There’s a general consensus among the Left that America is turning into “The Handmaid’s Tale,” embodying the oppression of the dystopian society in the Emmy award-winning show.
America, they claim, is becoming Gilead, the fictional republic where women are turned into slaves and forced to have babies. Despite that dystopia’s half-baked prediction of polygamous human breeding, its fans tend to attribute their fantasies about its coming true to President Trump and various anti-abortion initiatives. Women show up at demonstrations from the Women’s March to abortion legislation protests wearing the red and white garb of the show’s concubines.
One writer at GQ went so far as to ask, “Is life in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ better than life in Trump’s America?” When it comes to racism, healthcare, and treatment of women, she wrote, the show’s dystopian society wins.
Even Elisabeth Moss, the show’s leading actress, agrees. In an interview this week with the Daily Beast, she said, “I wish this was crazy, and I wish ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ was insane ‘Game of Thrones’ shit and pure fantasy. I wish that were true. But it’s not.”
Moss does know a thing or two about living in a society like Gilead, but not for the reason she thinks. The Emmy-winning actress is a member of the Church of Scientology, a religious cult known for intimidating curious journalists and harassing defectors, to say nothing of whatever happened to Tom Cruise’s brain.
The goal of the faith, founded in 1954, is ostensibly to achieve “spiritual enlightenment.” Yet, former members report abuse and coercion from within.
Actress Leah Remini, who released a docu-series about her time in Scientology, said in an Instagram post last week that she was “filled with embarrassment” over her time with the group:
In another documentary, former high-ranking Scientologist Marty Rathbun said he was assigned to break up Cruise’s marriage to Nicole Kidman, who was not a member of the church. He alleged the church had Kidman’s phone wiretapped (perhaps even at Cruise’s suggestion), psychoanalyzed and collected information on Cruise himself, and turned the couple’s children against Kidman.
Scientology has tried to censor newspapers, monitor its members, oppress women, and demand absolute fealty. Moss doesn’t see the obvious connection between her faith and her award-winning Hulu show.
“I think people should be allowed to talk about what they want to talk about and believe what they want to believe and you can’t take that away—and when you start to take that away, when you start to say “you can’t think that,” “you can’t believe that,” “you can’t say that,” then you get into trouble. Then you get into Gilead,” Moss said.
Yet, Scientology imposes this exact type of authoritarianism on its flock.
The U.S. is not a totalitarian wasteland, and “The Handmaid’s Tale” is not at all like America. It is quite a bit like Scientology, though.
