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“The Handmaid’s Tale” S1.E3 – Bury Your Marthas

When AfterEllen was founded in 2002 by Sarah Warn, the lesbian community had a problem: we were invisible. On screen, our representation was a fraction of what it should have been based on our proportion in the general population. The tagline of the site was “Visibility Matters” because although representation was slowly increasing, there weren’t enough of us on screen to really be “visible” to the heterosexual public, and what few characters there were often weren’t ones we necessarily wanted. We appeared mostly during Sweeps Week as a titillating draw for viewers, and when there was a queer female character with an actual storyline, often she was psychologically deranged in some way. A character who wasn’t crazy was likely doomed to end up alone. Like a horror movie in which the “slutty woman” always gets killed first, the message-conscious or not-was that lesbian and queer women were either crazy or they didn’t deserve happy endings.

Then, most likely because of shifting social values that made it more acceptable to be LGBT and therefore to show LGBT characters on TV starting in approximately the mid-2000s, lesbian representation on TV increased dramatically. We got actual characters (although normally not the main character) who came out, had relationships, and were not trying to kill people or be psychologically manipulative. It was wonderful…except for one thing: the slutty woman in the horror movie was replaced by a lesbian.

Source: TVtropes.org

Like an awful, invisible war that no one else notices is happening, a third or more of all our characters were getting mowed down on screen: bullets, knives, car accidents, poison, cancer, etc. Approximately 31% of all queer female characters have been killed, a veritable silent massacre. As is well known, last year this so-called “Bury Your Gays” trope problem exploded with the death of Lexa on “The 100,” sparking articles throughout the mainstream media about how lesbian and bisexual women were being disproportionately killed off compared to all other characters (their death rate spiked at 40% in the 2015-2016 season and queer women were killed at a rate five times higher than other characters). In June, I wrote that despite this public spotlight on the issue, Hollywood still clearly hadn’t grasped what “Bury Your Gays” actually means. I speculated that shows would continue to argue exceptionalism: that their killing of queer characters was different because they were storytelling.

I am deeply disappointed at this episode of “The Handmaid’s Tale” because it has furthered the “Bury Your Gays” trope even though the cast and crew were aware of it. They used this awareness like an absolution; as though this knowledge gave them permission to use it. In this episode, a nameless lesbian is killed after three and a half minutes of screen time (yes, I timed it). When talking to The Hollywood Reporter about “Bury Your Gays,” showrunner Bruce Miller explained:

I’m a straight man, and when you’re not part of a group you don’t necessarily see how that group is treated on television. I read about that trope; I left The 100 before that happened but I saw that and I was surprised. Looking back, it makes complete sense. On this show, “kill your anything” is probably up for grabs…So the “kill your gays” policy is institutional in the series. You’re operating on a different lane than that conversation.
Except, Miller is wrong; it’s not a different lane at all. It’s all the same lane and speaks to what types of characters are viewed as most expendable to showrunners and writers like himself. When the slutty woman was killed in the horror movie, it was because she transgressed social norms; her “brazen” sexuality was considered an affront to society. Her story arc therefore represented a clear and obvious parable of morality for viewers: the “immoral” deserve to be punished (with death, in this case) while the virginal female is rewarded with survival. What is often lost in the conversation about “Bury Your Gays” is that although it doesn’t occur to producers, they are setting up viewers to apply that same mental model to queer characters: queer characters die, straight characters live. Gays-who are “socially transgressive”-don’t get happy endings.

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For Miller to argue that “The Handmaid’s Tale” operates in a “different lane” than other shows means that for a show that seeks to spotlight sexism in American society, it is abdicating any social responsibility toward queer women. Heterosexual female lives matter. The killing of Martha 6715-301 in this episode is poignantly symbolic of the way that Hollywood still treats its queer female characters: they are there to further the storylines of others or be part of some larger social commentary, but never there to represent their own social commentary.

I believe that a socially responsible show-and I believe that shows increasingly feel pressure to be socially responsible-would say: We know that although queer women understand that often characters must be killed to further a storyline, queer female characters have historically been disproportionately used for this role. We understand the marginalization of queer female characters happens based on how, why, and when they are killed on a show, and that often gay female characters receive significantly less screen time than heterosexual characters. We are committed to telling a good story, but we also want to combat this toxic trope of dead queer female characters. We want to help undo years of this trend, so we will not kill our gays. Social responsibility means affirmative action, not a perpetuation of the trope.

