We Need to Buy, Show, Promote the DVD movie "The Handmaids Tale"

[NAO]

Here is a film about the US becoming a religious theocracy where abortion rights are wiped out and the ideology of the anti-abortionists (aka the advocates of compulsory pregnancy) is played out to it's extreme. With the nomination of Roberts and the overturn of Roe v. Wade looming close, and the Radical Clerics of the Religious Right exerting greater and greater political and social influence, this film is more relevant now than ever.

I remember during the 2004 election cycle progressives would spread the word and buy a particular book at Amazon.com to drive up it's sales rank. It got lots of copies of the book out there, and also drew attention to the book. This type of coordinated buying and showing of this movie might help shift the balance of public opinion from apathy to concern and active opposition to the onslaught of the Religious Right.

The Handmaid's Tale (1990)
http://imdb.com/title/tt0099731
$16 at Amazon.com

from IMDB:

Set in a Fascistic future America, The Handmaid's Tale tells the story of Kate, a handmaid. In this America, the religious right has taken over and gone hog-wild. Kate is a criminal, guilty of the crime of trying to escape from the US, and is sentenced to become a Handmaid. The job of a Handmaid is to bear the children of the man to whom she is assigned. After ruthless group training by Serena Joy in the proper way to behave, Kate is assigned as Handmaid to the Commander. Kate is attracted to Nick, the Commander's chauffeur. At the same time, a resistance movement begins to challenge the regime.

from Amazon:

Set in a time when a buildup of toxic chemicals has made most people sterile, Volker Schlondorff's film offers a disturbing view of a society under martial law in which fertile women are captured and made into handmaids to bear children for rich and infertile matrons. The film unfolds from the eyes of newly converted handmaid Kate (Natasha Richardson). She is trapped in this mysogynistic society which both deifies these fertile women as prized possessions and condemns them as whores. Throughout the story Kate has to cope with the jealousy of the woman she serves (Faye Dunaway), the advances of her sleazy military husband (the Commander, played by Robert Duvall), and the loss of her daughter, who has been shuttled off to a similarly aristocratic setting. She also falls in love with one of the Commander's security guards (Aidan Quinn), who sympathizes with her plight and potentially offers her a way out. Throughout The Handmaid's Tale, issues of feminism, abortion rights, male dominance, and conservative religious politics all come under fire. Some may view the film itself as antifemale considering its concepts, but it is quite the opposite. Instead it shows how only through solidarity can women bring down an overriding patriarchical mindset. The film, which works from Harold Pinter's screenplay adaption of Margaret Atwood's novel, features strong performances from those mentioned as well as Elizabeth McGovern and Victoria Tennant

[NYCGirl]

1. Unfortunately, it's not a very good movie. Read the book instead. NT

[NAO]

4. The book is better, but (sigh) very few people read these days

If you are going to try to influence a large number of people, a mediocre movie is going to be more effective than a top-notch book.

Compare the relative influence of Eric Alterman and Mark Green's excellent "The Book on Bush" - a well researched, meticulously documented, exhaustive treatment of Bush and his lies and misdeeds...to the influence of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 911".

This is not to say that F911 was not also well researched, but viewed strictly in terms of the INFORMATION CONVEYED, the film was dwarfed by the book. Viewed in terms of the EXTENT OF INFLUENCE, the book was dwarfed by the movie.

That's just a reality in our non-reading culture.

[donsu]

5. agree, book is much better

nt

[fudge stripe cookays]

8. NAO makes a good point.

Regular Janes don't know anything about this book. If we can get them interested in what's going on through a mediocre movie, they may become interested enough to read the book. And tell friends about both.

I tried holding a party at my house for teenage girls last year and we watched "If These Walls Could Talk", which is also godo for convincing people. In one movie, you see how far we've come, and how quickly we're going back. I was a hysterical emotional wreck the first time I watched it.

FSC

[ClintonTyree]

2. I've read the book........

but I never realized there was a movie made of it. That has to be film noir at it's darkest. I'm a 'gonna have to get a copy of that, I'd be interested in seeing how they handled it.

Thanks for the info!

