The Handmaid’s Tale: What are the real-life influences and parallels of the TV show? – Express.co.uk

Despite being written over 30 years ago in a world very different to the one we are now confronted with, the TV show has captured the zeitgeist and it is resonating deeply with audiences thanks to its terrifyfing real-life parallels.

The rise of Donald Trump and that of the far right across Europe have eerie echoes in the Hulu TV show, so too does the latest wave of the feminism movement trying to protect the rights of women against regressive legislation from conservative lawmakers and organisations around the globe.

In fact, after the recent general election and the subsequent coalition between the Conservatives and the DUP - a party who are anti-abortion and anti-gay - it feels as though Britain has taken a step closer to the fictional New England that is Gilead.

For those whove only overheard water cooler conversations about The Handmaids Tale, the show is based on the novel of the same name by Margaret Atwood and imagines a world called Gilead where a totalitarian regime has taken over and subverted women's rights amid a nuclear disaster.

Fertile young women are forced to become Handmaids and wear white bonnets and red robes to preserve their modesty as part of their role. Each of the Handmaids is assigned to a Commander - a powerful older man within society - and is forced to "mate" with him as the majority of the population has become infertile due to the catastrophic environmental fallout.

Mad Men and Top of the Lake star Elisabeth Moss leads the TV series as Offred and we are shown the world through her eyes, including the events leading up to Gilead and the present horrors she lives in.

We've taken a look back at the themes in the book and the TV show, exploring the historical events and references that inspired Atwood while she was writing her novel and how the story continues to resonate today, serving not as a warning but worryingly a forecast.

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Sexual repression:

The Handmaid's Tale sees the feminist movement completely turned on its head as women lose all their rights and liberties, lose their bank balance and become subjugated to a lower class - their wombs and reproductive organs being the only forms of currency in Gilead.

It's something that Atwood was very much thinking of as she worked on the novel and it appears she was influenced by the elections of both Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, conservatives politicians that espoused a return to traditional values.

With a conservative revival in the West, there was a fear among feminists that the sexual revolution and freedoms fought for during the 60s and 70s would be undone.

More recently, these stereotypical roles bring to mind the words of Theresa May who recently suggested that they are boy jobs and girl jobs in the home.

Lets not forget US President Donald Trumps own views on women - particularly the abhorrent grab them by the p***y remarks and referring to the menstruation of a journalist because she was grilling him - have sparked a new fear for women's rights.

When the most powerful leader in the world is spouting such values and opinions, the fear is palpable amongst women's rights campaigners and the slippery slope we could be going down.

The treatment by the so-called Islamic State of Yazidi women as sex slaves is another frightening parallel that simply cannot be ignored either.

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The costume of a Handmaid

Handmaids must wear veils and head coverings to signify their place in society and Atwood initially had in mind the Puritans of New England - indeed the outfits look like something from the time of the Salem Witch Trials.

But the dress code of the Handmaids also brings to mind the Burka, which women have to wear in some countries across the Middle East, to symbolise modesty.

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Totalitarian regime & propaganda

Atwood wrote in West Berlin and Alabama in the mid-80s when the Iron Curtain was still very much in place and the Cold War raging on.

She would have been very much aware of the authoritative regime controlling the people behind the Wall in East Berlin by means of propaganda and misinformation.

The rise of the far-right and the authoritarian regime of East Berlin would have been on Atwood's radar but perhaps the biggest influence appears to be Hitler and the Nazis, who essentially created their own brand of Christianity but politicised it and used propaganda to promote their values.

The Kinder, Kche, Kirche policy, which translates to children, kitchen, church, encouraged women to stay at home and raise babies. In fact there was even Nazi legislation awarding more money to those families who had more children.

Gilead feels like it was borne out of these things because it is filled with propaganda and banned material.

The Red Centre, too, where woman are indoctrinated before they are turned into Handmaids, feeds into a regime controlling aspect of its populations lives.

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Anti-abortion

Again, much like sexual repression - Gilead is anti-abortion and this harks back to the panic towards the growing conservatism in the Eighties. But it's something that has come back around again full circle and is terrifyingly relevant.

Interestingly, in a moment of meta-textuality, a group of protesters in the US donned Hamdmaid costumes to demonstrate against anti-abortion legislation in Ohio. It's a damning indictment of the world we're living in now.

Britains is now also run by a government consisting to DUP members who are staunchly anti-abortion, anti-LGBT and creationists - very much a reflection of the values of Gilead and its use of Christianity and the Bible to push through its political agenda.

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Treatment of homosexuals

Atwood was writing during a decade where the AIDS epidemic was at its height and there was moral panic surrounding the disease.

The Handmaid's Tale draws on this as all homosexuals in Gilead are punished either through execution or being sent to the colonies.

Moira is revealed to be a lesbian and meets an ambiguous ending in the novel.

The treatment of homosexuals in Gilead also taps into Christian and Islamic extremism that still exists in our society today - look no further than the hate preaching of the Westboro Baptist Church or the medieval punishments and sick ideology of ISIS.

The Handmaids Tale airs on Channel 4 on Sundays at 9pm.

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The Handmaid's Tale: What are the real-life influences and parallels of the TV show? - Express.co.uk