KILDARE TV COLUMN: Fantasy tale or documentary: Life imitating art

We’re no longer making a fantasy tale, we’re making a documentary.”

Those were the words spoken by author and poet Margaret Atwood after Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Presidential election.

Atwood was referring to the visceral reaction of the cast and crew who were filming the TV adaptation of her book The Handmaid’s Tale. For them, it really must have felt that life was beginning to imitate art. The first episodes of the series were released not long after Trump’s inauguration.

Starring Elisabeth Moss, Joseph Fiennes and Yvonne Strahovski, this series deals with the fallout from a civil war which has torn the United States apart. The levers of power have fallen into the hands of a few (all male) commanders. The new state is now called Gilead.

Gilead is a repressive theocracy. Fertility rates have collapsed due to disease and pollution, and the leaders have struck upon a horrendous ‘solution’.

Women of a child-bearing age, who are fertile, are forced into domestic servitude in the houses of powerful members of the ruling class. What’s more, they are forced to bear children for their ‘commanders’, and to add insult to injury must take on the name of the men who now control them. In this way, Moss’s character, who is called June, is given a new name which is connected to her commander Fred. She now becomes ‘Offred’.

The book may have seemed just like any other work of fiction in 1985, when it was originally released. This interpretation would have depended, though, on what part of the world you lived in and whether or not you had access to a free media and uncensored literature.

The trick of all good science fiction is to hold a mirror to events around us. By creating an alternative world, set somewhere just out of view but with similarities to our own, the author poses the question: ‘Don’t you think this could happen to us too?’

After having lived through four tumultuous years of the Trump presidency and the subsequent January 6 Capitol attack, Atwood’s book and statement don’t look so hyperbolic after all.

For many, Trump’s attacks on the press, his appointments to the Supreme Court and the character of his administration all bore uncomfortable similarities to the fictional world Atwood created back in 1985.

With the rise of police surveillance states, protests on the streets of Iran, and war in Yemen and Ukraine, current events unfortunately keep conspiring to make The Handmaid’s Tale feel more and more relevant.

This is a very well realised series. The acting, sets, costumes and dialogue are easily on a par with the best content being released at the moment. The Handmaid’s Tale is currently on season five and it has avoided the pitfalls of other shows like The Walking Dead. It has managed not to get too repetitive.

Moss’s acting is excellent where she interacts with other characters in the show. Sometimes taxing, though, are the long and drawn out scenes focusing on her face. Alternately twitching, ticking, frowning and grimacing, sometimes you just want these scenes to end in a hurry.

Moss has also directed several episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale, and is a producer on the series. It might come as a surprise to some to learn that she is a Scientologist. The irony that the main star of The Handmaid’s Tale is a member of this controversial religion is hard to ignore, but this is an argument for another day.

Season Five is on the RTE Player and all episodes can be streamed on Hulu.