In “The Handmaid’s Story,” Girls Struggle the Darkness—And Are Tempted By It | Options
Forged your thoughts again to 2017. Following a decade of progress within the US, the primary Trump administration had simply begun, and the threats to ladies and Black and brown people had been, on the time, at an all-time excessive. Coming off the backs of the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter actions, resistance was nonetheless heady within the air, as was concern. So, the primary season of Hulu’s adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Story debuting that April was unnervingly well-timed. The collection continues to get extra savage because it goes on, turning off many who consider the present now borders on trauma porn. Nevertheless, a robust contingent of viewers is set to stay by way of to the very finish as the ultimate season premieres this April.
“The Handmaid’s Tale” opens with and focuses on Offred, aka June Osbourne (Elisabeth Moss), as she seemingly shakes herself out of dumbfounded complacency and right into a dedication to interrupt freed from the Christian nationalist nation of Gilead. June may be very clearly our window into Gilead, and it’s by way of her eyes the viewers sees this world. At first, she’s precisely who we predict she is: a lady attempting to outlive and trigger as little hurt as potential as she does it. She’s motherly, devoted, and resilient, all the time considering of the higher good. However because the collection plowed on for 5 seasons, our view of June modified drastically.
You may say that June’s transformation may very well be anticipated, given her circumstances. Gilead is a tough place, and he or she needed to harden with it. We see her take cost throughout the resistance, sending messages for the elusive insurgent community Mayday, and coming into her full energy as a frontrunner among the many handmaids. In a spot as vicious and brutal as Gilead, June endures unspeakable bodily and psychological abuse in her house whereas additionally coping with the collective trauma of all of these compelled to reside the Gilead approach. There are new guidelines and bounds on this new world, and whereas it takes her a while, June adapts. As she tells her finest pal Moira, it’s important to preserve your shit collectively. There’s no time to crumble, no time for fragility or to dwell on the fact of their circumstances. However as Gilead chips away at her hope and self-worth, it additionally chips away at her humanity and empathy.
It’s an unsightly factor, being reworked by your circumstances. Trying again, we see the second it occurs within the season one finale. June, heading towards her destiny after main her first public act of defiance, says, “I’ve no selection. It can’t be helped. And so, I step up into the darkness inside.”
One thing that shortly occurred after the primary few seasons was the evolution of June from somebody we lived by way of and rooted for to somebody we watched warily, ready to see if the angel or satan on her shoulders would win. I believe June was all the time meant to be a likeable character, somewhat naïve and egocentric, however altogether likeable in a world of deeply unlikeable folks and unhealthy actors. However fan sentiment has all the time been blended on our predominant character, principally warranted critiques of her white privilege (critiques that stretch to the unique work as effectively), however others had been and are rooted in clear misogynistic disgust on the approach she fights her oppressors. Even nonetheless, many viewers got here down on her facet. When the opposition is Gilead—a nation constructed on forcibly impregnating ladies and women whereas violently holding them in step with hearth and brimstone—it’s exhausting to think about that June may ever lose the assist of the general public. The ends had been justifying the means—at the least at first.
Whereas the setup for June’s fall from grace started slowly, the journey was like a rollercoaster: gradual and regular on the rise after which a swift, racing plummet. Everybody I’ve spoken to about “Handmaid’s” has a special second the place June misplaced them. For some early dissenters, their view of June faltered when she deserted Emily (Alexis Bledel), forcing her to journey alone with June’s months-old child by way of the snow and chilly to the Canadian border. Others fell off later down the road when it was clear that June’s ego had begun taking the reins slightly than her want to guard and empower her fellow handmaids.
