New series of The Handmaid's Tale

[NotTerfNorCis]

Already off to an exceptional start. Is anyone else watching it?

I've been watching on American time too and don't remember the scene described. Wondering if they chopped and changed bits. Have a feeling there were slight adaptions of the last series when I rewatched it on channel 4....

In no way shape or form is the importing of torture porn imagery, plus sexualised posing on which the camera lingers, empowering. This is my entire point. If they were trying to show empowerment, using torture porn imagery to do it is an anti-feminist way to go about it.

LangCleg cutting out something by choice that identified her as something she had no choice in isn’t empowering? She fell to her knees because she was overwhelmed at feeling free and there happened to be blood because of the cutting. Which would have caused a lot of pain. Lingering camera on her on the floor shows that she needed those few seconds to process what she had done. If you just cut something from your ear would you not be in a daze?

Getting too close to spoilers, so I'm stopping after this one. You're not understanding me at all. I'm not questioning the narrative. I'm questioning the camera shots - WHICH WERE TAKEN DIRECTLY FROM PORN. This is not feminist.

What porn? You’ll have to explain further to me. I can only apologise for not getting what you mean but if you can explain further and I see your point I can only apologise if I don’t see porn being screamed at me.

I’d go as far as to argue feminism doesn’t come into it. Many women enjoy porn (that’s a different debate an dnot one I want to get into) and I’d say being a feminist is accepting that and letting women make their own choices.

It’s OK LangCleg - I am getting your point. DH and I just had a long discussion about last night’s episode along similar lines.

Not seen either series but am unsusprised that a program / story about women being enslaved including / especially sexually would end up as wank fodder.

It's inevitable when so many other shows sexualises women being violated, assaulted, murdered.

Depressing.

It’s OK LangCleg - I am getting your point.

Thank you! It's fine to show it being terrible. It's fine to show empowering moments amid the horror. It's not fine to import body positions and lingering shots from bloody porn!

Are you talking about episode 1 as I saw no porn either?

I’m not seeing the porn, I’m sorry. I don’t get it. What the fuck are you looking at? So the camera angle is the same as porn therefore it must be porn? Camera angles are used in many different types of filming and I’m sure porn has used some camera angles that are used elsewhere, by your logic, everything is porn? Right?

I wasn’t thinking porn so much as the content being presented for the male gaze and lingering in a way that seemed gratuitous. Rather like the ‘sexed up’ murders and rapes in pap like Criminal Minds. It wasn’t just me - DH commented on it.

I am a massive fan of the book and first series but I turned off episode 1. Like the article above says - suffering sells, especially when it is women doing the suffering. Part of the cleverness of the book is leaving things unsaid for us to try to imagine - like fleeting references to the colonies or how Gilead could have come about. It's left to the reader to decide. I don't mind this being fleshed out for TV but this new episode did seem gratuitous to me. I found the gags particularly unpleasant/unecessary.

boatyardblues I don’t understand what is meant by “for the male gaze.”

"For the male gaze" = camera angles, lighting, positioning of the body intended to produce sexual arousal in heterosexual male members of the audience, where those choices play no part in moving the plot forward/developing the characters. For example, all the countless cop shows in which rape then murder is used as an excuse to display an attractive actress, scantily clad, playing dead.

Btw, the fact that the end result of feminism should be to enable women to have the same range of choices afforded to them as men doesn't mean that any choice made by a woman therefore automatically becomes a feminist choice simply in virtue of having been chosen by a woman. IMO, any woman who knows about the levels of abuse and coercion endemic in the porn industry but still continues to choose to watch porn is making an anti-feminist choice.

FermatsTheorem I don’t see it at all. The camera angles are just that. I think all the shots in this show are powerful and well done. Anyone can wank to anything if they are so inclined, I don’t believe it’s done purely for people to find sexy. I certainly didn’t find it sexy and I’m into types of porn that would have most of mumsnet clothing their pearls. If something turns you on then that’s what it is. But I don’t see that in this at all, I think the people who do are looking for it.

The first series was true to the book, in the sense that everything portrayed is something that is routinely done to women or gay people; and it is displayed in a dystopian context.

I'm not impressed by this first episode. Its lost the authenticity and the context. And yes, it felt pornographic,

You know, I loved the book but I just can’t be bothered watching. Dramas are always sexualised/from the male gaze POV. It’s prsctically the only way shows are made now. It’s hardly surprising this has turned out that way too. Shame.

I don't really understand why there is a second series. Didn't the first series represent the basics of the book?

I agree that there is a gratuitous element to Sunday's episode. Also, the men are coming over as pussycats but the women are the evil masters of the regime. WTF is that all about?

AssignedPuuurfectAtBirth The first series ended with many wondering what happened next. I think that’s why the second series was made. The author is also working on the series. I’m up to episode five and it’s really good. I don’t think the men are portrayed in any other way than nasty tbh. Some of the men are obviously nice because they don’t agree but have no control. Some of the women do seem to be letting the power go to their head (what little of it they actually have) and I think are maybe taking their frustrations out on those with less than them, so the handmaids and Martha’s for instance. I think it’s being done really well and I’m enjoying it, if that’s the right word?

The first series ended with many wondering what happened next. I think that’s why the second series was made.

That and they knew they could make a lot of money from it.

But didn't the book end like that? From memory, I think it did.

Quack

None of the men in that episode seemed responsible for the the fate of the women. Even the Commander seems not be complicit in his guilt. It's fucking weird. I'm definately torn about it all.

Also, the men are coming over as pussycats but the women are the evil masters of the regime. WTF

I hate hate hate this. In the first series all the monsters were women while the men were competing romantic leads! It's subliminal shit.

AssignedPuuurfectAtBirth Of course it’s weird, it’s weird to the women in the show too. I don’t think the men that have power will see it as weird because it was their ideology that has come true. Why would they feel guilt when they think they are doing the right thing? What has pissed me off is the hypocrisy with jezzebelles(?) but that’s sleazy men for you. They want to impose rules on others mainly women but not themselves. It’s a way of feeling above the law for them. I hope it comes crashing down for them.