When The Hollywood Reporter asked Samira Wiley about the show and “Bury Your Gays,” she replied: “We’re not trying to kill anyone; we’re trying to show the realities of what can happen to anyone that is marginalized in this society…I would challenge anyone and encourage anyone who is of that line of thinking to look at the story as much more than that.” And we at AfterEllen will look at the story in the larger context. After all, there are lots of great parts of this episode. But we also must think about the unintended, subliminal messaging that happens with this continued trope.

This 2016-2017 season, another 14 queer female characters have been killed out of the 38 queer female characters on TV. That means an average kill rate just shy of 37%. We haven’t improved at all, and “The Handmaid’s Tale” is contributing to the problem, not helping. In the HBO series “Game of Thrones,” everyone dies. Viewers should be prepared for that; the show is an equal opportunity killer and no one can complain if it’s a queer character who dies. Miller claims that “The Handmaid’s Tale” will follow a similar “anyone can die” policy. However, I would highlight the fact that so far in “The Handmaid’s Tale” only two characters have died on screen: a rapist and a lesbian (others, like Luke, were killed offscreen). What does that tell viewers?

I would highlight the fact that so far in “The Handmaid’s Tale” only two characters have died on screen: a rapist and a lesbian (others, like Luke, were killed offscreen). What does that tell viewers?
Readers may disagree with this assessment of how “The Handmaid’s Tale” fits into the discussion about “Bury Your Gays” and view it as an overstatement. It is, however, a conversation worth having. Now onwards to the episode!

We begin with Ofglen being led down a bright white hall by two prison guards. She’s wearing a red jumpsuit and Offred is narrating what happened to her, which she heard from Rita by way of the Martha Information Network: “There was a black van, then footsteps on the stairs, then something quick and brutal that made her unable to scream. There’d be no mercies for a member of the resistance. She left nothing behind. No footprints, no breadcrumbs. I didn’t even know her name. Ofglen is gone.” It’s a good soliloquy that speaks to the impermanence of the individual under a totalitarian system: nothing is left by which to remember the person; they simply cease to exist. We see Offred’s face, and she’s got a Hannibal Lector-type mask over her lower jaw that presumably keeps her from speaking. Alexis Bledel might well have been chosen for the role of Ofglen just for her bright blue eyes, which look over the mask full of fear and worry. The guards shut her into a cell with finality.

 

We switch to Offred walking with Fake Ofglen, trying to process the fact that Real Ofglen has probably been found out and is likely dead. She walks past a man guarding a house with an assault rifle and she narrates, “Now I am awake to the world. I was asleep before. That’s how we let it happen.” (The particular wording feels cliché, given that “woke” is the new social media catchphrase for becoming socially aware.) Offred then explains how Gilead happened: the US Congress was slaughtered, allegedly by terrorists, and Americans ceded their liberties-what they thought would be temporarily-for “protection.” (Frankly, this backstory was done much better in the movie “V for Vendetta,” and I wish the show had put a bit more effort into building out this backstory.) “In a gradually heating bathtub, you’d be boiled to death before you knew it,” Offred notes. That’s how Gilead happened: no one noticed in time.

We flash back to Offred and Moira out running, where they experience what should have been red flags that the bathtub was already boiling: a woman looking at them judgingly for their jogging attire and a rude new coffee shop barrista who calls them “fucking sluts” when Offred’s credit card is declined. Offred and Moira are stunned by his unexpectedly overt sexist attitude. Who says that kind of thing? At first, this seems like a major narrative gap: for a theocratic coup to be successful, presumably it would have to have had enough adherents that Offred would have noticed well in advance. However, Offred herself says she wasn’t paying enough attention before. She missed the red flags. Furthermore, the example of Nazi Germany shows that all it takes to ignite simmering biases is permission to openly express them. Perhaps “The Handmaid’s Tale” is onto something.

Back at the office, Offred can’t get through to her credit card company because literally every woman in New England is also on the line trying to figure out what the heck is going on. She’s annoyed, but doesn’t suspect anything until a gang of men in black toting assault rifles march past. That’s odd. At a hastily called office meeting, Offred’s meek (white male) boss tells his female employees, “I feel really sorry about this. It isn’t my decision. I don’t have a choice. I have to let you go.” The women are aghast and disbelieving. What new law? They have ten minutes to pack their things and leave.

What happens next is pivotal to this entire series and something that male viewers may not notice: almost all the horrified murmurings are female. A man has just abdicated his responsibility for what is happening (“It isn’t my decision. I don’t have a choice.”), and none of the other males in the room have come to their female coworkers’ defense. None of them protest or declare that they, too, will quit. They simply let it happen. As Offred packs up, the male coworker who sits across from her looks up a few times like, “I don’t know what’s going on. Wow, this is awkward for me.” If all the men in what is now Gilead had refused to go along with the new law, then Gilead might never have happened. A state cannot exist when everyone refuses to work. Instead, Gilead happened because it was easier not to act than to act.

