#HandmaidsTale - As much as I enjoy watching about dystopias and thinking about them with a sociological lens, I really think this one misses the point in capturing how 'race'/'ethnicity' would play out in an extension of Gilead (which is basically Trump's America)
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Yeah I see what you mean. I thought that maybe these were opportunities to look at issues of refugees/gender discrimination via different lens. But it encapsulates white supremacy via dystopian fiction. Now that explains the absence of 'race'
It's the exploitation of refugee stories, the appropriation of colonial history
In the post apocalyptic world, Whiteness wins
POC are somehow inexplicably extinct
White people are enslaved
White people rebel, survive & win the world
As if slavery is so easy to unshackle
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Yes, and I think the series speaks volumes of how this takes place with the use of WOC actors to play significant roles (in this case, the daughter, the husband, the BF, the 'martha')
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TV show has made many changes to the book, modernising much. It was an opportunity to deal with racial inequality in a nuanced way. But instead, it is simply a celebration of White feminism - gender politics that whitewashes racial justice & extols the interests of White women
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Yes, universalising the experiences of white women in this dystopia in ways that try to equate it with other women, while normalising the idea of 'I have a black friend/daughter/husband' - and that is what has been insidiously irking me about this show.
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Thanks for pointing me to this exchange - interested as a viewer of the show but also anthropologist off air. The 'culture' of Gilead and social relations are interesting because there is extreme nuance about some things and completely missed opportunities with others.
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Thank you Nina for reading them. I hope season 4 unpacks these dynamics in Gilead.
End of conversation
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