The TV drama The Handmaid's Tale -- airing on the streaming service Hulu -- is the darling of Hollywood, winning a batch of Emmy awards for portraying a cartoonishly cruel Christian theocracy that is “eerily resonant” with what Trump voters would do if they could. The show's creators are so committed to scaring people about Trump that USA Today complained that "Season 2 verges on misery porn."
Kevin Fallon of the Daily Beast championed the "horrifying tale" spun by actress Alexis Bledel, who plays a lesbian named Emily who is a handmaid -- a rare fertile woman forced to make babies -- renamed Ofglen ("of Glen").
The second episode of the season delves into Emily’s backstory through gut-wrenching flashbacks, in which we learn that she was married to a woman (played by Clea DuVall), with whom she had a child, and was a talented college professor before a changing world rolling back gay rights and protections forced her and her family to attempt to flee the country.
As is the case with much of The Handmaid’s Tale, hers is a backstory that chills because of its alarming relevance. It’s nearly impossible to watch the news each day, with acts of violence committed and legislation being spontaneously reversed, and not fear that LGBTQ rights—not to mention lives—could feasibly be at such risk.
....“It’s just such a frightening possibility,” Bledel says of the storyline revealing why “it’s important to move our culture to a place of acceptance, because acceptance is going to be more enduring than even laws, which are important, too, but can be revoked and repealed.”
Season 2 is no longer based on Margaret Atwood’s kooky 1985 novel. This was how the “anti-gay” Christians were painted with Bledel’s character in the first season:
She and her lover are bound, gagged, and thrown into the back of the truck, which drives them to a construction site where Ofglen’s lover is strung up in a noose and hung while Ofglen watches in helpless, wrenching despair from the back of the truck. Because her lover is a “Martha” and can’t have children, she is killed for the crime of being a “gender traitor.” And because Ofglen is a handmaid she is spared death, but punished with genital mutilation instead.
How on God's Earth does this not strike Hollywood as more “eerily resonant” with real-world Islamic theocracies? Why must they always sling the nastiest mud at Christianity?
There is zero doubt that this show is dramatized #Resistance, but it’s instructive to see the actress ally herself with “the press” as fervent advocates of “awareness” of the horror unleashed by the Trump voters:
“I like to keep hope alive and err on the side of optimism,” she says. “It is hard, you know? It’s hard to do right now, but I try to look ahead and think that being vocal about all of these issues, the way that the press is, and maintaining awareness, which we’re all trying to do. Hopefully that doesn’t allow any of this to be brushed under the rug. Everybody’s making noise about it. I don’t know where it all leads, but I know that there are groups doing incredible work, like the ACLU, to fight back against some real-life horrific injustices. That encourages me.”
