GEORGE KRAYCHYK/HULU

These are trying times, both in real life and in The Handmaid's Tale's dystopian world of Gilead.

With the latter's rape under the guise of religion, the criminalization of women's health practices, and the attack on women's and minorities' rights, the line between reality and fiction is blurring. Season 3 of Hulu's Elizabeth Moss-led adaptation remains a gripping, terrifying view of an all-too-real possibility for America's future.

One of the most fascinating characters remains the former conservative activist Serena Waterford (Yvonne Strahovski), whose relationship with Moss's June Osborne (a.k.a Ofjoseph #2) remains fluid, as shifting alliances—and a baby —have shaken June's world. At the end of last season, Serena handed baby Nichole over to June, fully acknowledging that June would escape Gilead with the baby to give her a better life in Canada, free from oppression. Serena's difficult choice hinted that she had defected, at least partly, from Gilead's sexist, totalitarian regime. But as new episodes indicate, Serena seems to be driven by a love she'll never have and possibly never understand—the love of a child.

Over the past three years, Serena has been a walking contradiction. She's stern and sour on the outside, staunchly following Gilead's beliefs and willfully following her husband's leadership, both politically and in their household. Yet, Serena has shown that she's capable of compassion through her willingness to do favors for June, her sharing of information about June's older daughter, Hannah, and her empathetic, emotional decision to help June escape with the baby. It's as if a new Serena has replaced the stone-cold, heartless woman from earlier episodes.

But is it possible for Serena to escape her religious past, and if so, does she deserve redemption? After all, she's partly responsible for the creation of Gilead in the first place. Her religious views took center stage on her pre-Gilead college lecture tour, whereby she instructed women to do their duty and pro-create to help counter the plummeting birth rate. She wrote a book entitled A Woman's Place, which contained the notorious line, "Never mistake a woman's meekness for weakness." Women, according to Gilead's founding principles, should know their place and humbly fall in line. A feminist, she is not.

However, after the takeover, Serena was completely shut out of the new government planning. The neo-society won't let women "forget their real purpose," thereby using theological beliefs and societal circumstances to enslave women—even ones like Serena, who are lucky enough to find themselves married to powerful men and, due to their infertility, be free from Gilead's sexual abuse and trafficking. Even scarier, she seems acquiescent in her new role.

But it's her complicity in Gilead's kidnapping, murder, and rape that makes Serena's compassion so perplexing. She places her beliefs over other women's human rights and can't or won't see the injustices her classism fuels. She, along with many others in Gilead, puts "the greater good" over the sexual traumas inflicted upon handmaids day in and day out. And that's not to mention Gilead's horrifying clitoridectomies, eye-gouges, and other mutilations it uses to keep the handmaids in line. Yet to Serena, these are normal. Gilead is normal. Praise be.

Hulu

As season 3 has shown thus far, Serena is backpedaling on her decision to let baby Nichole go. Her husband, Commander Fred, plans on negotiating with Canada for the baby's surrender, despite Serena knowing deep down that a life in Gilead could have dangerous stakes for Nichole. Serena is putting her own yearning for love and motherhood over the well-being of an innocent child. If Serena can't—or won't—put the baby's life over her own neediness, she'll continue being unfit for parenthood. Just because we want something doesn't mean we deserve it.

But Serena's deeply layered emotional blueprint makes her strangely compelling. She's completely unpredictable, warm one minute and icy the next. She's religious and poised, but simultaneously callous and evil to June. Her desperation makes her selfish, the antithesis of most religious teachings. The paradoxes are both absurd and never-ending.

Though Serena can be maddening, Strahovsky delivers a spellbinding performance. The actress is able to pull sympathy from the audience, despite her character's growing list of flaws. There's a power struggle inside of Serena as she comes to terms with her fluctuating role as a socialite-wife and her loss of status to the men around her. Strahovsky leans into Serena's villainous traits and stone-cold demeanor, but can turn heel and melt when it comes to Nichole's or June's plights. Some may not tolerate Serena's softer side in light of her past evil-doings, but that's what makes her such a polarizing yet powerful character. Strahovsky delivers a multi-faceted Emmy-worthy performance that we can hope eventually earns her the award (she was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series last year but lost to Westworld's Thandie Newton).

The Handmaid's Tale's dystopian future might not be that "dystopian" after all; it could be a portent for what lies ahead, thanks to the connivance of people like Serena Waterford. Though she hides behind her religion, using it as a beacon to guide her, she's nowhere near moral. She idly stands by, devoid of voice, as women are abused, tortured, impregnated, and then ripped from their offspring. But when faced with the opportunity to get something she's only dreamt of, only then does she begin to act differently. Is she deserving of forgiveness? We'll have to see how the series shakes out. For now, she remains an unfeeling religious zealot weaponizing her faith to oppress others.
CULTURE

Powerless Protests: "The Handmaid's Tale" Inspires Cosplay with a Cause

As Margaret Atwood said, "'The Handmaid's Tale' has actually become a meme in US politics. You'll find it turning up on Twitter. Somebody has to tell the Republicans 'The Handmaid's Tale' is not a blueprint."

