The trajectory of the US when the book was written made it look possible. There's some theocratic fascists with a lot of power in the US, but they seem to have been outflanked by the meme fascists for the last decade and don't have much grip on the youth, so the threat has faded considerably. I think it was written to scare people awake to that threat, rather than solely to fellate liberalism. Here I think Zizek's critique of the TV series is largely accurate while I disagree with his critique of the book.

@@ericc9321 What serious fascist movement is anywhere near power in America in the last few decades? Besides, the country has recently given the lefty green side of politics control of all branches of government, so fasten your seatbelts dorothy.

when people watch/read dystopian texts and their only line of thinking is 'could this realistically happen'... i mean, you're missing so much of what the text is actually saying. gilead doesn't have to be a reality for it to reflect very real and very dangerous attitudes that people still hold in supposedly liberal countries.

@@entertain7us148 noone should be reading too much into the story, thats the point of comparing it the real world, and evaluating its realism. My best friend loved the tv adaptation, he said to me 'youd love it'...i tended to get sick of it around the time her commander gets arrested. I think part of the reason it appealed to him is that he's a socialist / atheist type, whereas im a liberarian christian conservative. The world depicted is too bleak, ruined, depressing and inhabitated by corrupt hypocrites. The closest we got to it in recent times was ISIS.

@@lieshtmeiser5542 scratch a liberal get a fascist. The fascist movement in the USA will come as a consolidation of power from the Democratic Party including Joe Biden. Fascism is the last breath of capitalism, it is capitalism in crisis. We have already begun to see the signs with international intervention from the liberals and conservatives in the USA becoming a-given, with corporate hegemony placed above all else, with anti-China propaganda blasted over every MSM source. We will see.

we can say both!

@TheBmo4538 You haven't paid attention at all. He looks only at the political message. Also his version that lays out the exact way to the dystopia is much more fit for a political pamphlet than just pointing at a bad thing and leaving it open as to how it may happen.

I see you everywhere

well put.

I think the book has more depth not as a prediction of a possible future, but as an allegory for the psychology of human beings as it exists now. The idea that each woman has a side to her that represents the female roles in the story, the different colors, and so compartmentalizes herself in this way. I don’t buy her story as a warning for some dystopian future, but I appreciate seeing inner psychology expressed outwardly as a societal system. Instead of running around pretending that such a theocracy is eminent, I think a better reading is to take to the time to consider how we women are viewing each other and ourselves.

When has there been mass infertility imposed upon humanity? We have a low birthrate in much of the world now, but thats voluntary, not physiological. It is the infertility, and in the tv show it is suggested that its male infertility, that is the causal source of the rise to power of the 'sons of jacob'. It is like the monopoly of a resource that everyone needs but only a few produce. Theres always something when a new exogenous shock hits humanity. When covid hit the western world for example, what did people panic and do? Yeah, to everyones surprise...toilet rolls sold out...fact is stranger than fiction.

Also I think the narrator in the books is clearly consumed within the ideology of this society since it’s written de facto. I think it highlighted the way that this society manipulates the thoughts and reasoning of those within the system, even those taking the brute of the oppression.

I actually have a nuanced disagreement with Zizek about the “nostalgia for present” he thinks a Handmaid’s Tale represents. It is more akin to tragedy porn, where the pleasure of reading/viewing the story is not about making someone feel better about the present, but to validate their feelings that the present is bad and tragic. People who love and defend the story don’t say “I’m glad I don’t live in that reality.” They instead insist that it IS somehow representative of the present reality. It’s like when a person receives hurtful comments, and then goes into a fantasy of pure violent oppression to appease their sense of victimization. This kind of fanciful exaggeration is not uncommon, it’s the same drive and fetish that caused the whole Jussie Smollett incident.

@@Wissahickon Yeah, love Zizek but I watch Handmaid's Tale for the exaggerated parallels to our present circumstance. I feel like the show creators are making a pseudo-absurdist critique on our society today. Doesn't make me feel good. But I appreciate it.

