The Handmaid’s Tale: Margaret Atwood and showrunner Bruce Miller (full panel) | BookCon 2017

[@elenalatici9568]

I read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich when I was 16. I had only found out about the Holocaust at age 15 when Eichmann was captured. I called my father and asked if it was true. That was how our conversations about the War began. My father was a B-17 pilot, shot down in '44, captured by the SS and imprisoned. The conversation went on slowly until his death at 92.

[@subversivelysurreal3645]

I loved her book entitled,”Cat’s Eye”...had I been in the audience I would have asked her about her own life. I HIGHLY recommend it. It’s a amazing novel. Thank you, Madam Atwood!

[@msfair3625]

I just got it delivered. It's a used library book. I'm so excited.

[@thelton100]

I’ve read that years ago.

[@kirsteni.russell5903]

I haven't seen the Hulu series (yet), but I read the novel in college and this discussion is fascinating. The novel is unforgettable, and, yes, it's (frighteningly) topical today.

[@Monkismo]

And horribly more so today...😢

[@jerrymcfaddin2099]

Margaret I found you while looking up some of my heritage facts. My biological father was an Atwood. Anyway in general I have been a white straight conservative. But may I say with all honesty and truthfulness you are an intellectual and very inventive and creative writer. It was truly a blessing to run up on your work by accident, I’m sure my wife and I will definitely keep watching. Thank you

[@elenalatici9568]

I remember the Modess ad. Fortunately my elementary school in Pomfret, CT took all of us who were 11--girls that is--into the auditorium and showed us a film about menstruation and what it would for us in the future. I also had a mother who read me a book that explained sex and pregnancy when I was 6. She was also pregnant at the time, so I got to feel her pregnant belly as she read to me. I think the book was called A Baby is Born. I was lucky.

[@winterflowerreads]

I love Margaret Atwood!

[@olgazadig4961]

Brilliant lady.

[@adamcarroll1975]

Olga Zadig YES!!!!! 👍 Give her the Nobel Prize already!

[@EllenBreakingBad]

I just want to go totalitarian long enough to make my brother listen to this. "It's not reality," he says. Well, yeah, it is. We're not Gilead NOW, but it's not like we can't get there!

[@els1f]

The most horrifying thing is that there are plenty of Gilead's all over the world and all throughout history. What is so striking about what she's written (and the writers have elaborated on the show) is that when something is TRULY moving you to tears, it has happened or is happening in some capacity. terrifying. She's amazing :)

[@suesheification]

Ellen B it's reality for women

[@22mcdana]

We are one supreme court justice and one fertility crisis away from it

[@deadsparrow28]

We are already there - it's called sharia law and it is applied to women in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and a number of other Muslim countries. So stop worrying about Trump's America and start worrying about where it exists now. Unless of course you just want to whine about Trump until Hilliary gets the 2020 nomination.

[@marieblackbird89]

The problem is extremism when any ideology taken to any extremism or used to form civil and criminal can result in a Gilead type dystopia.Yes just like Islamic Sharia law is used to oppress peopl, and has become criminal law and civil law.The problem with Trump is that yes while Islam can be dangerous when taken to extreme a ban and war is not the answer, reform and working with the Islamic community is.

[@jigorlimap]

i became i fan after reading the book and watching this panel!

[@paulabrown6840]

Wow!!! Love Margaret Atwood’s brain... where she goes with each topic! 🤗

[@nicolasdelaforge7420]

yea, when she says "you don't know who to trust" is at the heart of our lives today, and interprets Bob Dylan's "Things have changed". and that insight "eerily quiet"... reaches such depth in the description of a dystopian society! What a woman! "Sometimes people have to live their dreams" is scarry!

[@royaparsay1]

Iranians daily face all those issue, a religion is hijacked there and under that name they do whatever their bad souls desire....

[@TheJilla90]

Sadly but true!

[@froufroudeluxe]

Absolutely Reading Persepolis opened my eyes about Iran

[@lisaineurope]

Do you think that there will be change in Iran, that another revolution could take place?

