'The Handmaids Tale' Is A Master Class On The Power Of Rebellion

In the third episode of Hulus The Handmaids Tale , viewers are exposed to a quotidian site seldom shown on television: a shock of red, sitting plainly in the heroines underwear, delivering the news that shes started her period, and isnt, as she thought, pregnant.

Menstruation is part of many womens daily (or, monthly) lives, but the visual display of it remains a taboo in media. Just last year, a tampon company made waves by showing women boxing and climbing, and getting bloody as a result. Before that, depictions of bloody periods didnt usually make it to TV, barring a few exceptions from Degrassi, Mad Men, and Broad City.

So, the choice to include a splotch of blood in The Handmaids Tale is a bold one. But, in an interview with The Huffington Post, showrunner Bruce Miller was matter-of-fact about the decision. Our version needed to be unflinching if it was going to be successful. Many women menstruate and bleed, he said, and if people are uncomfortable with that, tough.

This is in keeping with an inflammatory comment made by the cast during a panel at the Tribeca Film Festival, that theyve since wheeled back . Its just a story about a woman, actress Madeline Brewer said, when asked whether she got involved with the story because of its feminist themes. Its a human story because womens rights are human rights, the shows star, Elisabeth Moss, said.

The remarks caused a stir, and were blamed on Hulus marketing team, even though Atwood herself has made similar claims. The author has taken issue with certain aspects of early feminism, which took a stand against feminine modes of self-expression; shes also said that the story is about power dynamics more broadly , and couldve been told from a mans point of view.

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In a recent New York Times op-ed , the author wrote, [I]s The Handmaids Tale a feminist novel? If you mean a novel in which women are human beings with all the variety of character and behavior that implies and are also interesting and important, and what happens to them is crucial to the theme, structure and plot of the book, then yes. In that sense, many books are feminist.

In other words, Atwood makes a distinction between her intention as a storyteller and the implications of the book for readers and scholars. As a novelist, she aims to tell a story about an individuals struggles, her daily wants and hopes and fears. The character doesnt explicitly observe that her biological womanhood is an integral part of her oppression and her experience of the world, as a feminist essayist might; instead, she observes that shes feeling scared, or mad, or happy. But, to create a woman character who thinks and feels on her own terms is a feminist act, and certainly to read the book is a feminist experience.

Like Atwood, Miller discusses the show as Offreds story, first and foremost. Early on, in hiring a director and costume designer, the team decided that filming close-in on Offred, to create a claustrophobic effect that would emulate her oppression, would be stylistically key.

The book has a sense of anecdotal remembrance. Shes remembering things thatve happened to her. So you dont want to forget that she was there theres no objectivity, its Offred telling stories of herself, of her life. You dont ever want to lose that feeling of the book, that its a very personal narrative of Offreds, Miller said. One of the strongest things about the book was not knowing everything else that was happening. Were so used to being able to hop on the internet or watch TV or ask somebody a question, and shes lost all of that. And that, to me, was so scary and so frustrating.