As Offred and her female coworkers are escorted out of the building by armed guards, they pass long lines of other women being similarly unceremoniously booted from their jobs. Offred tells the man holding the door open, “Thank you,” and he responds, “Under His eye.” It’s clearly the first time Offred has heard this phrase. “Why’d they send the Army?” One woman asks. “I don’t think that’s the Army,” another replies. And it’s true. These men are in black military-like garb and drive matte gray/black SUVs, but they’re clearly not from any known police or military agency, which should be a massive clue to them that there’s a problem. Offred responds, “I think it’s another kind of army.”

Back in the present, Offred has just returned home from Loaves and Fishes and Rita is acting like she just popped ten Prozacs. She presents Offred lunch with an excited smile on her face, acting the way a parent might who knows they’re about to give their child the best Christmas present ever and can’t wait for the child to open it. Offred doesn’t know what to make of Rita’s behavior, particularly when Rita comes back with a vase of white roses…cut specifically by Serena Joy. “We’re all so hopeful,” Rita says, and the answer becomes clear: Offred’s period is late, and Rita has taken the liberty of letting everyone in the house know. Rita could not be more excited at the prospect of a baby for the Waterfords, but Offred looks unconvinced.

At that moment, Serena Joy blows in like a summer storm, solicitous of how Offred is feeling. Is she nauseous? Are her breasts tender? Someone’s been reading all the books on pregnancy. Offred looks wonderfully uncomfortable and small as she admits she’s feeling fine. Serena Joy invited Offred to go see Angela and quietly brimming, exhorts Offred to finish her plate. “You need to be part of the Clean Plate Club,” she says, emphasizing the weird power dynamic/imbalance between them. These words are what you would say to a young child; not one adult to another. At Warren’s house, the Wives coo over the new baby. Serena Joy brings Angela to Offred to hold. She is basically trying to coax Offred’s body into fertility by waving a baby at it.

Serena Joy notices a bruise on Warren’s Wife’s hand. Janine-“that ungrateful girl,” as the Wife calls her-bit her when she tried to take the nursing Angela from her. “You know how they get,” she complains. Once Angela is weaned, Warren’s Wife intends to kick Janine out. Offred wanders upstairs in the gigantic mansion to find Janine, who is thrilled about her child. Offred asks Janine about biting Warren’s Wife, Mrs. Putnam, reminding her that she can’t do that. “Well she’s a cunt,” Janine explains with perfect logic that temporarily gives Offred pause. Janine has named her daughter Charlotte, a secret act of possession and rebellion. Offred would like to tell her not to become attached, because she will lose her child, but instead tells her that she can’t bite people, the way one would explain it to a two year-old.

Janine tells her she has a secret: she’s “untouchable” because she’s proven her fertility with a healthy child. She can even have vanilla ice cream, if she wants. She offers some to Offred, who’s half swept away by the idea of getting ice cream again for probably the first time in years. Janine starts to go get the ice cream, then stops to tell Offred another secret: she has been having an affair with her Commander, and she believes he loves her. They are going to run away with Charlotte. Offred processes this news from the sometimes sane, sometimes insane Janine grimly. Whether she believes Janine is immaterial, because truth or lie, either will get her killed. “We’re going to be a family,” Janine says, and it’s a mantra she’s probably been repeating to herself constantly as a balm and to give herself a way out, a future to look forward to. Offred knows that and can’t bring herself to burst Janine’s bubble.

Downstairs, Serena Joy asks if Offred had fun. She suggests that Offred and Janine had a lot to talk about (implying pregnancy). Whether this was a casting decision or merely coincidence, the power imbalance between the two is represented visually: Yvonne Strahovski, who plays Serena Joy, is six inches taller than Elizabeth Moss (Offred), but when they’re near each other the difference seems even greater. In Serena Joy’s presence, Offred seems like a small, frail child. Serena Joy asks after Janine and Offred admits, “I’m afraid she might be losing touch.” It’s a difficult admission; will it get Janine help, or will it hurt her? “Well that can happen sometimes with the weaker girls,” Serena Joy says. But then she admits, “You know what you do and what we do together is so terrible…It’s terribly hard and we must remain strong. Which is why I feel so blessed to have you.” Serena Joy isn’t naïve. She knows exactly what’s being done to the Handmaids (it’s terrible), but she wants that child at all costs. Enough that she’s willing to perpetuate a system that forces other women into sexual slavery.

