The Inequality, Culture and Difference research seminar series presents:
“Costumes and fashion in Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale”
Dr. Karen A. Ritzenhoff, Department of Communication and Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies (WGSS), Central Connecticut State University
Wednesday 24thOctober, 12-1pm in MAE 206
Gender politics and access or lack of power are core themes in the The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopic novel about a sexually corrupt society where Puritan ideals have led to the enslavement of young women in the country of “Gilead”, located in the borders of the United States. The Handmaid’s Tale provides ample narrative materials and a particularly prescient basis to discuss many pressing contemporary social issues in different academic contexts. The war front in The Handmaid’s Tale has been relocated in the domestic sphere of the American white, upper middle-class home where women’s actual bodies are the battleground.
One of the ways to force the handmaids into submission is by robing them into red cloaks that are standard costumes.