'Handmaid's Tale' showrunners say their series' 'warning' was 'ignored' based on Trump's re-election
Ex-CNN reporter Oliver Darcy spoke with Eric Tuchman and Yahlin Chang for the "Status" newsletter on Sunday to discuss the "striking similarities" between the fictional country Gilead and America under the Trump administration.
Many liberal critics have drawn parallels between the two since the show's premiere in 2017 during Trump's first term, and Tuchman told Darcy he was surprised by how relevant the series has remained since then. However, he mourned how women now have "fewer rights" despite the show's message.
'The Handmaid's Tale' Star Rages Against Old Boss Jeff Bezos, Tells Him To 'F------ Speak Up' Against Trump
"No, I don't think any of us could have predicted how closely the show would maintain its relevance and continue to reflect real events," Tuchman said. "The series has been called a cautionary tale about what can happen when power is abused and people's rights and freedoms are stripped away."
He added, "But that warning was ignored, apparently, by the majority of voters, and Roe v. Wade was overturned. Women in our country have fewer rights now than when we started production in 2016." The series is based on the 1985 book of the same name by Margaret Atwood.
Read On The Fox News App
The showrunners insisted they never intentionally made political statements on the show and any connections only came from them trying to be "authentic" about "life in an oppressive regime."
"The fact that their struggles on the show can sometimes feel eerily relevant to the real world is the result of us trying to write honestly about power, resistance, and how fragile our democracy and freedom are," Tuchman said.
As an example, Chang pointed to a scene of the lead character June, played by Elizabeth Moss, being separated from her young daughter and connected it to Trump "separating families along our own border" in 2017, though he said the scene was written before he heard that news.
Chang closed his portion of the interview by commenting about the show's depiction of how easily democracy can backslide even in America.
'Handmaid's Tale' Protesters Barge Into Los Angeles Cathedral During Mass
"It is chilling," Chang said. "It's also true—democracies backslide and fail all the time. Seventy percent of the world's population lives in an autocracy. In our show, America as we know it was just this exceptional, temporary, extremely fragile experiment. Living in the world of Gilead imaginatively for this many years, I'm actually shocked that American democracy has lasted for so long."
Fox News Digital reached out to Hulu for comment.
"The Handmaid's Tale" premiered its sixth and final season on Hulu on April 8.Original article source: 'Handmaid's Tale' showrunners say their series' 'warning' was 'ignored' based on Trump's re-election
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Fox News
26 minutes ago
- Fox News
'We are bullish about the future because America is back,' says Mike Johnson
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., touts the successes of the Trump administration so far this term on 'One Nation.'
Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
Joan Anderson, unsung heroine of hula hoop history, dies at 101
'Everyone was having such fun,' she added, 'I thought, 'I'd like to do that, too.'' Back in Los Angeles, Ms. Anderson asked her mother to mail her one of the rings from Australia, and it soon brought joy to the Anderson household. Her children played with it. Ms. Anderson swerved it around her hips for friends at dinner parties. When someone told her that it looked as if she was 'doing the hula,' the traditional Hawaiian dance, Ms. Anderson was struck with inspiration. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up She named the object the hula hoop. Advertisement What transpired next would place Ms. Anderson at the center of what she described as an American tale of shattered dreams and promises, a business deal made on a handshake, and, eventually, a lawsuit. Ms. Anderson died July 14 at a nursing facility in Carlsbad, Calif., north of San Diego. She was 101. Her daughter, Loralyn Willis, announced the death. The hubbub over the hoop started when her husband, Wayne, saw opportunity in the object and decided to pitch it to Wham-O, a toy company that soon became known for the Frisbee. As it happened, he was acquainted with one of Wham-O's founders, Arthur Melin, known as Spud, so he arranged a meeting. Advertisement The encounter, she recalled, occurred in a parking lot outside Wham-O's offices in San Gabriel, Calif. The Andersons opened up the trunk of their car and took out the hoop. 'There were no witnesses,' Ms. Anderson said in the documentary. 'Just Spud and my husband and myself.' 'We told him, 'We've called it the hula hoop,'' she continued. 