“The Handmaid’s Tale” is many things. It’s a pointed meditation on the inevitable human exploitation posited by utilitarian societies that prioritize some woolly greater good. It’s a dystopian exploration of what the world may become in the case of a global ecological and biological disaster. And it’s a piece of art that oscillates between masterful to self-indulgent.

What the television adaptation of the Margaret Atwood novel certainly is not, however, is a representation of contemporary America.