* The Handmaid’s Tale could be Hulu’s first Emmy winner
* The novel was written as a response to anti-feminism and the Christian right
* In Trump’s America, its message is more important than ever
Long before Variety’s Kristopher Tapley wrote that The Handmaid’s Tale could be Hulu’s first Emmy-winner, Margaret Atwood’s dystopian vision of a theocratic autocracy that subjugates women into the role of child-bearing concubines was a critically-acclaimed novel written in response to the Reagan-era rollback of women’s rights and rise of the Christian right.
It’s therefore quite appropriate that in the era of Donald Trump, series creator Bruce Miller would adapt the novel into a streaming series. With the recent House GOP’s bill to replace the Affordable Care Act, the issue of women’s reproductive rights is once again coming into the spotlight. It seems that the Hulu show had some fortuitous timing when it debuted just a few weeks back.
Available on Hulu and starring Elisabeth Moss and Joseph Fiennes, Rotten Tomatoes already gives the series a critics’ rating of 9.1/10 based on 65 reviews. But if you want to read the original inspiration for the series, you’ll want to pick up Atwood’s novel. Like they say, the book is always better than the movie — or in this case, the TV show. That’s why you should read the original hardback, available on Amazon for only $13.20.
At the time of its publication, “The Handmaid’s Tale” was well-received by critics and cemented Atwood’s status as a leading author of the 20th Century. It’s also ranked number 37 out of 100 on the American Library Association’s 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000, proving that good art, like politics, is sometimes worth fighting over.
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