FWIW, I will add my two cents. I am a long time science fiction fan (for 68 years, in fact) and I have read many dystopian novels, post nuclear holocaust and all the rest. I read THT when it came out and I thought it stank! Not remotely plausible.
That it can happen to human beings? Sure. That a 21st-century Western nation could suddenly go that way, without having the cultural and religious tradition found in Afghanistan? No way.
It is clearly stated in the show that birth rates have dropped dramatically. That’s a very large part of reason the religious extremists find their crusade righteous. That factor is the one which makes this more believable.
No, I don’t find it plausible, as I have written about here in the past on the threads for the show. (I do think it’s a good show, though. I just have to suspend my disbelief.)
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Totally leaving aside the religious trappings: the main reason the society depicted in H.T. wouldn’t fly in America is because it’s so goddamn dreary and tedious and regimented. It’s like they’ve made it illegal to have a good time. A strict dress code is enforced; there’s this bizarre system of rigid social etiquette that demands that people greet each other with weird proverbs and incantations; peoples’ sex lives are (obviously) highly monitored and regulated, and a bunch of “commanders” sit at the top of the heap ordering everybody else around. Americans would not stand for this shit. Forget for a moment about all of the women who are oppressed and forced to live the life of slaves. The men wouldn’t stand for it either. Just the fact that the “commanders” are hoarding all the women, that alone would be cause for rebellion, and with as many strong, young, armed men in America, as there are - men who enjoy drinking, carousing, raising hell, and really don’t like being told what to do - there would be constant insurrections against “Gilead”. Put aside the religious thing, put aside the oppression of women - “you’re gonna tell US what to do? Well fuck YOU!” is motivation enough for most people.
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Where’s the military in all of this? Did every Air Force fighter pilot and wing commander, every Navy captain and fleet commander, every missileer, and every infantry division of the military suddenly drop dead? Because in the real world, these guys are not gonna let the American government be supplanted by some weird fucking cult. Yes there are some religious zealots in the military, but there are also a lot of very level headed individuals who take their honor codes very seriously. Can you imagine a guy like James Mattis going along with Gilead? Can you imagine what would happen to your movement if guys like James Mattis and the troops that are loyal to him, decide they want to kill you?
I’ve seen nobody with any military background among the leadership of Gilead and all we’ve ever seen of their “armed forces” are glorified rent-a-cops.
- Gilead isn’t Christian. It’s an Old Testament-based theocracy that resembles a form of fundamentalist Judaism more than any Christian denomination in America. The Gilead people never say the words “Jesus” or “Christ”, they don’t wear crosses or attend churches, they have never uttered a single word about grace or salvation as far as I can tell. It’s all very Old Testament, “HERE ARE THE RULES, YOU WILL FOLLOW THEM OR DIE.” This is quite far removed from even the most right-wing evangelical Christian groups in America.
That means that the Gilead people are a minority.
A minority group isn’t going to impose its will on America in the absence of Federal government power.
As regards plausibility, I don’t think it is possible to know for sure how society will act when the fundamental human drive for procreation is under grave threat.
We do know how restrictive societies act towards women when they can get away with it and there is certainly nothing in THT that is more obnoxious than what reality already presents.
Could it happen somewhere on earth? sure. Could it happen in a 21st century western democracy? Much less likely but as I say, having a real existential threat to the human race of that nature would create a situation never seen before and all bets would be off.
The point of the story is that it’s a parable. If you wrote a story about how women are treated in Afghanistan it would get ignored. So instead of writing about Afghanistan, you write about America transformed into Afghanistan. Could America be transformed into Afghanistan in a decade or so? No, that part isn’t plausible. But everything in the story is plausible because everything in the story has actually happened in various places and times.
That’s fair. But then we get back to something I said upthread: when they just stay in the show’s present of Gilead, I can buy into it because it’s just an alternate reality situation that is, as you say, plausible in general terms. But then when they show flashbacks to the quick transition from essentially our current American society, it’s jarring. I mean, it seems to be portrayed that she went from being a modern working woman who liked to stop by Starbucks for a PSL to being enslaved and forced to wear a near-burqa within, what, a few months?
My point was that many critics say those flashback scenes are the most powerful, while I find them the weakest and the most undermining of my suspension of disbelief.
Did the modern, hip people in Iran see it coming?
Dear God. :rolleyes::eek:
You mean the couple of hundred people in Tehran? Iran was a backwards ass country with something like 18% female literacy under the Shah, compared to over 90% today.
Just because you have some Iranian exiles in LA tweeting pictures of a couple of mini skirt wearing women in 1970’s Tehran, does not make the country “modern and hip”.