Michael Ellis Wouldn’t that make the show incredibly Whitewashed? It’s a show depicting a western world, not those other places. It’s by and for western viewers. It’s actually a fetishistic nostalgia for the PAST. It comes across as a white woman’s fantasy of what it’s like to be that violently oppressed long after that kind of oppression has ended for people like her. And what does it do to raise awareness of the reality of those other places? (But in their defense, my gut feeling tells me that if someone were to depict middle eastern and African violence in the same stylistic way, it would be labeled a racist show.)

Michael Ellis Good points, I stand corrected.

@@Wissahickon i am from turkey and what he mentioned is actually true. Turkey had been a secular country before the islamist akp came to power. All leftist, feminst, democratic movements in Turkey are against islamism. They all support secularism. But as far as i see, most western leftists believe islamist governments in the middle east are somehow anti-imperalist and deny our voices. They side with islamist autocracts who oppresse minorities and women. I do not like this.

Idiocracy is every bit as fetishist as Handmaid's Tale it's just geared toward men who think themselves smart and rational

@@noidontlikeu I think it's a mockery of our society, that's why it shows in the beginning how it falls apart, and its hero is an example of how we are failing now.

Kriegtime101 maybe if you live in one of the many Islamic countries where comparable social norms are actually enforced by religious fundamentalists. Or you're severely delusional. Then it might be a dead ringer

@@CurseCreep because western nations never opress or commit violence against women....

@@Kriegtime101 No they don't. Oh sure, it happens, but its not state sanctioned. There are legal codes against such actions in most of the western world, bar some exceptions. In other parts of the world there are legal codes that enforce bodily control or punishment like (stoning, lashing, etc.) built on fundementalist readings of religious texts. I'm not saying there aren´t problems in the west. But that you see in Handmaiden´s Tale, especially the tv-series, isn´t anything you´re likely to see now or in any forseeable future

@@CurseCreep the trajectory we are on certainly bends towards the erosion of women's rights.... anti abortion laws are coming back, the US is under marshall law... things are not getting better right now for women.

@@Kriegtime101 YOU´RE on. I'm not american As for your points, im leaning pro-life, so we likely have significant disagreements there. Thats beside's the point, fundamentally because regardless of which directions things are goiing, as you note yourself, you´re not there yet. Which was what you initially posited. World´s a nasty place, full of nasty ideas. That´s a fact of life. Problem is people disagree about whats to be defined as nasty. Work hard to have a consensus in the middle, so the world becomes the maximum amount of least nasty as can be tolerated by all

I don't think it confuses religion for the enemy at all. It is the enemy and Atwood paints it out for what it is. Atwood uses so much from history and incorporated into this fictional world. It's clear she took inspiration from extremist Islamic cultures whereby women have to cover themselves because their "God" tells them too. There's a lot of similarities to the Magdalene Laundries in Ireland, too under the Catholic church where women had babies forcibly taken from them and were forced into years of unpaid labour. Yes, all of this happened thanks to religion.

yeah women have that fear (at least me) because gender based oppression has been actual thing for thousands of years. good you got it

My gf watched the series and I've read the book. She found it believable and I found it completely ridiculous so I couldn't get into it at all. It's not just the overall male dominated society element, but also the idea that young men aren't allowed to have sex with young women. The idea that any young man would put up with that kind of society can only be believed by someone who has never been a young man. I do think it's interesting that lots of women think Gilead is a possibility though. Either they get a rougher time from men than I recognise or there are some strange perceptions about men out there. It's probably a combination of both tbh

@@meh62 The only person responsible for your paranoia is yourself.

@@fiveleavesleft6521 yeah, and history itself.

@@meh62 Wow, you love spreading false propaganda

it was written in 1948... just his pictures of technology and their depiction+use in society is pretty decent enough, same with linguistics.

Not really, not at all. 1984 makes you fear your present, question it. The handmaid's tale on the other hand makes you appreciate your present, defend it even.