It’s into this environment that The Handmaid’s Tale – a piece of dystopian speculative fiction that envisions a world in which a totalitarian theocracy has overthrown the United States government and, among other things, removed women’s rights – enters. Of course, the miniseries went into development long before Donald Trump was voted into the office of the presidency. And so, while it’s impossible to doubt the content of The Handmaid’s Tale to be as relevant as ever, its timeliness to the specific social struggles of 2017 wasn’t necessarily intentional. That doesn’t make the miniseries any less of a work of art, but it does raise interesting questions about how we consume and create art in times of repression – supposed or otherwise. If so, does that make The Handmaid’s Tale the “God Save The Queen” of first literary works and now television miniseries?

Source: National Post April 28, 2017 12:22 UTC