Women dressed as handmaids stand in front of the crowd at the Women's March to protest the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett. WASHINGTON D.C., USA - Oct 17, 2020

Photo by Stephanie Kenner (Shutterstock)

In 2017, 12 protesters donned The Handmaid's Tale's eerie red cloaks and white bonnets to march into the Texas Senate and protest a bill that forces women to carry non-viable pregnancies to term.

Since then, TheHandmaid's Tale garb has become "the viral protest uniform of 2019," with women's rights activists protesting abortion bans and violence against women from Croatia to California. Protest fashion isn't a new tactic, but it's more potent than ever, from Handmaid's Tale star Elisabeth Moss taking inspiration from protesters to actor Billy Porter using his gender-bending red carpet appearances to bring attention to women's issues. But activists tying their message to pop cultural imagery has the potential drawback of tokenizing their causes as a passing meme or piece of online outrage, rather than calls to action.

With Alabama and Georgia leading the way on regressive state bans on abortion, the overlap between the series' fictional Gilead and the future of America's conservative policies is strikingly ominous. Even Margaret Atwood, author of the 1985 novel, told the BBC that her speculative fiction about government control probably wasn't as foreboding as it should have been. She said in 2016, "I don't think I was worried enough. I think if you're looking state by state some of the laws they're putting in right now I probably wasn't quite worried enough." Atwood added, "The Handmaid's Tale has actually become a meme in US politics. You'll find it turning up on Twitter. Somebody has to tell the Republicans The Handmaid's Tale is not a blueprint."

"Protest fashion isn't a new tactic, but it's more potent than ever..."

Elisabeth Moss, executive producer as well as lead actor in the series, also noted the show's similarities with real-life crises, from restrictions on reproductive rights to families being torn apart at U.S. borders. "It feels that line between [an] entertaining television show and real life, at that point I can barely see it," Moss said. "When I see those women wearing handmaid costumes and marching and protesting in them, I'm even more proud to put it on. I know what that costume stands for and what it means, and that's inspiring." Series creator Bruce Miller added, "I would love for our show to be irrelevant. That's the goal."

Activists in pursuit of that same goal have taken inspiration from the Hulu series in the "form of resistance cosplay," incorporating the costume into their protests. But from jokes on late-night TV to Kylie Jenner throwing a tone-deaf The Handmaid's Tale-themed birthday party, donning the red cloaks today still rings of cosplay rather than activism.

After all, riffing on the show's imagery began as a mere marketing stunt by the studio. In 2017, dozens of women were hired by the studio to dress in red cloaks and appear at the SXSW festival to promote the show before its premiere. That's when the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, Heather Busby, saw an opportunity to make a political stance. She directed 12 protestors to run to a costume shop, purchase the costumes, and march to the Texas Senate gallery to protest a state bill restricting access to abortion. Similarly, The Handmaid Coalition is a political action group founded with the slogan, "Fight to keep fiction from becoming reality." In their mission statement, they describe, "The overall goal, like the imagery, is shared: protecting our rights and standing with organizations on the front lines of the fight for a fully equitable America. Our BODIES, our LIVES, our RIGHTS, our FUTURE."

But when responses to protests mostly live on social media and in internet memes, is there a chance of making real change? As Wired pointed out, "Everywhere the handmaids go, the media follows: Their image has become a staple of late-night set pieces, campaign emails, and, praise be, Twitter jokes." Absent are policy changes or responses from policy-makers (the Texas bill protested by the first set of handmaid protesters passed). The cloaks and hoods are mostly treated as a form of "resistance cosplay" in the truest sense: It's playing dress-up for a cause.


Trump's The Handmaid's Taleyoutu.be

Still, Moss has faith that the imagery can make a striking statement that sticks in people's minds. "I hope that people take it that seriously," she says. "I hope that they don't just treat it as a catchy thing to say. I hope they take that feeling and put it into action. I hope that people take their feelings of frustration about the show's relevance and actually do something about it." The problem, as Wiredcritiqued, is that imagery alone isn't powerful unless it's attached to collective action: "The costume's flexibility is part of its power, but also keeps handmaids from being real drivers of discourse...Handmaids embody gendered pain and dread so vast it's hard to put into words: sexual violence, physical violence, governments taking control of bodies, bodies valued over beings, being reduced to a womb alone. All they really say is 'No to all that,' albeit in a highly concise and memorable way."

So far in 2019, the only win The Handmaid's Tale-style protests have earned is Kamala Harris making public comparisons to Alabama's abortion ban, stating "This isn't a scene from The Handmaid's Tale. This is happening in Alabama — in our country — in the year 2019," and the recent debut of season 3 earning high ratings. Ultimately, "Protest fashion is more about communicating rejection and anxiety than creating tangible change on its own." Whether it's Instagrammable #Metoo apparel or even the bright Yellow Vests of Parisian protestors, wearable messages of resistance are only acts of protest when they're connected to actions. Otherwise, it's an edgy fashion statement without any power to enact change.

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