[@daveretash9153]

I have never thought fear was more justified than right now. It's 2022. We must survive and pay close attention to everything that helps us remember what and who we can be.

[@AndriaBieberDesigns]

she is so brilliant

[@PCostello]

Oh my, my grandfather, Everett Atwood and grandmother Edit E Atwood are from Atwood's Brook , Nova Scotia. I may be related. Great Grandfather was William Henry Atwood. Or maybe not.

[@mikalbell8125]

"Germinal" was the novel by Zola

[@dr.k9769]

This tv show is really good, i wasn't sure and was kinda scared to watch. Books have been destroyed by tv/movies. This I'm enjoying!

[@robertthwaites3007]

Note that Robert Heinlein made passing references to theocracy in the USA in various novels - 1940 - If This Goes On - 1941 - Methuselah's Children serialized novella, reworked as a full length novel in 1958. - 1986 - Revolt In 2100 Handmaid's Tale has greater impact because the novel makes you feel that world.

[@user36able]

Margaret Atwood What happened in 1939? .. Me Well the Wizard of Oz came- Margaret: World War Two! Me: oh yeah, that too!

[@mellafelladownthestairs9148]

Anyone else here for miss mohammads home work -Mariella here

[@TheBygone668]

Due 4th period ✌️

[@noeliajaime7656]

I just finished reading the book A Handmaids Tale.Am i the only one who thought the book was missing closure?There wasn't a real ending.I was so dissapointed.What happened to all of them?is there a part two about which i wasn't aware?

[@Paulinemoke]

I think this is the point - this kind of regime never gives closure. It is a disappointing feeling, but an important one. The show answers some of these questions though.

[@buttercupslongnails]

Hi love I think that's the point of the book but there is a follow up called the testaments.

[@kbennett_2]

She made a sequel called the Testaments

[@adventureiscollins6682]

There is a sequel now. Having listened to her speak in several interviews she has said that the story is written as witness account and often when you try to track people in history many just disappear (for a number of reasons) and you're not given that closure. You often don't get to know what happened. So it goes along with that.

[@jcny11]

Kind of the point. But of course the series and new book have helped!

[@elenalatici9568]

So...Bruce, you don't by any chance have a couple of paintings that disappeared from the Elizabeth Stewart Gardner Museum on the walls in the Waterford House do you? It wouldn't surprise me if the Waterfords had those paintings. Maybe you should slip them in on the set somewhere and see if anyone gets it.

[@msfair3625]

ICONIC.

[@katarzyna2478]

Genius Lady

[@jcny11]

Bruce-“Why would you call it “Always”! “ 🤪🤪😂😂😂😂

[@2Sugarbears]

40:00--41:40 YES, I have said this for so many years.

[@22mcdana]

Lawsuits- brilliant!

[@TheNewEmphinix]

Gilead = Mike Pence's America.

[@GabrielTheMagolorMain]

TheNewEmphinix Seriously 🥵

[@nashy21green]

William barr is sons of jacobs model in gop

[@KidsWithGuns1992]

@@GabrielTheMagolorMain 100%, and very close with Donald Trump effectively allowing the US people to die instead of doing anything about the pandemic.

[@KidsWithGuns1992]

@kittens2 Veternick ok crazy

[@hartranft66]

what you really mean is Hillarys America...

[@julietholdren9006]

"Totalitarianism will ruin your sex life" Lmaook margaret atwood

[@Iasgo]

Alguém pego todas as referências de livros que ele fala ?

[@elaanfaun]

The "Epilogue" of "tHe Handmaid's Tale" always fucked me up too.

