The Handmaid’s Tale: It Could Always be Worse

In the article, I try to explicate the reasons for the popularity of The Handmaid’s Tale – especially in 2017. The totalitarian system, as it is presented in the series, is in accordance with the realisation of the ideals fostered by the right pole of the new cultural struggles between liberal feminism, political correctness and campus culture, on the one hand, and transgression, chauvinism and radical freedom, on the other. Such ideas, which are often connected to the alt-right movement, represent a dangerous bond between progressivism and conservatism and therefore attract the masses. By comparing the series and contemporary political events, we try to show that the main problem is already present in liberal postmodernism, which immanently tends towards its destruction in a totalitarian social system. In the series, this is most obvious in the dichotomy between the gaze of the main protagonist and the all-inclusive system in which she is captured.

The integral version of this article can be found in the printed KINO!