The Handmaid’s Tale (1990) | Sci-Fi Saturdays

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Some of the best sci-fi stories have political themes.

The Handmaid’s Tale is a strong reminder of the fragility of freedom in the land of the free. It depicts a world not too different from our own, where the wrong people, with the wrong ideas came into power–and before anyone understood what was happening, it was too late. The country went wrong.

First Impressions

The trailer for this film informs audiences that in the near future, in the Republic of Gilead, the country went wrong. Civil war, ecological disasters, and political turmoil left many women unable to conceive children. Those that still could conceive were called Handmaids and apparently used by leaders to bear children for others. The woman hopes the man is sterile, but the man believes it’s her fault if a child is not conceived. It appears to be an oppressive tale couched in a “what if” moment. Take a moment to process the trailer for The Handmaid’s Tale before reading on.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

The Fiction of The Film

“Once upon a time in the recent future, a country went wrong.” A couple with their young daughter in tow make a run for the border. The husband (Reiner Schöne) is shot and killed while the woman, Kate (Natasha Richardson), is captured by the border guard and taken to a processing center. She does not know what has happened to her daughter. Women from all over the country are separated into two groups: those that can bear children and those that cannot. Civil war and other ecological disasters (presumably the use of biological or nuclear weapons) have rendered a large portion of the females sterile, upwards of 99%. Those that can still “bear fruit” are placed into training camps to become Handmaids; concubines for the leaders of the states and country.

The country, called The Republic of Gilead, is a theonomic totalitarian state run by a religious fundamentalist regime. The all white, all male leadership segregates women into different castes (signified by the color of their garments), using them to fulfill various duties to the men, all in the name of God. The system is designed to break the women down, punishing them for self-pleasure and blaming them for refusing to bear children, while it recreates them as the Republic sees fit. At the Handmaid facility, Kate befriends Moira (Elizabeth McGovern), a  lesbian that is forced into service for the state regardless of her sexual orientation. They are overseen by Aunt Lydia (Victoria Tennant), a strict, slightly older task-mistress. One evening Moira attacks and subdues Lydia with the help of Kate, and steals her distinctive brown robes, escaping the facility.

Kate completes her training and is given an assignment with the Chief of Security for the State, The Commander (Robert Duvall). She meets with his wife, Serena Joy (Faye Dunaway), for approval before beginning. Kate is given the new name of Offred, as in “of Fred,” the Commander’s given name. Several times a month the Handmaid of the house, who dresses in red robes (reminiscent of The Scarlet Letter, adultery), takes part in the “ceremony,” a sexual act performed with both the Commander and his wife, in order to conceive a child for their family. She returns to the training facility when he is out of town, and for checkups from an approved doctor–who offers to impregnate her to make things easier. The Commander is most likely sterile as well, and if Kate does not get pregnant within 4 months she will be reassigned, sent to the Colonies, or killed.

The Commander meets with Kate late in the evenings for unsanctioned visits, where they play boardgames, look at banned magazines such as Vogue or Cosmopolitan, and talk. This is all under the guise to get to know her better, but is also an escape from his cold wife. The behavior is not an approved use of resources, but The Commander says it’s okay. The Commander’s chauffeur and personal guard Nick (Aidan Quinn), takes notice of Kate around the estate. Serena tells Kate she knows that she had a daughter before, and offers to help find her. Suggesting that she knows her husband is sterile, she offers Nick as a substitute, as she really wants to have a child. Nick and Kate consummate the affair, both as part of their duty, but also because they want to. Kate continues her evening sessions with the Commander as well. Later Serena tells Kate that her daughter has been adopted by another family and that she will never get to see her again.

Another of the Handmaids named Ofwarren (known as Janine to Kate; Tracy Lind) gives birth in a tea party-like atmosphere attended by other Wives (in blue), Aunts, and Handmaids. The birth is treated as a religious ceremony, and as soon as she bears the child, the Wife takes it as her own to show off, while an Aunt holds Ofwarren’s head down so she cannot see the baby. Kate and another Handmaid, Ofglen (Blanche Baker), attend a Salvaging and Particicution ceremony. This is where a Handmaid, found guilty of fornication with the medical staff, is put to death by hanging, and a man who raped a pregnant Handmaid is killed by the other Handmaids in a vicious ceremony. Ofglen quietly tells Kate that the man was a member of the resistance, codenamed Mayday, and that there are others of them around.

