- WeAreTheRomans
- Feb 23, 2010
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by R. Guyovich
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I'm not a "tactical realism" type, but eventually it does get a little stale that tv and movies always skip that crucial revolutionary period and go straight to post-apocalyptic new order. Obviously this isn't Atwood's fault, but it would be interesting if they picked up the show for another season and did a loose Fargo-style prequel. Or even a Black Mirror-style anthology of episodes from the time "before", showing the discreet steps to full on 19th century prairie bonnets and human slavery.
Plus, there are so many interesting mechanisms of ideological takeover they could explore, I have a hard time understanding why more shows don't write about them.
I could imagine they'd be able to get some mileage out of setting the birth of Gilead in flyover country, where the coasts don't realize until too late how pervasive and how serious the new fundamentalism has become. What if a national school voucher program instituted shortly after modern Black Tuesday or 9/11 meant that poor families were suddenly "homeschooling" children for the meager injection of cash?
As fertility dropped, perhaps red became a fashionable color for pregnant women to advertise their fertility. Or during a civil war, red windbreakers were issued by the Red Cross to pregnant or fertile women to advertise their noncombatant status, and the punishments for improper use of those garments was increasingly harsh, culminating in public hangings. Maybe the handmaidens' origin was a national grant program for surrogates? Or maybe the gov't starts levying fines ("healthcare surcharges"?) against companies that employee fertile women. If the country is in a deep enough depression, maybe it becomes necessary for women to consolidate rations/households and raise a child together. Or maybe households with a child get double rations, and couples bring in any single or potentially childbearing female relatives in hopes of hitting the jackpot.
A flood destroys an entire year's crops and washes away homes in a dozen midwestern states, and the US has to open WWII-style feeding kitchens, run and staffed entirely by widowed sodexo job corps employees in their drab grey uniforms. An episode could follow one of these job corps women back to her dormitory in an old warehouse just in time to learn that there are openings for some of these employees to contract out into homes.
Since one of the biggest themes in the book is how women work so hard to keep one another down in an effort to scrape together a little comfort for themselves, it would be so drat interesting (to me at least) to work on these incremental stories. Whether it's about bottom of the barrel cafeteria employees fighting over a job where they'd still be slaves, but slaves with a door on the toilet, or about how, for a time, fertile women enjoyed a lot of status and lorded it over other women in society, particularly the rich women who couldn't buy a coveted red windbreaker with all the money in the world.
I'm glad that Margaret Atwood wrote The Handmaid's Tale, not forums poster whalesteak
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May 6, 2017 13:50
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Apr 29, 2024 02:24
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- WeAreTheRomans
- Feb 23, 2010
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by R. Guyovich
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Remember that some people need to have a careful analysis and overview of how every event in a show came to happen.
Yeah I've seen Wookiepedia
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May 6, 2017 17:47
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- WeAreTheRomans
- Feb 23, 2010
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by R. Guyovich
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The music is easily the weakest part of the show, the ending for Ep3 would have been better silent
yeah it was a big misstep imo
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May 8, 2017 21:35
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- WeAreTheRomans
- Feb 23, 2010
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by R. Guyovich
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If Martin sheen cameoed as Junes dad in flashback I would be so happy
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May 13, 2017 08:34
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- WeAreTheRomans
- Feb 23, 2010
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by R. Guyovich
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I thought Nick was supposed to be an ugly creep due to them casting an ugly creeping looking guy. But apparently he's giving June multiples and poo poo. Maybe that's the point, that even a spindly goon creep like him becomes a stud in a world where every other man is a rapist
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May 20, 2017 09:47
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- WeAreTheRomans
- Feb 23, 2010
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by R. Guyovich
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Nick is definitely a very good looking person
Huh. Well at the time we were watching I checked this with my partner (who is a heterosexual woman to my knowledge) and she agreed he was repulsive, but no accounting for taste I guess
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May 20, 2017 10:57
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- WeAreTheRomans
- Feb 23, 2010
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by R. Guyovich
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I agree about (most of) the acting, but the cinematography? Um, no. I mean goddamn, how much slow motion can one series possibly have? Guess we'll find out!
Some people people in this thread seem to be reflexively praising everything about this show and get strangely mad at even a little criticism.
There are some very beautiful shots (like the aerial view of the handmaids in red flowing towards the execution ground, implying both a God's-eye view of events and alluding to menstrual blood/fertility; and the wide shot of the living room with June and the commanders wife at either end, beautifully composed).
The slo-mo can be a bit eh, but yeah overall it's good
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May 20, 2017 13:44
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- WeAreTheRomans
- Feb 23, 2010
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by R. Guyovich
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Yep!
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May 21, 2017 03:08
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- WeAreTheRomans
- Feb 23, 2010
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by R. Guyovich
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That post depressed me more than this show
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May 21, 2017 09:53
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Apr 29, 2024 02:24
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- WeAreTheRomans
- Feb 23, 2010
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by R. Guyovich
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I've only watched through episode 3 and I know it's silly to over-analyze the premise and setting... but why couldn't you just do embryo transplants from the fertile women?
We did that like 15 years ago with cattle at the family ranch. The in-show problem seems to be conception or genetic, not with actual pregnancy/gestation. So what you can do is hyper-ovulate a woman to harvest a bunch of eggs at once, fertilize those in-vitro, screen the embryos for genetic or other defects, then implant them in surrogate mothers. Assuming you can get a couple hundred eggs from a fertile woman and one in five are normal, for every "handmaid" you should be able to produce at least a few dozen healthy embryos.
Basically they should have the technology in the setting to deal with the fertility problem, setting aside the religious factors.
They are deliberately and clearly shown to be rejecting advanced reproductive medicine. They use a birthing stool ffs
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Jun 8, 2017 00:44
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May 6, 2017 13:50
