There is a new trailer for “The Handmaid’s Tale,” and boy, is it starting to feel timely
A new trailer for Hulu’s upcoming show The Handmaid’s Tale shows a future dystopian America where women have been stripped of their rights.
With those rights being a top issue in the recent election, and with Planned Parenthood in danger of being defunded, this trailer gives major chills. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM5NMPzWb
In the trailer, we meet Elizabeth Moss’s character Offred. She is a handmaid in the Republic of Gilead.
"I had another name, but it’s forbidden now. So many things are forbidden now, Moss says.
Additionally, the trailer shows handmaids wearing a uniform of red dresses and white bonnets, tanks rolling through a neighborhood, women running while holding protest signs, empty hospital cribs, and men taking Offred’s child from her.
Doesn’t each of those sound worse than the one before? Are you creeped out yet?
Don’t worry. There will easily be some badassery coming as well. We see Orange is the New Black star Samira Wiley stand alongside Moss as the tanks roll in.
At one point, Wiley is shown in a handmaid’s dress. Furthermore, she looks at Moss and shakes her head, looking pretty P.O’d.
No one puts Poussey in a corner, or in a handmaid’s dress!
So yes, the images are haunting.
But even when we see Moss struck down in the trailer, her voiceover reveals there is defiance growing inside.
“My name is Offred and I intend to survive.
The Handmaid’s Tale is adapted from Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel, which was written in response to the rise of extreme-right religious groups in the 1980s. Atwood is a consulting producer for the series.
In the novel, Gilead is a locked-off America where citizens are gender-segregated.
Consequently, women are divided into two classes based on fertility and obedience. Additionally, environmental disasters and war have damaged the country. Hence, Gilead’s leaders rule like dictators.
Offred — whose name literally means “of Fred,” the head of her household — is a handmaid. She and other handmaids are the few fertile women who serve as surrogates for their owners’ wives.
The exact plot for The Handmaid’s Tale is a reach for women today. (We won’t be letting anyone put us in those horrible dresses.)
But the essence of the trailer and book? That fear is very real. As is the will to resist.
The Handmaid’s Tale premieres on Hulu on April 26th, 2017. Watch the trailer below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dre0wQmLGe8?feature=oembed
