The Handmaid’s Tale finally returned on April 28, 2021, after six months and two years after it stopped filming due to the epidemic. This flagship drama, jointly produced by Hulu and MGM TV, won a total of 15 Emmy Awards and 55 nominations including the best drama, best director, best screenwriter and best actress in the first three seasons. At the same time, as the first streaming drama to win the best drama of the Emmy Awards, this record is still held by Hulu, Although Netflix is considered or will become the second streaming media to win this honor with The Crown, The Story of the Maid has profoundly and significantly changed the pattern of the film and television industry.
In 1984, Margaret Atwood, who lived on the west side of the Iron Curtain, wrote The Story of the Servant Girl. In her preface, she told the reader that everything in the book had happened in history, and it was the whispering and the oppressive atmosphere that pervaded Berlin at that time that gave her the most direct inspiration.
“This is not a TV play, it is a cultural phenomenon.” People associate “The Story of the Servant Girl” with the reality experienced by Americans. The play version of “The Story of the Servant Girl” premiered in June 2017, when Trump, the 45th President of the United States, was in power for half a year. During Trump’s four years in power, American civil rights have fallen sharply and democracy has been threatened unprecedentedly. The Story of the Servant Girl has thus become a symbol of civil disobedience movement. When some Republican ruling states tried to promote the legislative agenda of anti-abortion rights, women in the states wore the dress of the servant girl to participate in the protest.
On January 6, 2021, Trump, who refused to recognize the results of the presidential election, delivered a speech not far from the Capitol. Under his instigation, his supporters broke into the Capitol – the doors and windows of the Capitol were smashed, the offices of elected officials were damaged, the flag of the Southern Confederation with a sense of slavery was inserted in the Capitol, and the cross and the gallows with ropes were erected on the square at the gate of the Capitol. According to a recent report by the Washington Post, the latest data released by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on April 12, 2021 showed that domestic terrorism in the United States is rising at a speed never seen in nearly 30 years: since 2015, right-wing extremists have participated in 267 plots or attacks, resulting in 91 deaths, including blacks, Jews, immigrants, homosexuals, intersex and transgender Asian and other colored people. The data listed the event of breaking the Capitol on January 6 as one of the 11 extreme right-wing terrorist events of the month – which is also the most extreme right-wing terrorist event in any month in the database. The report stressed that active servicemen, veterans and current and former police officers were more involved in the attacks and plots of the far-right wing, and some of them were involved in the riots in the Capitol.
When the whole world was shocked by the unprecedented violence that trampled on democracy in the history of the United States, people remembered again that “The Story of the Servant Girl” was so frightening to predict the reality at this moment. It seemed to be coincidence, and it was inevitable.
How can we survive under the terror of the totalitarian state? For people other than the power class of Kieran countries – although their internal power struggle often led to the custody or even death of archbishops who had been in power after losing power, survival itself is a topic that has to be repeatedly reflected and questioned. The maidservant, the maid (Martha), the economic wife, the archbishop’s wife, and all the women in the country of Gilead wear uniforms of different colors. They perform their duties according to the social plan of the country of Gilead. June, who is fertile but has been marked with “moral stain”, became the maidservant after being captured by the angel guard (the soldier of the country of Gilead) at the state border of Maine.
Before escaping into the long night of Gilead and becoming the leader of the Mayday Rebel, June was an ordinary American woman: her mother was a feminist, and she often took her to participate in protests when she was young, but June, who was comfortable with life, did not care much about politics; She met her future husband Luke when she was in college, although the latter did not divorce when they met; Her best friend Moira is gay. In order to repay the student loan, she used to surrogate for a couple; After graduation, June entered an art company. “Why do I think everything is as usual? Because we have heard this for a long time, I think. You won’t believe that the sky will collapse until a big piece of it hits you,” Atwood wrote in the Testimony. June didn’t realize the end of the old world she was familiar with before the executives of her company suddenly walked into the office and announced that all female employees were fired, women’s bank cards were frozen, and the police and militia in the protest directly shot at the unarmed people.
When June and her companions were walking on the solemn and quiet streets of the country of Gilead, she thought in her heart, “But I am awake now.” June in prison began her long transformation, from the first season still wandering and dizzy between the United States and Gilead, to the second season alone diving into the long night of Gilead, and then to the third season becoming a hero who rescued 80 children from the country of Gilead, June’s change of mind and action vividly shows the hidden resistance of every ordinary person. So the answer has been given. How to survive? Only seek freedom.
The children who grow up in Gilead are new human beings after the flood. Atwood proved this point again in his Testimony – Hannah, who grew up in Gilead, has the power of divinity in adulthood. She is gentle, brave and tenacious, and is the embodiment of a kind of “future man” as an ideal form.
The value of feminism in The Story of the Servant Girl lies in that it does not stop at the depiction of freedom and rebellion, but integrates memory, lust and sex appeal into the characters’ narration of themselves in a way close to the stream of consciousness, sometimes ambiguous, sometimes undercurrent surging, sometimes surging. When June falls into the memories of her past life, she will recall the intercourse between herself and Luke; In the process of spying on each other, June came to Nick’s room in the middle of the night. She told Luke through a tape that she had found love in Kieran. Nicole was born because of love rather than fear. June, who knew it was impossible to return to the past, told him that he had the right to find his own happiness. The audience cannot but be touched by the huge suffering and the remaining passion in the suffering. “The Story of the Servant Girl” is an emotional poem from beginning to end, and it has kept its avant-garde nature to the greatest extent in the non-stop singing and singing since the beginning of the first season.
After breaking away from Atwood’s world-famous original novel, the drama version of “The Story of the Maid” still has a surprising breakthrough in the study of characters, which almost perfectly integrates the narrative of heroes and anti-heroes. “When you stay in Kiel for too long, it will devour you from inside and outside.” When June found that she could not and was no longer willing to be an ordinary person to endure oppression, she said goodbye to her once weak and sluggish self. She mediated between the archbishop and the mother, and found allies among the maids and maids; In the process, she became eager for revenge.
In the last episode of the third season, Bruce Miller, the screenwriter and chief producer, skillfully integrated the text of Exodus into it. People who know the Bible will know that Moses led the Israelites through the desert and left Egypt, but they did not enter the Holy Land. This is a hint of June’s fate, which means that “a happy reunion” is impossible. June has crossed the line of salvation, and she will be in the Jesuit English
And Gotham’s clown-like anti-hero image struggled until they were torn apart.
Or perhaps, “The Story of the Servant Girl” conveys such a cruel truth: anti-heroes are the fate of heroes. “I want justice to be done.” June, who escaped from Gilead, attended the International Court of Justice in a suit as a witness. But just as the vague “hunger and thirst for justice” in the Gospel of Matthew, we can’t know exactly how “justice” should be accomplished. Forgiveness, compassion, resentment and unfeeling can all lead to “justice”. For June, we know that we can’t go back to the past, She will not miss any chance to harm the country of Gilead.
She said that if there was no torch, I would be the only light.