[@subversivelysurreal3645]

Laani Lola : When I was a child in the sixties, I kept saying of the Nazi Holocaust, “This JUST happened!! It was ending twenty years ago!!” I know realize that fellow students, and teachers’ disinterest was : tied up in this ‘too soon-ism”. Agreed. It’s so detached. Yet that’s the Academic approach, isn’t it? Especially when they’re a part of that Same Establishment {White, Western...} I had read the book in the 1980’s, but because I hadn’t ever heard an Audiobook before, and it was Kate Blanchett doing the reading, right there on Utube, I listened...and found that Epilogue quite effective. It was 1000 percent more unnerving! It would be a devastating end to the series, particularly with the announcements about other speakers, events, the rain, luncheons...Kate was extraordinary in this role. She’s such a fabulously non-narcissistic woman, I know that she would do it.

[@catsaresocute650]

That's one of the things I was absuluty flabergated by when Crenshaw said that. It's like he *wants* more children in foster? That's actually something I even disagree w the RadFems in, I don't think that's an asser to anything. I also don't belive it has to happen, no violation of anyones rights ever has to happen and is inherent injust. It still occures. That's bad, but it inherenty to the thing itself should not happen.

[@billyflynn1619]

hi flynn

[@reasvitak]

yeaah...Mrs. Atwood pronounced Karel Čapek almost perfectly... R.U.R. :)

[@donmcgibbon6575]

"Nineteen Ninety-Four"??!!?? It's "Nineteen Eighty-Four", MARGARET!!! ... don't worry, I still love you...

[@xy1374]

Don McGibbon lol, I accidentally said nineteen eighty one by mistake. I still cringe when I think of that.

[@mishabe7003]

"ein BERLINER" really means "a person from Berlin", so it was correct...that is why no one was laughing...

[@ellDiavolo666]

OK, so when and where in history was Particicution practiced?

[@TheABSRDST]

ell diavolo public executions have always been spectator sports, and in the case of stonings, yes audience participation is a thing

[@royaparsay1]

I wrote the story of how I lost my virginity and the audience refused to hear or read it, and thought it was a private discussion....here in America, 2018.....OMG

[@zoehannah6278]

Why would anyone be interested in that shit? 🙄

[@suesheification]

No one thinks they are bad. Especially not men.

[@zoehannah6278]

What a sexist thing to say.

[@jwf2125]

Keep on driving needless wedges between the sexes, then take your share of the blame when Gilead does come about. We are brothers and sisters, not mortal enemies.

[@jwf2125]

@@Maggie-zr2ow i think I made it clear that I was referring to commenter Sue She as the wedge-driver, not Atwood.

[@jwf2125]

@@Maggie-zr2ow So we don’t have much to argue about. Shucks…

[@karenefernando]

41 28

[@Cotictimmy]

I'm currently 3/4 through reading Handmaid's Tale (for the first time.) I'm blown away - what a wonderful writer Atwood is! One thing I am astonished by is the Handmaid's adoption by the identity politics, cancel culture tribe. They seem completely unable to recognise themselves in the shrill intolerance, predilection for forced speech, moral lectures, condemnations, & absence of compassion in the rulers of Gilead. What Margret Atwood clearly hates above all else is intolerant authoritarianism and censorship of ideas. In the case of Trump, (whom the Identitarians hold up as the epitome of evil) he is actually a chaotic, socially liberal, blunderer a NOTHING like the highly efficient and deeply oppressive authoritarians of Gilead. I not that Atwood herself was attacked by the S.J.W. tribe when she criticised 'Cancel Culture' (demonstrating perfectly that their religious zeal makes THEM the true modern heirs of the Gilead ethos.)

[@Cotictimmy]

@@Maggie-zr2ow I think Trump was not presidential material. However, he got elected because the Dems were so unappealing - it happened. What has been so disturbing has been the unhinged and hysterical reaction of the Dems to his election and their naked contempt and hatred to poorer and less successful Americans. The Dems were supposed to be the good, decent & rational team - (I always thought so.) The anti-Liberal identity politics direction they are now perusing just horrifies & depresses me more than the election on one term unsuitable president. You expect the other team to be awful - but it's far worse when it's your own team that's authoritarian, hate-filled, and illiberal.

