Rebecca Wanzo, associate professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies in Arts & Scienes.
Since its premiere in 2017, Hulu’s celebrated adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” has inspired new protest aesthetics. Women have dressed up as the “handmaids” who are forced to bear children for Christian, fascist men in a dystopian future.
Red cloaks and white bonnets have become signs of both totalitarian regimes and resistance. These shrouded figures were at Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, but are most often seen protesting attacks on abortion access laws.
Many people, including Atwood, have stated that the dystopian melodrama conjures up real-life conflicts and is more documentary than fiction.
Read the full piece in CNN.