And ego, it seems, is June’s deadly character flaw. The viewers may see it first—her insistence that she and solely she may result in change and that everybody else’s efforts had been inadequate. There are extra moments than we will rely, however a standout plot with fan assist wobbling was when June used her energy over the opposite ladies to terrorize and punish a fellow handmaid, OfMatthew. Seeing June sadistically wielding her egomaniacal rage towards a fellow handmaid was jarring and disturbing, to say the least—actions that find yourself driving Ofmatthew to commit a determined act of violence. The present tries to scrub it up; the episode after the incident is a protracted, grueling lesson for June as she realizes the function she’s been enjoying. It leads her to supposed atonement, a fantastically hatched plot deemed Angels Flight that noticed tens of kids and Marthas rescued from Gilead by way of resistance networks. However in the long run, the cracks in June’s character have proven, and it’s exhausting to take your eyes away from them.
By the point we attain the latest seasons of “Handmaid’s,” even her co-conspirators are cautious of June’s intentions. We see her not solely committing wanton acts of violence however encouraging others to take action as effectively; we see her sadism rear its ugly head extra instances than I would love; and the cherry on high is June utilizing her manipulative tendencies towards the great guys slightly than towards these in energy. Once more, all of that is, to June, a sensible response to the atmosphere she’s discovered herself in. What creates a distinction is when that conduct spills over into her life in Canada after she has efficiently escaped Gilead. The,n we’re compelled to reckon with who June actually is, or, on the very least, who Gilead molded her into.
So, we discover ourselves at odds with our as soon as dependable, reliable narrator as she pushes ever additional into the darkness of the second—an uneasy place to be as a viewer in a rustic seemingly doing the identical. In the long run, the query of why June is the best way she is isn’t necessary. However the query of if the general public can deal with unlikeable feminine characters definitely is.
Ceaselessly on the web and within the press, pleading requires extra dynamic, sophisticated, and even unlikeable feminine characters have been coming for many years. We’ve been seeing morally gray male characters for fairly a while over a number of genres. It’s not uncommon to have a protagonist, typically a male love curiosity of some type, who performs with the bounds of the viewers’s morality. In “Handmaid’s” alone you will have a stark instance in Bradley Whitford’s portrayal of Joseph Lawrence, the architect of Gilead and an unlikely ally of June’s. Not solely are we exceedingly conscious of Lawrence’s management function in Gilead, but in addition of his unwillingness to desert his imaginative and prescient with a purpose to save lives. Followers, whereas nonetheless clear-eyed about who he’s, had been taken with Joseph, his banter with June, and his ever-present guilt. Nevertheless, when June makes comparable troublesome choices or refuses to deviate from her imaginative and prescient, we balk. Even her Gilead love curiosity, Nick Blaine, performed by Max Minghella, is an energetic chief of the Gilead navy, and the viewers nonetheless yearns for him.
June stepped up into the darkness within her, a darkness everybody has however fortunately principally haven’t activated. Whereas the writing has been scattershot and the artistic staff has clearly tried to win people again to June’s facet within the penultimate season, it’s necessary to recollect how we received right here and the inherent nuance of the story. June needed to abandon herself a very long time in the past to outlive and make modifications, and the writers have achieved a tremendous job at difficult their viewers and asking: how a lot is a lady meant to endure earlier than her outrage and ferocity are justified? Earlier than she isn’t crucified for the way she was in a position to survive? Gilead is an advanced place, and it births sophisticated tales and folks.
I’m undecided if the writers got down to construct a purposefully unlikeable feminine character who’s there to problem and enrage us, or in the event that they meant her to be a wayward illustration of a hero who lives lengthy sufficient to turn out to be the villain. What I’m certain of is that it’s now out of their palms and into ours.
As we embark on the sixth and remaining season of “The Handmaid’s Story,” we’re almost again the place we began. Virtually ten years later and the season is as soon as once more premiering on the heels of one other Trump presidency, and the uneasiness within the nation is palpable. Regardless of June’s sophisticated character, she nonetheless represents for a lot of American ladies who we may very well be if our democracy crumbles. In the long run, we’ve all stepped up into the darkness—our mission is to not turn out to be it.