The Commander dresses Kate up in a pretty dress and takes her to an illegal club run by Jezebels, which are women that are young and pretty and function as prostitutes. Kate is surprised to see Moira working here, having been caught trying to escape the country. Kate discovers that she is pregnant and informs Nick that she plans to escape. A hidden note and knife from Ofglen suggest she kill the Commander the next evening which she does. Nick and two guards pull her out of the house where he reveals that he too is part of the resistance and they set her up in the mountains to have her baby. She dreams of a new life and a better world. One where she can find her daughter Jill and live with her in safety.

“We have the force. We have the faith. And we will not rest until we’ve purified this country, this nation, in the name of God.” – The Commander

History in the Making

Author’s note: I wasn’t intending to focus on The Handmaid’s Tale this week, but given the recent changes in the United States, it felt like a good time to revisit the movie. While trying to proceed chronologically through science-fiction films from the 1950s to the present, I have to make choices about which films to review and which ones to skip. This film just missed the cut when I made my list for films from 1990, and today I rectify that oversight.

The Handmaid’s Tale is based on a 1985 novel by author Margaret Atwood. As with many film adaptations of literary works, the film is an oversimplification of the elements in the book. However, it manages to capture a number of the overall themes and creates a suitably dystopian and oppressive world for the characters to exist in. According to Atwood, her motivations to write the story came from the Iranian Islamic Revolution from 1978-79, as well as the rise of the religious right in America during the Reagan Administration. The totalitarian Republic present in the story comes from other, real world examples of modern regimes including Romania’s president Nicolae Ceaușescu, and Ferdinand Marcos’ Philippines.

This movie is designed to make audiences upset. Compassionate people that are not upset by Kate’s story and the suggestions made in this film are not paying proper attention. Sci-Fi Saturdays has included articles that chastised films for being too “on the nose” with certain real-world issues. However, The Handmaid’s Tale is different. It is spot on with its hypothesis about the perils of allowing theocratic fundamentalists dictate the rules for a society. It raises the alarm of the potential for real world issues, which include diminished freedoms for women, people of color, and LGBTQ persons. Basically everyone but white men. While the film focuses specifically on the lack of freedoms for women, there are some small hints about what happened to other groups. The Commander recounts that there used to be pressure groups (“Blacks, homos, you know…all those people on welfare”) that would dictate to them (the white men). He proudly states that they cleaned it up. “We took out a big hose and washed the place clean.” The resulting place is no longer called the United States of America. It does not exist for the betterment of all people or believe that all people are endowed with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There is only God’s will, and it’s the angry, vengeful, patriarchal God from the Old Testament.

While the storyline was inspired from a long line of classic novels about dystopian governments and fascist states, it also serves as an inspiration to other writers and filmmakers in imagining their worlds. It launched a television series based on the events and characters from the book in 2017, which continues on to this day. Today, the film is often seen as a parable about the threat to human rights, as well as a piece of feminist dystopian speculative fiction. It is still passionately discussed due to its subject matter, as well as its ability to extrapolate the possibility of these events into the real United States.

Genre-fication

Per Atwood’s own description, she feels that The Handmaid’s Tale is more speculative fiction, rather than science-fiction. That is probably an accurate statement given that there is no real science involved in the story. But in the realm of these articles, and as discussed in the article on Fahrenheit 451, dystopian fiction can also be considered science-fiction; maybe just not the more colloquial sci-fi. The film opens using the phrase “once upon a time,” indicating that the following story is akin to fairy tale, however dark and nightmarish. And as with fairy tales, the story wants to be seen as a parable or allegory of real events and situations. The film echoes dystopian elements based on oppressive governments as seen in other films of the era, but presents them with an overarching theme of religion rather than strict politics or commerce as is the case with other sci-fi films, like Brazil or Escape From New York. The Handmaid’s Tale is also decidedly less of a post-apocalyptic dystopia, though some form of social apocalypse has occurred to leave 99% of the women (and a portion of the men) sterile. It doesn’t have the scorched earth look of Mad Max 2 (aka The Road Warrior) or the reinvented/reinvigorated society of Zardoz. In fact the dystopia presented here, can be seen as a utopia for some of the characters, as is often the case.

