
No, 'The Handmaid’s Tale' Is Not 'Unexpectedly Timely' - LeeHwang
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-04-25/no-the-handmaid-s-tale-is-not-unexpectedly-timely
======
tptacek
This is a pretty stupid McArdle column.

McArdle has decided, on behalf of the entirety of pop culture, than when
critics refer to the message behind THT as "timely", they mean "THT is a
warning about impending theocracy in North America". In fact, in sampling 3
reviews from the front page of Google that used the word "timely", all of them
made the far more obvious connection: between THT and concerns about misogyny
and sexism, a huge feature of the 2016 election.

Further, McArdle's attempt to knock back the idea that the overall story of
THT is something out of 1992† is incoherent and actually pretty fatuous.

Consider: McArdle goes out of her way to observe that Orwell --- to her the
only realistic dystopian fiction writer --- cribbed details from communist
dictatorships in the USSR and China. That 1984 doesn't talk about (what she
perceives to be) a credible future for the United States is excusable, because
she can't write a takedown of George Orwell.

Now consider: Islamic State didn't exist in 1985, and in fact few people in
the west appreciated the toll Islamic theocracy took on women in the middle
east. But substitute Wahhabism for fundamentalist neo-Puritan Christianity,
and a whole lot of THT seems uncannily predictive, right down to the public
execution of gay people and members of other Islamic religions. Remember,
Winston Smith's story took place in London, not Moscow.

If McArdle was just criticizing a TV show, I wouldn't care. But, by subtext,
she's attempting to diminish the potency of the book (the book, by the way, is
even more biting than the show, which strips away a lot of the systemic racism
of the book's Gilead). McArdle isn't always full of it; sometimes she writes
some interesting things. This isn't one of those times.

† _Note to McArdle: Suzanne Vega is still recording albums; she didn 't stop
existing when you stopped listening._

~~~
pvg
_Islamic State didn 't exist in 1985, and in fact few people in the west
appreciated the toll Islamic theocracy took on women in the middle east._

That doesn't sound quite right. The Iranian revolution was recent and a direct
influence on Atwood's writing.

~~~
tptacek
Oh, that's a good point! Good thing Bloomberg doesn't publish my comments as
columns. :)

My comment could have been about 60% shorter if I just observed that, like
Orwell's commentary about how the repressive undercurrents of Soviet Communism
could portend things about authoritarianism in the west, The Handmaid's Tale
is a pretty obvious device suggesting that the Iranian Revolution "can happen
here".

Which, of course, is an observation banal apparently high school kids get
assigned essays on it. Go me, for not noticing.

~~~
pvg
Having now re-read her thing and your comment, I'm even less sure what you
think is so stupid about it. She seems to be saying she thinks the 'it can
happen here' interpretations are facile, that books you read as an
impressionable teenager appear less revealing later in life and that she no
longer listens to Suzanne Vega. These seem like fairly straightforward (banal,
if you want!) observations.

~~~
tptacek
I am having trouble today saying anything clearly or concisely. Sorry.

My two points are simple:

1\. The claimed timeliness of THT refers not to the prospect of American
theocracy but to the currency of discussions about misogyny.

2\. The dystopia imagined by THT is no less rooted in reality than 1984; in
fact, THT's dystopia is more relevant today than Orwell's was or is.

That's all.

~~~
angersock
_2\. The dystopia imagined by THT is no less rooted in reality than 1984; in
fact, THT 's dystopia is more relevant today than Orwell's was or is._

Given the increasingly secular nature of the US, and given that we literally
have televisions (see recent revelations about IoT fuckups/overreaches)
watching us and people editing mainstream history...

...yeah, sorry dude, one of these is more relevant than the other.

If you want to generalize THT to be general misogyny, maybe, but if you do
_that_ then you need to treat 1984 with the same generality.

EDIT: Okay HN, clearly we are living on the precipice of a collapse of western
civilization into militant theocracies. Clearly this co-opting of economics
and politics by religious whackos is somehow more likely than a ubiquitous
surveillance state kept in perpetual war to benefit a small elite .

Obviously, this is the more realistic dystopia, and my internalized bigotry is
somehow preventing me from seeing the truth.

Or, you know, you're _wrong_.

~~~
tptacek
I don't really follow any of this. THT is indisputably about misogyny (and
racism, and authoritarianism). You don't have to take my word about that. And,
of course, 1984 is drawn from Soviet communism, but not "about" communism.

------
angersock
Concluding paragraph sums it up nicely:

