Noah Berlatsky: Hulu's 'Handmaid's Tale' Season 5 is both incredibly timely and a missed opportunity - NBCNewsTHINK
The series shows, with passion and insight, how reducing women to their pregnancies is part and parcel of stripping them of rights and power. Yet, post-Dobbs, the fifth season of “The Handmaid’s Tale” also feels oddly out of touch with our current moment.
The series shows, with passion and insight, how reducing women to their pregnancies is part and parcel of stripping them of rights and power. But it also, almost despite itself, defines its female characters through motherhood. Abortion is barely mentioned in the first eight of the 10 episodes available for review.in which environmental degradation has caused fertility rates to plummet. The resulting social chaos enabled a rabidly patriarchal theocracy, called Gilead, to overthrow the United States. In Gilead, fertile women of low status are designated as “handmaids” and ritually raped by Gilead’s leaders. After the handmaids give birth, their children are raised by the leaders and their wives. The first four seasons of the show follow handmaid June Osborne as she endures and finally escapes the clutches of Gilead leader Fred Waterford and his wife, Serena Joy . At the beginning of season five, June and Serena are in Canada. June is a refugee. Serena’s legal status is uncertain, but she retains ties to Gilead and its supporters abroad. June has become an icon of resistance, a tireless and fierce opponent of Gilead. Much of her rage and determination is tied to her child, Hannah, who was stolen by the regime. Though June escaped, Hannah remains behind, and June is determined to get her out, too. June in Canada is free — mostly. Serena, in contrast, has become more restricted — not least because she has become pregnant. Serena thought she was infertile, and is thrilled to find she can bear a child. But Gilead, and Gilead’s influence, can be difficult to escape. To its citizens and supporters, to be pregnant is to become a resource of the state. And to her horror, Serena watches her colleagues, her well-wishers, her gynecologist and even her servants use the welfare of her unborn child as an excuse to control her career, her movements, even her diet. She is bullied and condescended to and treated, as she notes, like a handmaid. Her predicament illustrates with chilling clarity how natalist obsessions are leveraged to subjugate women, even socioeconomically privileged women.The show critiques those natalist assumptions. But it also, to some degree, accepts them. The future it imagines is one in which babies are scarce, in Gilead, in Canada, and around the world. People are desperate for children. In this season, June and Serena are both motivated primarily by a passionate commitment to protecting their children. And other major female characters are similarly defined by their relationship to motherhood. Aunt Lydia is a single woman, but her job in Gilead is to prepare handmaids for pregnancy. Moira , June’s friend and a lesbian, has her role much reduced in this season; we mostly see her helping care for June’s younger daughter, Nicole. Emily Malek does leave her child to go fight in the resistance at the beginning of season five. But that signals her departure from the show, so we never explore that decision on screen. Janine is a formerly rebellious handmaid who has acquiesced in her subjugation in large part so that she can have occasional contact with her daughter, who is being raised by one of Gilead’s powerful families.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
With Kharkiv Reclaimed, Is Ukraine Winning the War Against Russia?Commentators from around the world weighed in on Ukraine’s recent string of victories against Russian forces. See potential bias and similarities in coverage from KyivIndependent, washingtonpost and FoxNewsOpinion: UkraineWar Kharkiv
Read more »
Here’s How The Handmaid's Tale Wrote Off Alexis Bledel's Emily - E! OnlineAfter announcing that she would be leaving the show in May, here's how the The Handmaid's Tale premiere explained Alexis Bledel's absence.
Read more »
A recap of 'The Handmaid's Tale' premiere, R&B singer Jesse Powell dies, and more trending newsRead about what went down during the season premiere of 'The Handmaid's Tale', what the owner of clothing brand Patagonia decided to do with his company, and more trending news.
Read more »
A recap of 'The Handmaid's Tale' premiere, R&B singer Jesse Powell dies, and more trending newsRead about what went down during the season premiere of 'The Handmaid's Tale', what the owner of clothing brand Patagonia decided to do with his company, and more trending news.
Read more »