The Handmaid’s Tale
The
Handmaid’s Tale is a television adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s novel of the
same name. It is an original programme created by the American online streaming
service Hulu and was broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK. It has garnered many
awards and had a noticeable cultural impact.
It is Hulu’s
most successful show to date. However, the online streaming platform does not
release viewing figures but it is among the service’s “most-watched dramas in 2017 based on
hours watched.” The
success of the show in America must therefore be measured by its critical acclaim
and award wins. It has also been commissioned for a second, slightly longer,
season that will go beyond the scope of the source novel. Viewing figures for
the UK are available as the show was broadcast on Channel 4. It debuted as the
channel’s second most popular show with over 3.5 million views and stayed
within the channel’s top five for the entirety of its run.
(Taken from BARB.co.uk)
The show has
been popular amongst critics with a “certified fresh” Rotten Tomatoes score of 95% and a Metacritic score of 92 signifying “universal acclaim.” It was also
chosen as The Guardian newspaper’s number one show of 2017. It is the first
show on an online streaming platform to win a Best Drama Emmy signifying that
online television is being taken seriously by Award’s organisations. It has won
numerous accolades including eight Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globes and
three Critic’s Choice Awards.
The show has
a female lead character and deals with issues of misogyny set in a dystopian
near future. According to WomenandHollywood.com “females accounted for 42% of major
characters on broadcast network, cable, and streaming programs.” Although women
are underrepresented in both film and television the top three highest grossing
films of 2017, in America, were female driven. The last time this occurred was in
1958. The success of shows like The Handmaid’s Tale demonstrates there is an
appetite for programmes starring women and dealing with women’s issues.
The show has
felt particularly timely for some when conservative political parties have
gained power in both America and the UK. The show was in development before
Donald Trump was inaugurated as president so though it is not a reaction to
current political developments it has unwittingly captured the zeitgeist. Since
the show has aired a slew of powerful men in Hollywood have been accused of
sexual misconduct and the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements have gained ground. The
recent Golden Globe Awards saw the majority of invitees wear black as a show of
solidarity to victims of sexual assault. Since the show aired many women have
also taken to dressing as handmaids as a political gesture. Women’s marches
similar to one held in the show have been held across America. It is clear that
the show is having a large cultural impact.
(Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters)
This
cultural impact is not just confined to the sphere of politics. The distinctive
outfits of the handmaids have also appeared in comedic parodies. In “The
Rundown with Robin Thede” on BET the show was re-imagined as an allegory for
subtle modern day racism. The popular American sketch show “Saturday Night Live”
and comedy website FunnyorDie.com have also created The Handmaid’s Tale
parodies.
Although the
programme’s show-runner is a man, many of the show’s writers are women and four
out of five of the show’s directors have been women. This is unusual as in 2017
only 17% of directors in American television were women. One criticism the show
faced was that although it contained a diverse cast it did not deal with issues
of race in its story-lines and the writer’s room was exclusively white. This
deviates from the book which, though it contains no characters of colour, does
explain that racial segregation is in full force. Bruce Miller the show-runner
has promised that the second season will deal with issues of race more fully
after coming under criticism on social media platforms. This illustrates the direct
impact that audience engagement on social media can have on ongoing shows; something
that could only have been achieved in the past by letter writing campaigns or petitions.
With today’s modern technology show creators can gauge audience reaction almost
immediately by reading through tweets and Facebook posts. Whether this influence
is an overall positive development is debatable.
Since the
show first aired there has been a renewed interest in Margaret Atwood’s
writings with two other projects based on her works also debuting in 2017.
Wandering Wenda aired on CBC kids in April and Alias Grace premiered on CBC in
September. Darren Aronofsky is planning to adapt the MaddAdam trilogy and MGM
is adapting “The Heart Goes Last.” In an article for The Washington Post Sarah Polley
writer/director of Alias Grace suggests that the resurgence in interest for
Atwood’s work is “because this is such an unstable time in the world
politically.”
The
Handmaid’s Tale has been a massive commercial and critical success for Hulu.
The online streaming service has beaten larger rivals Netflix and Amazon Prime
to win the first Best Drama Emmy for a streaming service. Hulu’s subscribers
have increased by 40% since 2016, something which can in large part
be attributed to the show’s success. With 17 million subscribers overall the
service still trails behind Netflix’s 85 million. However, The Handmaid’s Tale
shows what a dramatic effect exclusive original content can have on viewership.
It has captured the public imagination with its distinctive costumes and feminist
themes. Although women are still very much underrepresented both in front of
and behind the camera the success of the show proves that there is an audience
for female lead content. Whether this will have a significant effect in the
long term remains to be seen but social and political developments demonstrates
that the show has captured the current mood. In a review for The Guardian
Newspaper subtitled “no television event has hit such a
nerve” Sam Wollaston writes, “It’s as relevant today
as it was when Atwood wrote it, in Berlin, in 1985. And while all this
continues to be real, we need The Handmaid’s Tale – to keep reminding, and
resonating, and ringing.”