The Handmaid’s Tale is reminiscent of such classic stories as George Orwell’s 1984, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and the aforementioned Ray Bradbury story Fahrenheit 451. While all three of these stories involve political oppression, citizens are also separated into varying social classes, reproduction is controlled, and slogans are used to (ostensibly) bolster morale. The white women of The Handmaid’s Tale are oppressed in numerous ways. They are segregated into various castes, as indicated by the color of the garments. Wives, who are married to higher ranking men, are shown wearing blue. The Aunts, who dominate and train the Handmaids, wear predominantly brown. The Handmaids wear red, while Marthas, who are the servant class within the homes, wear greens. While all women are deemed “less than” in this society, their dress and mannerisms reflect the internal struggles that are forced upon them by society. Each group looks down upon the groups below it. The society actually rewards this type of behavior, typical of totalitarianism and fascist groups, by forcing the oppressed to fight amongst themselves, making them too preoccupied (or tired) to assess the real threat. But this is just the white women in the film. People of color, both men and women, are shown fleetingly in the film, being trucked off elsewhere, while news reports on television mention smoking-out “Baptist guerrillas,” indicating the persecution of non-whites and non-Christians alike. The overt oppression of non-white, non-straight, non-God fearing people is something that is a continued thematic element of this type of story and would be revisited often in newer titles such as Fortress (1992), Children of Men (2006), and even the Hunger Games quadrilogy (2012-15).

Societal Commentary

Unlike a number of the films mentioned above, which don’t feel modern (either taking place in an obvious alternate world, or existing sometime in the future), The Handmaid’s Tale appears to be set in current day and age–maybe even more so now than in 1990. This gives it more urgency and potentially makes it more relatable to audiences. The 1983 television event V: The Miniseries also created a modern-day fiction in order to have viewers understand the warning signs to look for when dealing with oppressive individuals and regimes. The warning here being that given enough leeway and political power, fundamental religious groups will roll back the clock on the various freedoms and liberties that the country has advanced, turning the United States into a living embodiment of the Old Testament.

Of course the biggest theme of the film is the loss of freedom and control of their bodies afforded to women. From the beginning of the film as Kate enters into the Handmaid organization, structures are put in place to break down the agency of these women. They are abused in unseen ways for masturbating, as one woman is returned to the mess hall with blood trickling down her legs. Women are shown being blamed for not wanting to get pregnant, such as Moira–who is also gay, which presents an entirely different set of issues within the society. Janine, who represents an “average” woman in the film indoctrinated through the system, speaks of a time when she was raped by “six guys” when she was 14. She admits to having had an abortion (at her mother’s suggestion). Aunt Lydia leads the women in shaming her publicly, chanting that it was all her fault. She insists that Janine led the boys on, and that she is a whore for her promiscuity. After her first “ceremony,” Kate is seen looking at a pair of scissors as the fleeting thought of terminating her own potential pregnancy, and possibly life, occurs to her. From there, all things moving toward the birth of a child are praised and seen as “good,” while any deviation is a sin against God.

These scenes are seen as a direct indictment of the right to life movement, which seeks to repeal laws regarding safe health care for women who choose not to get pregnant or wish to terminate a pregnancy, even in the event of incest or rape. These moral hypocrites also seek to remove the ability for women to choose their own birth control methods, decrying every child is sacred, yet removing social safety nets to ensure that children are properly fed, clothed, and schooled. The Republic of Gilead bases much of the doctrine on the writing of The Old Testament from the Bible, including how to treat women, and what their rights and privileges are. In the United States prior to 1920, just over 100 years ago, women were not guaranteed the right to vote for their representation. Over the next 30 years, a number of women began choosing to enter the workforce, culminating with an all-time record number during World War II. Once the war was over, many then chose not to return to being homemakers, something that certainly upset segments of the male population. By 1973, a landmark court case allowed women to be able to control their reproductive health by allowing access to safe abortions should they need it. The world of the film sets back women’s rights by over a century with its anti-feminist Republic.

