The Handmaids Tale - Hulu 8.5/10
Dark, sinister, and WTF else can go wron in Offred's life (Joan), but well done.
I'll preface this by saying I watch the edited version haha. But yeah. You know, for a long time I've said that Breaking Bad is the best TV show, quality-wise, ever made. Lost seasons 1 & 2 were the OG GOAT, but Breaking Bad kept it going & had a solid ending...but I think Handmaid's Tale may be the new "best". Also, I would
highly recommend watching it with a woman & then discussing it afterwards if you wanna get 'woke' about the male gaze. My takeaways have been:
1. I can't remember if it was Louis CK or someone who said if you're straight, white, and male, you're playing the game of life on "easy mode".
2. I recently heard privilege described as "not what you have to go through, but what you
don't have to go through".
3. Women (and minorities) face a constant pressure through "death by a thousand cuts" from
small snide remarks & catcalls & constant messaging, whereas most guys are completely oblivious to that stuff, for the most part (parody video about
male privilege).
4. On that tangent, there's an article about "unpacking the invisible knapsack by Peggy McIntosh, with the key quote, "I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group"
PDF link This applies to feminism as well (not the militant or SJW kind, but in terms of true equality between the genders). The business world, in particular, has a strong invisible system against women. Again, nothing overtly major these days, in most cases, because attitudes & workplace legal rules have improved over time, but it's still there, and if you're a dude, it's mostly invisible because (1) you don't experience it, and (2) most people are never taught it, simply because you
don't experience it & also because no one ever really sits you down & explains it.
That's a big reason why I think the Handmaid's Tale is so good, and also why I recommend both watching it with a woman & discussing it after with her, because you can then hear what she's gone through in a similar way to whatever the episode was about, stuff that - for me at least - I wasn't really even aware of or would just brush off. The show basically extrapolates & inflates the micro-aggression that women have to deal with all the time & puts it into a loony dystopian future format that looks crazy, buuuuuut you can also see where it's coming from & how maybe (in the movie world) it could actually happen. It's not like that in reality, of course, but they do cover enough ground to get you thinking about things from a different perspective. For me, it was realizing that we push a big "you're less than us" message to women constantly - usually not on purpose & not maliciously, but if you grow up female in our world, you simply have to deal with this crap like 24/7/365. ASU has a pretty good list:
projecthumanities.asu.edu
A HUGE list is here:
How do we know male privilege is real? These everyday examples of gender inequality are a start. By naming these, we can start working to free ourselves and others from the impact.
everydayfeminism.com
I think a big part of doing better is simply getting educated & being willing to accept the fact that this is the reality that women live in. And I think the biggest change it boils down to is not being dismissive, whether it's learning about these issues or accepting them as real or not. It's soooo easy to brush it off as a non-issue, because of our position as males in society. I mean,
really read through that second link above & try to imagine how male privileged affects so many parts of a woman's life in these slight ways (re: "death by a thousand cuts" because it's so pervasive).
Anyway, I think the Handmaid's Tale is a really good opportunity to get educated about male privilege. Racism is something I got educated about early on as a kid, about treating everyone fairly, but male privilege was definitely a newer concept for me - not that I went out of my way to be mean to women or anything, but simply that there were default-society things that happen around us that are invisible to men, for the most part.
Also, the show is just well-acted. Offred is a legit actress. The whole story almost feels a little bit like Half-Life 2, but rather than aliens, it's men being domineering. And the writing is so good too, like the part where she confronts the Mexican delegate & calls her out but she's just stuck with her situation & doing her job. Very clever stuff!
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