A feminist tale?

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This article was published 29/04/2017 (3262 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“This will become ordinary.”

That chilling line of dialogue in the new television adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale could serve as shorthand for why a work written 32 years ago continues to have profound resonance today — especially since we’ve seen firsthand what happens when we say “that could never happen.”

Atwood’s disturbing tale of a totalitarian theocracy describes a society where fertile women are forced to become Handmaids, whose sole purpose is to reproduce for Commanders and their wives, as recounted by a Handmaid named Offred (played here by Elisabeth Moss). The novel has been adapted many times over the past three decades into plays, a largely forgotten 1990 film, an opera, and, in 2013, a full-length ballet commissioned by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet.

But this television adaptation feels especially timely in Donald Trump’s America, or “scarily relevant” as one headline put it. (Though, that the book has never gone out of print should offer a comment on just how timeless this story is.) As Atwood told the Los Angeles Times “…then the election happened, and the cast woke up in the morning and thought, we’re no longer making fiction — we’re making a documentary. I think that is one reason for the resurgence of interest.”

The Handmaid’s Tale has long been a feminist touchstone for many people. In March, activists in Texas dressed up as Handmaids to protest anti-abortion legislation, and women carried signs that read “Make Margaret Atwood Fiction Again” at the Women’s March at Washington, D.C. Indeed, it is a story about resistance; you can trust that Offred’s mic-drop proclamation “I intend to survive” will show up on protest signs.

That’s why it was both confusing and disappointing last week when the cast of the show refused to call The Handmaid’s Tale feminist at a film festival panel. “Honestly, for me it’s not a feminist story,” Moss said. “It’s a human story, because women’s rights are human rights.”

Despite the T-shirt-friendly, feminist-adjacent sloganeering of late — “nevertheless, she persisted,” “the future is female,” “nasty woman” — it would seem that the term “feminist” itself remains an F-word.

A feminist is, by definition, “a person who believes in the social, economic and political equality of the sexes.” But the word has been warped by those who fear it. Let’s put it this way: the idea that feminists are shrill, man-hating harpies with hairy pits didn’t come from feminists.

But the word has also been distorted by capitalism. Every so often there’s a discussion about “re-branding” feminism. Not to make it more inclusive, but to make it more marketable, more palatable. So, feminism gets de-clawed and de-fanged. It’s made non-threatening, non-obtrusive and non-disruptive. The word “feminist” is made into something you can sell, because the idea of equality can’t seem to sell itself.

Sure, the cast and crew of The Handmaid’s Tale might avoid the F-word in interviews because they are promoting a TV show and, to do so, feel they must create some distance between themselves and a loaded word. But maybe they aren’t explicitly saying the show is feminist because they don’t have to. The Handmaid’s Tale is, at its core, a story about the subjugation of women. There is no shortage of feminist commentary embedded within it.

In the book and the TV series, the Handmaids are at once treated like Madonnas and whores, and are raped once a month by their Commanders as sanctioned by the state. Handmaids and wives have status over other women, but they learn that having status is not the same as having power. In the Republic of Gilead, where the story is set, women’s sexuality is something to be feared, policed and strictly regulated. Women are objectified and treated as vessels. Women who are not fertile are considered defective.

The Handmaids are made to regard each other with suspicion and competition. At one point, Ofglen (Alexis Bledel), Offred’s shopping partner, comments, “They do that really well: make us distrust each other.” She could just as easily be talking about any form of girl-on-girl crime that results from internalized misogyny.

If the treatment of women in Gilead looks at all familiar and makes you think, “Wow, that’s horrific and wrong,” congratulations: you’re a feminist.

Even if the cast of the TV series doesn’t call The Handmaid’s Tale a feminist work, the series will doubtlessly open people’s eyes to the ways in which women are treated in our society.

Like Offred, we need to stay awake. It’s when we’re asleep that the unthinkable becomes the ordinary.

jen.zoratti@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @JenZoratti