The Science in The Fiction

The world of Gilead is completely designed around the science of control and psychological tactics. The authoritarian rulers practice tactics that keep the woman off-balance in a topsy-turvy world of isolation, physical punishment, and rhetoric. As mentioned above, Janine represents a common example of the Republic’s control on women. She comes into the Handmaid program already scared and upset, but the repeated verbal abuse–blaming her for being raped–begins to wear on her. Further along, she begins to experience psychological effects of the torture, hallucinating she is back in a restaurant as a waitress. Her fellow Handmaids attempt to snap her out of this daydream, lest they all get punished for her transgression. Later, Janine is pregnant and seen giving birth at the party. Having not been shown the baby, she asks Kate what it was she had, but Kate refuses to tell her so that she has no connection to the child. At this point, probably better for her. Her final step in becoming a fanatical member of the Republic, is at the Particicution where she is seen wishing Kate and Ofglen good tidings as she walks away from the man, a mass of his bloody hair still clutched in her first. The achievement by the state here is twofold: they have successfully brainwashed another woman into their cause, and eliminated a political enemy in the process.

Similarly, Moira is also shown as another example of the women churned out by the system. Throughout the first half of the film, she rebels against anything and everything, while continuing to go through the motions. She pretends to faint at the christening ceremony where the Handmaids are blessed and given their veils. Her plan is to get into an ambulance under false pretenses and trade sexual favors to the drivers for an easy escape. At some later point, Kate returns to the Handmaid headquarters and see’s Moira back inside. She blames the men being “queer” in her inability to pull off the plan. She then assaults Aunt Lydia, with Kate’s silent help, stripping the matron and duct taping her to a bathroom stall. She manages to escape in the guise of an Aunt, and Kate believes she has made a successful escape. That is until Kate sees her again at the Jezebel club. Moira had been recaptured and offered two choices: become a whore or be exiled to the colonies. She seems mentally beaten (as well as physically scarred on her hands) as she tells Kate, “It’s not so bad, really.” She initially seemed the type of woman that could eventually beat the system, but the system catches up to her and eventually wears her down. In the end she is still forced to wear red, but now as part of an even lower class of prostitutes and hookers. Kate ends up being the one to escape. But what is her life? She must live in solitude outside of society, off the grid as it were, clinging to the hope that she may again be able to see her daughter Jill.

One of the other steps that the system takes to demoralize and mentally weaken the women is the altering of their names. They no longer have their birth name. Some may remember them, but it would be anathema to use it. Instead they are known by a new name. And not just any name. Their name becomes tied to the man they are to be Handmaid to. When they receive a new job, their names change accordingly. The woman that Kate befriends, and who is secretly a member of the resistance, is named Ofglen. Then one day a new woman, also named Ofglen, has taken her place. Kate has no way to ask anyone for help in finding this woman who has no name, and now does not even exist. There is also evidence in the film that even the wives, like Serena Joy, change their names as well. To further discomfort the audience, Duvall’s character is only ever referred to as “Commander.” His given name is only spoken once, as Fred, and of course when referencing Offred. This lack of personalization gives him a more ominous appearance to the viewer, helping put the audience into Kate’s position.

The Final Frontier

The Handmaid’s Tale found a new audience in 2017 with the debut of its first season as a show on streaming service Hulu. It has been a successful series, having aired four seasons at this time with a fifth season coming in September 2022. The success of the original book, and the television series led to a literary sequel (also by Atwood) called The Testaments, which was released in late 2019, following up the characters and society 15 years later.

It may also be surprising to hear that the book, film, and series have been banned and criticized by right-wing and conservative organizations for portrayals of sex and an “anti-Christian” message. Of course the message is anti-Christian. It’s about a society that doesn’t see or even respect 50% of its population. It is often listed as a book removed from high school shelves and often mentioned during reports of book burnings. As a publicity stunt, in May of 2022, Atwood and her publishers announced the creation of an “unburnable” copy of the book would be created and auctioned, in order to “stand as a powerful symbol against censorship.” The copy of the book sold for $130,000 in June 2022.

While the film cannot delve into many of the details of the novel, or the television show, it does showcase the major elements and themes of the story, creating a moving and powerful tale of control and subjugation. The Handmaid’s Tale’s depiction of women has served as a strong visual metaphor for woman’s rights, with many abortion rights protestors wearing the red garb of the Handmaids during their marches, and the story being identified as a plausible harbinger of things to come. The film reveals much of the hypocrisy of the fundamentalist movement, showcasing the “do as we say, not do as we do” attitude. As embodied by the Commander, he possesses banned magazines (which are okay for him), and sneaks his Handmaid into the Jezebel bar (which is forbidden, but as he says “you know…”). The desire by certain individuals for control over other groups of people is a tale as old as time. But hopefully, with discussion and reflection, individuals standing up for their rights as well as the rights of others, our country, and other countries, can avoid a similar fate of Gilead.

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