[carnie_sf]

3. I had no idea

it was a movie

[ClintonTyree]

6. The cast..........

Natasha Richardson .... Kate/Offred
Faye Dunaway .... Serena Joy
Aidan Quinn .... Nick
Elizabeth McGovern .... Moira
Victoria Tennant .... Aunt Lydia
Robert Duvall .... Commander
Blanche Baker .... Ofglen
Traci Lind .... Janine/Ofwarren
Zoey Wilson .... Aunt Helena
Kathryn Doby .... Aunt Elizabeth
Reiner Schöne .... Luke (as Rainer Schoene)
Lucia Hartpeng .... Cora (as Lucie Hartpeng)
Karma Ibsen Riley .... Aunt Sara
Lucile McIntyre .... Rita
Gary Bullock .... Officer on Bus
(more)

That sounds like an outstanding cast! Robert Duvall as the Commander, Faye Dunaway as Serena Joy! Maybe the book didn't translate well to the screen? I'm still going to have to get it, my curiosity is killing me.

[NAO]

9. better your curiosity than the Religious Reich

"...I'm still going to have to get it, my curiosity is killing me."


According to the theologians, God, the Father of us all, wrote a letter to his children. The children have always differed somewhat as to the meaning of this letter. In consequence of these honest differences, these brothers began to cut out each other's hearts. In every land, where this letter from God has been read, the children to whom and for whom it was written have been filled with hatred and malice. They have imprisoned and murdered each other, and the wives and children of each other. In the name of God every possible crime has been committed, every conceivable outrage has been perpetrated. Brave men, tender and loving women, beautiful girls, and prattling babes have been exterminated in the name of Jesus Christ. For more than fifty generations the church has carried the black flag. Her vengeance has been measured only by her power. During all these years of infamy no heretic has ever been forgiven. With the heart of a fiend she has hated; with the clutch of avarice she has grasped; with the jaws of a dragon she has devoured; pitiless as famine, merciless as fire, with the conscience of a serpent: such is the history of the Church of God...

Men and women have been burned for thinking there is but one God; that there was none; that the Holy Ghost is younger than God; that God was somewhat older than his son; for insisting that good works will save a man without faith; that faith will do without good works; for declaring that a sweet babe will not be burned eternally, because its parents failed to have its head wet by a priest; for speaking of God as though he had a nose; for denying that Christ was his own father; for contending that three persons, rightly added together, make more than one; for believing in purgatory; for denying the reality of hell; for pretending that priests can forgive sins; for preaching that God is an essence; for denying that witches rode through the air on sticks; for doubting the total depravity of the human heart; for laughing at irresistible grace, predestination and particular redemption; for denying that good bread could be made of the body of a dead man; for pretending that the pope was not managing this world for God, and in the place of God; for disputing the efficacy of a vicarious atonement; for thinking the Virgin Mary was born like other people; for thinking that a man's rib was hardly sufficient to make a good- sized woman; for denying that God used his finger for a pen; for asserting that prayers are not answered, that diseases are not sent to punish unbelief; for denying the authority of the Bible; for having a Bible in their possession; for attending mass, and for refusing to attend; for wearing a surplice; for carrying a cross, and for refusing; for being a Catholic, and for being a Protestant; for being an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Baptist, and for being a Quaker. In short, every virtue has been a crime, and every crime a virtue. The church has burned honesty and rewarded hypocrisy. And all this, because it was commanded by a book -- a book that men had been taught implicitly to believe, long before they knew one word that was in it. They had been taught that to doubt the truth of this book -- to examine it, even -- was a crime of such enormity that it could not be forgiven, either in this world or in the next.

from "Heretics And Hericies (1874)" by Robert Green Ingersoll
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/heretics_and_hericies.html

[NAO]

7. Movie was 1990. Starred Natasha Richardson, Robert Duvall, Faye Dunaway

You can view the trailer here:

http://imdb.com/rg/title-tease/trailers/title/tt0099731/trailers

[NAO]

10. 2 copies of The Handmaid's Tale left on DVD left in stock at Amazon

I purchased it yesterday and there was no low stock notice. It really does a good job of portraying what life would be like under the rule of the Religious Reich.

[Radio-Active]

11. I actually really like the movie

but I like a lot of sci-fi stuff.