It’s been discussed upthread. It was a TV movie from 1995
Huh. You’re right, of course, but it’s interesting that when I first read this story, I thought of Diana Moon Glampers as bearing a remarkable resemblance to Janet Reno as well. 
I see what you did there.
All right, I did some searching around, and there’s a character named “Diana Moon Glampers” in another Vonnegut book, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater. She’s not the Handicapper General, but she did have a description that was reminiscent of Janet Reno. Especially the “sixty eight year old virgin” part.
I’d like to take this opportunity to suggest everyone go out and buy Vonnegut’s Welcome to the Monkey House. Harrison Bergeron is one of many great short stories in there.
A ten-gauge shotgun is much bigger than a 12-gauge and would pack a huge kick. I always pictured the Handicapper General as a much bigger women; sort of a large version of of Dolores Umbridge from the Harry Potter books.
The movie was a humorless work of overcooked philosophy. The story was a funny tale with philosophical underpinnings. The idea of enforced mediocrity was worth about 12 pages with jokes.
The movie was closer to an Ayn Rand tract.
The real movie version of “Harrison Bergeron” was PIxar’s The Incredibles.
:smack: Of course. Thanks.
Thanks for link. I gotta start taking my coffee earlier in the day. 
It was Sean Austin. Ironically, in that world he may have actually started for Notre Dame.
Fair enough, however Rand works rings truer. Why force people to wear distracting noisemakers to prevent them from using their intellect or weights to prevent them from using their athletic ability when you can simply legislate that everyone else gets to reap the benefits of being exceptional.
Nah, Rand is just more obsessed and less entertaining, kinda like Rush Limbaugh who can stretch a small story about about a class of first graders not being given grades into a three hour program on the death of competition.
Society is still extremely competitive. Grades are given, athletes are worshiped, salaries vary wildly, universities and corporations reject applicants.
Like I wrote earlier, the ideas of enforced mediocrity is worth 12 pages with jokes.
I remember reading that story in middle? school. It was in a school reading book containing a collection of many kinds of stories.
It had a black and white picture of Glampers, holding a double barrel. She was dressed like a cross between a Nazi and one of the Clampets (Beverly Hillbillies). She also DID IIRC look Janet Renoish.
As a kid I remember thinking she looked like one angry and scary woman.
I hate that entire genre. Vonnegut had some sense of humor about it, but really, there’s a whole genre of that nonsense that came out the in the 1960’s. Was it ever anything but a straw man & an argument against racial equality?
They were arguments against communism and socialism. The genre is a commentary on how ridiculous the notion of “each according to their need” is.
For similar ideas in a full novel, there’s *Facial Justice *by L.P. Hartley, copyright 1960. The Vonnegut story was, I think, copyright 1961, so they were out at the same time.
Vonnegut treated the same theme in Sirens of Titan, only it was part of a religion (the Church of God the Utterly Indifferent) that swept the world and people adopted their handicaps willingly in the spirit of love and brotherhood.
Yeah, that’s the one I was thinking of.
Which is still a straw man, & completely misunderstands the difference between equality of opportunity & equality of outcomes. Ultimately, “Harrison Bergeron” & Facial Justice become seed-arguments for maintaining elites, including racial elites. When you’re taught to hate & fear “equality,” that meshes wonderfully with pro-imperial sentiment (in the Commonwealth) & opposition to Affirmative Action (in USA).