Are there any bad men in the Handmaid's Tale

I realize that the UK is behind in a few episodes, but I think, the way the last two episodes have been moving that we will be seeing more of what Gilead is like for men. This may change the idea that it's all the women who are sadistic bitches a bit.

I don't think the point of literature or media is dumb down until everyone gets the message. You either enjoy it or you don't.

I agree.

I don’t see these “porn angles” either.

I wouldn’t find it interesting if all the men were blatantly bad and ALL the women abused victims.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine

I don't think the point of literature or media is dumb down until everyone gets the message. You either enjoy it or you don't.

And because all the feminists have read the book we think it's all about subtle messages of how patriarchy creates internal misogyny. When everyone else is looking at women torturing women and men rescuing them.

I don't think it's a problem with the narrative or the characterisation so much as some of the aesthetic choices, which are definitely born of the male gaze within feminist cinema critique:

the perspective of the male gaze occurs when the camera places the viewer in the perspective of a heterosexual man

I complained about the first episode of the show on here with regard to that - I thought a lot of the camera work and direction was of the male gaze - especially Offred at the end, in her underwear, covered in blood and on all fours in doggy position. That was not a feminist scene! And I don't think it was included to empower women viewers - it was included to titillate male viewers.

But I don't think it's anti-feminist to portray, for example, female enforcers in patriarchal society, or to show some men as decent.

Yes, but how many people watching will actually get those nuances

The whole point is that he is pained/apologetic. His evil may be better disguised than that of the Aunts, but that makes him worse, not better.

I agree with Pratchet if you've not read the book, and are watching casually it looks like men are just being how men are always portrayed, it is the women doing the noticeably different "bad" things.

It does come across as the Aunts have all of the power, and that the women have power because they are potential mothers.

I haven’t read the book either but the men are utterly terrifying to me.
I agree that aunt Lydia is portrayed as a sadist, but women being violent is always more unpalatable. Without the background of the book, the commanders wife has no power, has no child, has lost her husbands respect, has no sex life. She is no longer allowed to read even though she was an author. She was such a capable woman who helped design her own prison. I see her violence as a frustrated lashing out. More excusable than the commanders violence because he has freedom to do as she choses.

Just had a similar conversation with my thirty year old son, he viewed it as unbelievable, a modern horror story couldn't actually happen. I pointed out we already have women in front of Sharia courts in this country where their testimony is only 50% of a man's how does he think powerless women fare under the taliban?

Show*

I think only an idiot could watch the show from the beginning and think the men aren’t that bad. If they’ve watched properly they will see the men setting everything up and clearly the “mean” women are the way they are because of that and because they are told what to do. I haven’t read the book, started it but started watching the How before I was through it much.

It does depend on the perspective you are watching from. Having read the book I came to the series as a future dystopia written based on the history and reality of the oppression of women. DP came to view as a future dystopian setting that was unbelievable and even far fetched. It took a bit of a history lesson and modern day examples happening right now and in fairness he did begin to watch it differently.

For context, I've read the book and am up to Ep 3 of Season 1. I noticed in The Times a week or so ago (or possibly on Twitter actually) that Janice Turner has said she is stopping watching S2 for the reasons mentioned in this thread.

I think you have a point OP. If you watch the show after reading the book, it doesn’t particularly matter that the show doesn’t necessarily explain everything as the book does. With the book context, you know that the ecowife would be 1) scared for her child and 2) scared for herself because any punishment she faced would involve her becoming a handmaid. Women are never allowed to be alone, so how can they really help each other? Only the men have agency. And of course we only see things from June’s perspective, so it will be female heavy. She wouldn’t ever go to a men’s salvaging, for example, but from the book we know they happen - I can’t remember if the show makes it clear. To someone who just “picks up” watching the programme without knowing the background, the nuance of the power structure might not be immediately clear.

Yy to the person who said about the violence porn. My sister made that complaint about the second series too.

Also, to note, this is supposed to be a highly religious society, with interactions between men & women being heavily controlled, so it makes sense that women are the ones being "sadistic bitches" to other women, as that's what happens in societies like this.

But of course the rescuers are all men, it wouldn't make sense if the women were, because the women have no power. It's like the Underground Railroad, the actual rescuers (i.e. the ones' sheltering them, transporting them, etc) were mostly white people because black people at the time would have attracted too much attention.

Also, no one has mentioned that the actual network of Mayday seems to be controlled by women who do the recruiting/messaging. Not to mention they are now committing acts of terrorism.

One of the things I like about this show is that NO ONE is purely good or bad, male or female, even June isn't spotlessly white (as shown in the episode when her DH's current wife confronts her). Even Aunt Lydia has moments of "goodness" in that I think she actually thinks she's doing what's best for her "girls".

Every character in the show is horribly deluded and a victim of their own in-action.

Oh, and the Commander is not a good guy!??! He's a deluded rapist!

One thing I remember from the book that I haven't seen in the show is that June's partner wasn't initially that bothered by the changes. When her bank account is frozen, he doesn't think it's that big a deal. Obviously, he comes to realise that he's on the wrong side of the consequences because he has to run away with his family. But initially he is complacent.

Were they actually married? June has to get his permission for birth control, but I thought her crime was living with him out of wedlock and perhaps he was still legally married to his first wife.

I assumed this was going to be about the novel so I arrived all excited for a discussion!

Haven’t seen the TV series...