Welcome to Gilead - the new "lifestyle gateway"

[sleepingdragons]

From [[https://communities.lendlease.com/gilead/
this website]]:

Welcome to Gilead – Macarthur’s new lifestyle gateway

A new master planned community from Australia’s premier award winning developer.

Set beside the Nepean River, Gilead will be a community surrounded by natural bushland and only 10 minutes from the urban hubs of Campbelltown and Camden.

Our residents will enjoy the beauty and convenience of beaches, adventures, hikes, walks and foodie hubs, at their doorstep.

Gilead is coming in early 2018.

WTF? Have these people never heard of Google? Or books/TV?

What's a "lifestyle gateway" anyway?

Praise fucking be.

Ha ha!

I’m pretty sure people with ‘good general knowledge’ know the swastika is ‘not just’ a nazi symbol too lass...

The royal wedding preacher referenced the phrase the 'balm of Gilead', an entirely positive thing which is meant to be soothing to a troubled soul.
Atwood's usage is of course, quite deliberately taking the name of something presented as a blissful utopia, which is what you would expect from a regime like the one depicted in the book. They're hardly going to call themselves 'The lake of fire'.
But that doesn't take away from the historical place of the term, much like Paradise or Heaven is still a legitimate word denoting a place of spiritual or physical blessing, not diminished by also being used for innumerable dodgy nightclubs.

Really Offred?

"Gilead" to me suggests the Marilyn Robinson book not the Atwood one. I don't like Atwood. I read The Handmaid's Tale years ago and didn't like it. Very little of it, as with all her books, stuck in my mind. I didn't watch the series because I didn't like the book. I don't like the misery wallowing of "oh isn't it true to life" that goes on here.

It's your problem, not mine, that your cultural life is so limited that you have never come across Gilead elsewhere.

The royal wedding preacher referenced the phrase the 'balm of Gilead', an entirely positive thing which is meant to be soothing to a troubled soul

Indeed-that might have been a hint that there is more to it than the Atwood book.

I think you’ve missed the point lass.

No-one is saying the only Gilead is the theocracy in Atwood’s book.

We are having a laugh at a ‘lifestyle gateway’ housing development named ‘Gilead’ because the TV show is screening worldwide at the moment and it is funny....

No-one needs to be educated about the many different potential meanings of ‘Gilead’ or widen their cultural experiences...

To quote Hannah Gadsby; ‘sorry to tell you this... but no-one’s leaving here a better person’

Ha ha, regardless of other "Gileads" the one at the forefront of popular imagination at the moment is the setting of Attwood's book, now TV series. Presumably they are watching it in Australia too. It's quite bonkers that no one would spot this and veto the name. It reminds me of that toddler bed called the "Lolita" that was sold by Woolworths a few years back.

I would never move to Gilead :-)

I believe it is from the name of the farmland which has been purchased for development TBH. It’s still funny though.

Offred

I did also smile at the poster that said that Atwood's novel was hardly going to be set in "The lake of fire"...

Is there a BALM?

To quote Hannah Gadsby; ‘sorry to tell you this... but no-one’s leaving here a better person’

What relevance does a not particularly funny stand up comedian have to anything on here? .That is who I'm thinking of ? The comedian with the usp of being an unattractive lesbian?. (And before you get on your high horse about that she makes plenty of mileage about it in her own material)

It really is your problem that Gilead only has one meaning for you. Perhaps you could try reading the Marilyn Robinson novel- most people find it quite uplifting.

Did you watch the Royal wedding Offred?

Michael Curry's sermon must have been awfully puzzling for you.

Ah well, at least if it's in Australia they will be sent good weather.

Is it gated, this development?

I sense some lip pursing on this thread. Stop being so FLIPPANT everybody. Feminism is not a fun issue and literature is NOT for laughs! We must all be earnest, learned and wear sensible shoes at all times.

As you were!

Oh dear lass.

Gilead doesn’t have ‘one meaning’ for me. That’s not why it’s funny, it’s not why people think it is funny and the people laughing are not laughing because they think the only meaning of Gilead is that it is the name of the theocracy in the handmaid’s tale.

The relevance of the Hannah Gadsby quote is it was a joke about high art vs comedy...

Fwiw, I got the joke. I thought it was mildly amusing to consider that the next totalitarian regime could rise from a poncy 'lifestyle gateway' in Australia.
I only posted because there did seem to be some confusion as to the origin and application of the word Gilead. Not trying to piss on anyone's chips at all.

I sense some lip pursing on this thread.

Oh yeah, a proper cat’s bum mouth. With a little pot-stirring on the side.

Can see a whe realm of similarly named gated communties stepford, Oceania etc.

Ah, I'm starting to understand the 'new world'.

No, you must not find something funny with other people, if you connect 'the thing' with a writer that others did not connect with or like, and if the humourous context may refer to a word that refers to other things outside the the writer who used it in the context you laughed about it in.

If you laughed without considering the wider context of the word that was used before the writer who you liked, and others did, you potentially may have a 'limited cultural life', and therefore, well...

I'm learning that we're even being policed about what we may find funny. Otherwise we're 'culturally limited'!

Perhaps we could all try reading stuff that is better suited for women than Attwood!

Have you had a bad day lass ?

It's funny to some people, why would you want to spoil that? Plus what did (the very funny) Hannah Gadsby ever do to you?!

Waddle apparently to find something this specifically funny is

• a lack of general knowledge
• a lack of wider knowledge
• a risk of linking this funny thing to another 'unfunny' thing according to some (aka unattractive lesbian Hannah Gadsby)

I'm looking forward to lass policing the full extent of Mumsnet to remind people to find nothing funny until they've considered the wider context to every word they use!

Why are you in feminism?

Lost my cocoa on this

Lolololol