be, i think, how America might react to the catastrophic event. I just don’t see this is a remotely realistic reaction in America to that occurrence.
I think June’s reaction to what is happening to her is the only thing i am finding compelling because i find the flashbacks to be unrealistic. I don’t care about Serena. Fred is a psychopath. Luke, who i like, was not introduced as a real character til recently and so i am not sure i am all that invested in his journey and i just don’t get really get what he is thinking except i want to save my wife and child.
I guess showing his escape is offering a way out and a place of safety and hope for the audience, but it wasn’t all that compelling to me. Showing June with her hopeful face at the end was the best thing about that episode.
Once again from what we have seen, something catastrophic has happened, in that people cannot have children. That is the catastrophic event. That is the zombie apocalypse. That is the world ending event. What the world has become is supposed to be, i think, how America might react to the catastrophic event. I just don’t see this is a remotely realistic reaction in America to that occurrence.
The catastrophic event is actually a terrorist attack (or something to that effect) that enables what is in essence an opportunistic military coup by right-wing religious fanatics who have been infiltrating different levels of the government over a longer period. I’d have to rewatch it, but I think that we learn from the episode before last that said terrorist attack was orchestrated by that same political group — as a kind of provocation.
The inability — or difficulty — to have children is not an “event” per se, it’s a slow catastrophe, and humans generally react differently to slow catastrophe. We get a sense in the show that it’s the thing that gets used to justify the system put in place, but it’s not the catalyst for revolution. Though I agree that because we actually don’t know how much of the world is affected, it feels a bit too vague. As in, is the entire world affected or just the US (the first problem is a “species level” problem, and the argument can be made that since humans are severely overpopulating the planet, a decrease in fertility might not be a bad thing; if it’s localized, then it’s a geopolitical problem more than a global catastrophe).
In some senses, the point of the story is not so much that this could happen, but that it’s already here in some form, and has been actively and obviously here in very recent history (in particular in relation to slavery and US racial politics more generally), with some women bearing the brunt of patriarchal power structures that seek to control their bodies, sexuality, and intellect, and others benefiting from it, but always only partially. I take the show to be a meditation on power.
As to the possibility of something like this happening in the US? If you look at the historical records of revolutions in different cultural contexts, it turns out that while historical hindsight it 20/20, contemporaries usually expressed the sentiment that “it could never happen here” until, inevitably, it did.
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