Rich Lowry of National Review Online explores the political significance of big Emmy wins for “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
Donald Trump, much to his chagrin, never won an Emmy for The Apprentice, but he can now take indirect credit for a clutch of the awards.
The Hulu series The Handmaid’s Tale won eight Emmys on Sunday night, a sweep fueled, in part, by the widely accepted belief in liberal America that the show tells us something about the Trump era. …
… Set in contemporary America, the show combines the atmosphere of The Scarlet Letter with 1984. It is bleak, plodding, heavy-handed, and occasionally gripping. What has given it extra oomph is the trope that it is relevant to Trump’s America. This is a staple of the commentary, and everyone involved in the show’s production pushes the notion.
According to Atwood, people woke up after Trump’s election “and said we’re no longer in a fantasy fiction.” The series is indeed highly relevant — as a statement on the fevered mind of progressives.
The president doesn’t want to impose his traditional sexual morality because, for starters, he doesn’t have any to impose. His critics are mistaking a thrice-married real estate mogul who has done cameos in Playboy videos and extensive interviews on The Howard Stern Show with Cotton Mather. He isn’t censorious; he’s boorish.
“I thought this could be a great cautionary tale,” director Reed Morano says of the show. “We don’t think about how women are treated in other countries as much as we should, and I guess I thought this would raise awareness.” Fair enough. The Handmaid’s Tale does have something to tell us about, say, Saudi Arabia. But, in an uncomfortable fact for Christian-fearing feminists, none of the world’s women-hating theocracies are Christian.