[@nicolasdelaforge7420]

Few people know that Canadians were at the very origin of Folk music, the boundary between the US and Canada did not exist in this sense. "Woodstock"... And soon after, they wrote some of the great novels in the English language. MA is a brilliant analysts, such clarity and precision, one of the great novelists - and a proper prophet. But people don't follow up on her insights, one has to stay with her insights.

[@mariana26021]

Margarete , with all do respect The Handmaids Tale is not about totalitarianism or dictatorship, it's all about a religions sect here in USA

[@zoehannah6278]

Go, thell her!🙄

[@Mel-oe3dw]

Did she really say what do you mean 😂

[@brucemurray6950]

"Hello?!" (spoken in fry voice) Atwood won the Booker with Blind Assassin. Who did your research? Oh right, you. HA!

[@ronaldturner4849]

By the rivers of Babylon Where we sat down And there we wept When we remembered ZIon

[@alvanitabell9915]

Alva Nita Bell Malignant Neoplasm Me - I- i Alva Nita Bell Too much fear in handmaid tale. Alva Nita Bell

[@tungsten118]

.. real doyen of a being

[@brigidmartin]

Ridiculous but really happening NOT in US but countries in Middle East now & when she wrote the book just curious why US was chosen but not Iran, etc.?

[@claudiastokes6485]

Brigid Martin I think she chose the U.S. because a lot of people assume it couldn't happen here. That's what makes it even more eerie.

[@zoehannah6278]

You stupid ignorant yank...🙄

[@parapaolopopulista]

That fried voice on the moderator.......................................!

[@AD65]

Everything becomes a question ? For some, like, reason ?

[@marypowell5905]

Paolo Paris 🇻🇬

[@ProjectEnglishII]

yeah, no vocal fry please

[@zoehannah6278]

What is so funny to that silly audience?...🙄

JEWISH TALMUD ; " THE BIRTH RATE OF THE NON JEWS MUST BE SUPPRESSED MASSIVELY ' QUOTE

[@colinwillis9096]

So if as you say the problem is male fertility then why are there wives at all? The entire implication of your own book is that most women are infertile regardless of mens fertility.

[@RevJohnBarosa]

the point of the novel is that the women are being blamed for the faults of men - the women are punished for being 'sterile' when in reality, its the men that are the issues in infertility

[@brianchristopher3816]

Still happening now? Yes. But in the West? Please. Where in any western democracy are things happening as in Gilead?

[@igunashiodesu]

Not exactly as Gilead, but you can check Venezuela. One of the most stable and prosperous democracies in Latin America for the second half of the 20th century, nowadays, a narco-military dictatorship.

[@cherylreeder8369]

Too many examplesl. Attacks on women's reproductive rights, insurance companies not covering birth control pills, attacks on Planned Parenthood, news focusing on declining birth rates, increasing conservatism in all aspects of society, religious extremism, etc

[@zoehannah6278]

You stupid yank, bible belt, trump-voting moron, in your fucking country! Ignorant fucktard!🤮

[@brigidmartin]

Please your book should have been set in Iran seeing so much in common born when WW2 began b/c Persian became Iran thanks to nazis

[@zoehannah6278]

Stfu

[@mrpurser3136]

Meh

[@samuelotte3295]

Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tales is a brilliant work, but it does not translate to the politics of abortion. Abortion is a protected right up to a point. Given the state of contraception and pregnancy detection, abortions should be rare and early in the pregnancy.

[@heidimueller1039]

Boy, 2 years later and boy are you wrong.

[@freddiebishop9622]

Jesus Christ this aged like milk

[@nomadicnana5497]

it makes sense that Margaret Atwood would create gilead out of America and Canada would be the good guys as she is Canadian. OH Canada This scenario is more likely the other way around. you only have treadau ( that young idiotic whippersnapper) , We have Donald Trump (who loves America).

[@pippinhillhaviland1147]

Nomadic Nana trump is a fascist dunce!

[@zoehannah6278]

You are a fucktard just as trump.🤮

[@independentandfree6466]

History has shown you were deluded back then.

[@azbz9075]

Donald Trump loves Donald Trump.