I just watched The Handmaid's Tale, adapted from Margaret Atwood's novel. Pretty spooky about Bible-based fundamentalist government. Anyone seen it? Or read it? Think there's any comparisons to be made about the religious people in power today?
The Handmaid's Tale
by patio34 17 Replies latest jw friends
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nowisee
saw the movie, read the book subsequently -- some time ago so details are sketchy. but yes, very scary.
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blondie
What I remember is that somehow in the US the women's fertility had been reduced and only some women could have babies and they acted as surrogate slave mothers for highborn, wealthy powerful women.
The Sarah-Hagar syndrome or Leah/Rachel and their handmaidens that bore them children.
I remember them try to escape into Canada.
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skyman
Have not seen or read but will do so.
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Insomniac
I saw the movie a number of years ago, on the recommendation of a friend. This friend was a dub at the time, as was I, but he was beginning to fade out. He didn't say anything to me except that this movie was very thought provoking, and might help me to challenge my assumptions.
Man, the movie gave me chills. I remember thinking that this was what the world would be if witnesses ever took over the government. Then I read the book, which is just that much more terrifying. It really speaks to the pervasive sense of powerlessness many women feel in fundamentalist religions. A scene in the book esp. hit home for me: two of the handmaids, in their distinctive clothing, are asked by some Japanese women how they really felt about their situation. The handmaids firmly insisted that they were very happy. They were to afraid to say otherwise. I spent a lifetime likewise insisting that I agreed fully with the tenets of a faith that held my gender to be inferior, and human life to be of less value than an ancient law forbidding the use of blood- because I was afraid to say otherwise.
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I quit!
I don't worry as much about the fundamentalist on the right as I do the politically correct on the the left. But I would like to see the movie. I'll see if I can rent it.
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I quit!
This friend was a dub at the time, as was I, but he was beginning to fade out. He didn't say anything to me except that this movie was very thought provoking, and might help me to challenge my assumptions.
Sometime the best way to get a witness to think if for them to see something similar to the situation they are in but not directly related to the watchtower such as George Orwell's 1984 or the problems with Mormonism. They don't feel defensive that way.
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patio34
One thing about the story that stood out for me was the movie's portrayal of Rachel, etc., giving their "handmaidens" to their husbands to get children. It sounds so innocuous in the Bible, but in real life, it's entirely plausible the handmaids did NOT want to couple with the patriarchs. They were more like slaves than anything and didn't have a choice the way it's worded in the Bible. Rape is what it may have been.
Another thing about the Bible was the brutality of executing--murdering!--people, mostly women "adultery," etc.
What seemed to have a correlation to today's time was the fundamentalists in power railing against the gays, women's right to choose, and insistence on abstinence only. Carried to the full would be brutal against society. Oh! And the religious leaders having their own "sin dens" in private, that the "masses couldn't handle."
"I quit," I can remember reading novels that touched on cults and being shook by the resemblances to JWs. A few other lines too really stayed with me (Dean Koontz talking about the violence in nature, and Sue Grafton's character stating she didn't like nature, it was bloody, etc.).
Blondie, the reason the women were sterile (why not the men?) was toxic contamination. When the husbands took the handmaids, they read the Bible, which was their precedent, of women giving their servants to men. Disgusting.
Pat
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blondie
It sounds so innocuous in the Bible, but in real life, it's entirely plausible the handmaids did NOT want to couple with the patriarchs. They were more like slaves than anything and didn't have a choice the way it's worded in the Bible. Rape is what it may have been.
Exactly my reaction to that account in the Bible; they didn't have a choice, so it was rape.
At least in the movie, escape to another country was a hope.
A world run by the WTS would have only death as an escape. Exactly why I left and know that no god is supporting their view of the future. I once told them that I would rather die at Armageddon than live forever under their authority.
Blondie
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Gill
I'm with you Blondie, in that I too have said I'd rather die at Armageddon, damn it, I'd rather die this minute than live a moment under JW rule, ever again.! The day you come to that decision is the day you are FREE!
The Handmaids Tale, was a brilliant film. I remember thinking it reminded me of being a JW, and that was when I was too stupid to realise or dare think even, that I was in a cult.
It's funny but my older kids remember a lot of JW behaviour and speech, cult ways etc, and every so often they see or hear something on the TV, or a behaviour of someone that is daft, culty, overly religious and always come out with 'that is so JW!' and laugh.
I think they appreciate their freedom!