'He said: 'Looks like it has some merit. If it makes money for us, it's going to make money for you.'' The deal was sealed with what Ms. Anderson characterized as a 'gentleman's handshake' and nothing more. Wham-O began experimenting with the hoop, developing a plastic version of it and trying it out on children at a Pasadena, Calif., elementary school. The company also started giving them away to generate buzz. By the time Wham-O was selling the hoop, lines were forming outside department stores. As the popularity of what Wham-O trademarked as the Hula Hoop grew, Ms. Anderson said, she and her husband heard less and less from Melin. 'We called Spud and asked him what was going on, and he kept putting us off,' she said. 'Then they just ignored us.' The hoop quickly became a national sensation. From Ms. Anderson's home in the suburbs of Monterey Park, Calif., she watched as newspapers landed on her porch with headlines like 'Hula-Hoop Sales Soar to $30 Million in 2 Months.' Over the years, stories about Wham-O's success sometimes spoke of a 'friend' visiting from Australia who first told the company about the hoop. 'I think that bugged me more than anything,' Ms. Anderson said. 'It was never reported correctly at all. I was not a 'friend.'' Advertisement In 1961, the Andersons filed a lawsuit against Wham-O. But the company presented records demonstrating its own woes. Just as quickly as the Hula Hoop sensation took off, it swiftly ended, entering the annals of American fads. Wham-O was left with heaps of unsold hoops and argued that it had not made a profit after production costs. The case concluded in a settlement, and the Andersons walked away with just a few thousand dollars. The couple moved on with their lives. Wham-O went on to release the SuperBall, the Slip 'N Slide ,and Silly String. Melin died in 2002. (Wham-O was sold in 1982 to the Kransco Group Cos. for $12 million. It was later sold to Mattel, which then sold it to a group of investors, and it has continued changing hands ever since.) 'We often talked about the money we could have made from it and maybe changed our life a little bit,' Ms. Anderson said in the documentary, 'but it didn't work out that way.' 'The world isn't fair. But life goes on.' Joan Constance Manning was born Dec. 28, 1923, in Sydney to Claude and Ethel (Hallandal) Manning. Her father was a real estate broker. As a young woman, Joan was a swimsuit model known as the 'Pocket Venus' because she was 5 feet 2 inches tall. In 1945, Wayne Anderson, a US Army pilot on leave from duty, approached Joan on Bondi Beach. They married a few months later and moved to California. Anderson, who went on to run a prosperous woodwork machine manufacturing business, died in 2007. Advertisement In addition to her daughter, Loralyn, Ms. Anderson is survived by two sons, Warren and Gary, and six grandchildren. Another son, Carl, died in 2023. Over the years, Ms. Anderson's brush with hula hoop history faded into family lore. When her children grew up, they sent letters about her story to Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres, but nothing came of it. Fate intervened in 2016, when Ms. Anderson's daughter was recounting the story to coworkers while dining at a restaurant in La Mesa, near San Diego. At a table nearby, eavesdropping, was the mother of Amy Hill, a filmmaker. She asked for her telephone number and passed it along it to Hill. Intrigued by the tip, Hill began vetting the story with her husband and collaborator, Chris Riess. They decided to pursue the project and interviewed Ms. Anderson at La Costa Glen, the retirement community where she lived. The resulting short documentary, 'Hula Girl,' premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2018. At 94, Ms. Anderson flew to New York to promote the film, and a writer for Vogue interviewed her for an article. The documentary was also shown at the Sydney Film Festival and received coverage in The Atlantic and Smithsonian magazine. It was screened as well for Ms. Anderson's fellow residents at La Costa Glen. Her friends watched in fascination as they learned about her connection to the hula hoop. At La Costa Glen, Ms. Anderson stayed fit by swimming every week and taking ballroom dancing lessons. She also became a formidable bridge player. And in her apartment, she kept the original wood hoop that her mother had mailed to her from Australia, although it mostly sat collecting dust. Advertisement 'I do it once in a while for exercise,' she said, 'but not as much as I should.' This article originally appeared in
Fox News
an hour ago
- Fox News
Trump declaring US must win the AI race is 'one of the most important' statements of this term, says former deputy director of national intelligence
Former deputy director of national intelligence Cliff Sims explains why President Trump's stance on A.I. is so important on 'Sunday Night in America.'