 _> There is nothing wrong with enjoying implausibilities on a screen or page.
But there is something very wrong with hysterically declaring that those
things are reality. That risks confusion so we will not notice the real
dystopia rising -- or the rest of the world will be too tired of our cries to
hear any warnings we shout._

~~~
lj3
When entertainment is taken for reality, it has jumped the narrow gap from
escapism to propaganda.

------
BEEdwards
I agree with the conclusion, but this authors "I'm so smart and mature and
over it" opening made me roll my eyes.

------
WillyOnWheels
The Hulu series is well written. The colors are amazing.

I think it's perfectly valid to see some parallels in current society with the
dystopian society in The Handmaid's Tale. The US has a vice president who
doesn't allow himself to have dinner with a woman he's not married to. The
President and his team make statements to the media every day that would have
been hard to predict in the most outlandish dystopian novels.

It's just a TV show.

I am sad that Elizabeth Moss is a Scientologist!

------
chillingeffect
Part I

> After completing a rereading, I am interested to see the show.

Isn't it possible the show is different from the book? With updates that
resemble the last 5 years? How can this author purport to not find
resemeblances when they haven't even watched the show, only re-read the book.
I thank her for the comparison with the book, but I don't think it's what all
those people calling Handmaid's Tale are referring to.

Not that I don't wish the writer was correct- it's just that it's highly
likely people are comparing the show with today's society and not the book.

Having read the book, some of the most vivid scenes to me were the hermetic,
sterile sex and hyperpatriarchy. Perhaps those are the _elements_ modern
people are comparing to modern day? Again, even though I dislike Atwood's
material (I agree with McArdle here, it's a way too concentrated and cherry-
picked collage of dystopian elements) and don't believe the patriarchy is as
deeply embedded as my facebook friends, I can absolutely see why people would
say elements from the story relate to today.

McArdle however seems to be comparing the totality of the story to today and
saying, "no, not 100% of it is true."

Part II (all sources from Wikipedia)

On the historical elements, McArdle writes: > a careful student of history
would note that a decade after the Reichstag fire, most of German society
still looked pretty much like it had in 1925.

So is she saying Germany of 1943 resembled Germany of 1925? She writes: > they
didn’t gut-renovate the economy, wipe out all religions that competed with the
state, and completely reorganize society in the space of a few years;

    
    
      27 February 1933: Reichstag Fire
      9–10 November 1938: Kristallnacht
      May 1940  Auschwitz I was first constructed to hold Polish political prisoners, who began to arrive in May 1940
       From early 1942 until late 1944, transport trains delivered Jews to the camp's gas chambers from all over German-occupied Europe
    

I find it hard to swallow that Germany of 1925 resembles Germany of 1943, when
the persecution of Jews, blacks, homosexuals and gypsies was in full swing.
Yes and there was a World War going on. Yes, not _all_ religions were wiped
out, but how could Germany of 1943 possibly resemble 1925? Is she focusing on
the idea that the "culture" was similar and people still got married and had
kids? Amdist the war, the Final Solution and even a major eugenics program
including sterilization and euthansia, life was normal?

I find McArdle playing a contrarian, even hipster role here, denying
resemblances between the story and modern reality. Not that I am pushing hard
for the resemblances, but with my superficial research and recall of history
and the story, I'm finding major problems with this review.

~~~
angersock
_> Amdist the war, the Final Solution and even a major eugenics program
including sterilization and euthansia, life was normal?_

Why is this hard to believe? That's part of the horror of it, right? These
folks were withdrawn from society and dealt with out of the sight of the
majority of citizens.

------
angersock
_> And, of course, 1984 is drawn from Soviet communism, but not "about"
communism._

I wouldn't say that 1984 is actually drawn _from_ Soviet communism any more
than it reflected the overall trend of the times towards ever-more-centralized
government...a trend visible in both Britain and the United States at the
time.

It was more a complaint about nationalism and centralization (
[http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/12/george-
orwe...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/12/george-orwell-s-
letter-on-why-he-wrote-1984) ) and police states than a comment on the Soviet
system.

~

Also, if you "don't really follow any of this", I think you're being facetious
or willfully dense. Let's try again. You claimed:

 _> in fact, THT's dystopia is more relevant today than Orwell's was or is._

I claim that you are incorrect in this, to a borderline hysterical degree. You
say that the THT is more relevant, when 1984 actually features a lot of things
that have come to pass and will continue to pass.

Compared to the future sketched in THT, we do not have Old Testament class
hierarchies and uniforms. We do not have women being completely unpersoned by
the .gov for not bearing children. We do not have the Constitution any more
likely being suspended in any meaningful way than we did 16 years ago. We do
not keep an underclass of women for breeding purposes. We do not ban women
from reading or writing or playing Scrabble. We do not prevent women from
voting. We do not prevent women from owning property. We have not rounded up
African-Americans for forced relocation. We have not purged Catholics, Jews,
or Muslims. We do not execute homosexuals. We do not enslave women.

Now, looking over at things that have actually come to pass from 1984, we
have: Secret government torture rooms (Guantanamo Bay, and your own city's
black sites). Televisions with two-way cameras (Samsung smart TVs, in this
case) surveilling owners. Effect two-minutes-hate of America's enemies over on
Fox News (or the Left's or Right's enemies if you read Twitter) every day.
History being changed and edited electronically (Wikipedia edit wars and other
operations). An ever-expanding lower class, Orwell's proles or what people who
don't live in affluent neighborhoods might call _the poor_ , kept asleep with
booze and drugs and sexual imagery and vice. A permanent state of military
conflict justifying the state security apparatus of every major player.

It's pretty obvious that 1984 is the more relevant dystopia today, tptacek.
Would you prefer to elaborate on why you think that this is not the case?

(there are other, more appropriate future sketches than either of those two
novels, but they aren't being discussed here)

~~~
dang
Would you please not post ideological blather here? This is not substantive
discussion.

We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14231623](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14231623)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
pottersbasilisk
For my own education, Im not sure I understand why tptaceks comment was not
considered ideological blather and this one was.

