Outside of Christmas and the first snow, winter doesn’t have much to offer besides some of the best awards show around – except the Emmys. September 17 marked the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards, which added a whole new group of winners to the show’s remarkable history.
Throughout the night, there were many different surprises, including the upset had by the Stranger Things cast, who didn’t take home a single award. Since the cast took home three awards from the Creative Emmys last week, their losses across all five nominations isn’t as devastating as it sounds.
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One of the biggest surprises of the night was the end of the Cold War between Netflix and HBO with their race to being the first streaming service to win the biggest prize of the night: Outstanding Drama Series. Since Game of Thrones didn’t qualify for the Emmys this year because of their release dates, many expected Netflix to take home the big win. Instead, Hulu, who had never even received a nomination for a major category in the Emmys, took home the win with The Handmaid’s Tale.
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While this show displays acts that go against literally everything I stand for, I had to at least watch the first episode in order to remain a self-proclaimed television expert. To say the least: it was brutal. The show revolves around a woman named June, who is referred to throughout the show as Offred (meaning ‘of Fred,’ which is the name of her master), who was captured and taken into sexual servitude while attempting to escape to Canada with her husband and daughter. Offred is a part of the only generation who still remembers a time before the new world called Gilead, and holds on to the distant memory of her husband and daughter. She submits herself to the new regime in order to remain safe with the hopes of eventually escaping and reuniting herself with her daughter. She remains strong-willed and determined throughout the show, and uses every ounce of strength she has to hold her tongue and behave properly. She is the type of poised I can only hope to be.
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The show is chilling and brutal. The physical torment women experience during their training at The Red House is brutal. The ritualized rape the handmaids go through is brutal. But most of all, the twisting of the first amendment, and the erasing of the beauty behind the freedom of religion is brutal. But the mindsets of many of the women, Offred included, and their counterparts, who develop the secret society looking to overthrow the totalitarian regime, are beautiful. The strength in their resistance should remind all of us of the strength in numbers, and how important it is to hold close to our loved ones. This show taps into every bit of emotion in the human body. It deserves to be labeled as an outstanding drama. It deserves everything.
The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian television series based off of a book of the same name written by Margaret Atwood. This show is set in a near-future world – one set in a futuristic world sick with low fertility rates from sexually transmitted diseases and environmental pollution. To combat this, fertile women are brutally forced to become handmaids, who are assigned to the upper class. They must submit themselves to scheduled rape in the hopes of becoming pregnant for their masters and their wives.