Driving home, Offred tries to make casual conversation with Nick, then immediately segues into an interrogation about his foreknowledge of Ofglen’s fate. It’s a risk; if Nick is an Eye, he could easily report her as a co-conspirator. Nick instead tells her not to be tough or brave, that everyone breaks, and as soon as they pull into the driveway, it becomes apparent what he’s talking about: there is a black Eye van parked in the driveway. “Tell them everything,” Nick advises. Emotionlessly, he adds that he couldn’t stop them and that he’s sorry. Yes, that’s just the problem: the diffusion of responsibility means that no one stands up and tries to stop anything.

Offred flashes back to the day her bank account was frozen and she was fired. The day women could no longer own property, which passed to their husbands or male next of kin. Offred never saw it coming, but Moira is unsurprised. Luke sympathetically tells Offred that he’ll take care of her, but Moira catches the problem immediately: rather than becoming incensed, enraged, and willing to fight for women, he is caving to the system. He is adopting a patronizing, paternalistic approach to the subjugation of women; “I’ll take care of you” is not the same thing as “I will fight until you get your rights back.” Offred doesn’t need a knight in shining armor to protect her, she needs the right to be her own knight.

Back in the present, Offred thinks that she doesn’t want pain, she doesn’t want to be hanged on the Wall. She will consign her body, she will sacrifice, she will repent. Aunt Lydia zaps her with a cattle prod anyway. An Eye is questioning her about Ofglen, and she answers guardedly, leaving out anything incriminating, but it quickly becomes apparent that they’re trying to figure out if the relationship between Ofglen and Offred was more than platonic. They aren’t asking about the Resistance. Offred admits that she knew Ofglen was gay (earning her another zap from Aunt Lydia for using that banned word), but didn’t know that Ofglen was in a relationship with a Martha. It is only when the Eye asks why Offred didn’t report that Ofglen was gay that Offred finally finds some piece of heroism hidden within her.

“Because she was my friend,” Offred spits out bravely. Aunt Lydia reminds her, “Remember your Scripture: Blessed are the meek.” Offred returns with, “And blessed are those who suffer for the cause of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.” This act of rebellion earns her a sound tazing from Aunt Lydia until Serena Joy runs in to protect her, screaming that Offred is pregnant. Aunt Lydia is horrified that she has possibly hurt an unborn child, and the Eye concludes the interview immediately. Offred herself has no value, but the life of an unborn child is the most precious thing they can imagine.

We switch to Offred, who, still wearing her Hannibal Lector mask, is waiting to discover her fate. She is temporarily left with a single guard, and she eyes a door with a fire escape sign over it. It’s a foolish hope, really. She’s handcuffed, wearing a jumpsuit, and a facemask; she won’t get anywhere. But it’s the only hope she has. To get there, however, she somehow has to get through the guard. Presumably swallowing her pride, she tries seducing him. No avail.

She is led into a courtroom of all men where she is charged with gender treachery in violation of Romans 1.26 (which reads: “For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.”). Biblical Shari’a law now rules the land. The entire trial lasts 28 seconds. To Offred’s right stands a nervous looking Martha; it is Ofglen’s forbidden paramour. They are both judged guilty without having been given the opportunity to speak or offer any defense. The Martha is sentenced to the “mercy of the State” while Ofglen, because she is still considered fertile despite her gender treachery, is sentenced to “Redemption.”

Ofglen and the Martha, Martha 6715-301, are led out of the courthouse and placed in a van. Because they cannot speak, their eyes act as canvasses to their emotions: fear, sorrow, longing, love, despair. Ofglen’s eyes say she feels responsible for what has happened, because she will live and her lover will die. They hold hands and cry. The van backs up to a long noose on a crane, and the following is a single shot: the Martha is taken from the van, put in the noose, and then hanged until she passes out while Ofglen watches screaming. The doors of the van close, and so ends Martha 6715-301. Alexis Bledel does a marvelous job. A wonderful, fantastic job, but that’s one more Dead Lesbian for the trope.

We switch back to Offred. Nick has brought her ice for the cattle prod burns on her cheek and collarbone. Offred manages a flirtatious joke, and he tells her that he wishes he’d just driven away with her instead. It’s nice to say, but actions speak louder than words. The two share an intimate moment in which they almost kiss, but Nick at last pulls away. Later that night, Offred is disappointed to see that her period started. No more special treatment from Serena Joy and Rita.

We flash back to protests against the new anti-women laws. The security service officers (are these police? Or the new religious militia?) bring out heavy weapons and Offred notices the tone shift immediately. This isn’t your average anti-riot police response. She and Moira walk, then run, away while the security services advance with belt-fed assault weapons, firing indiscriminately into the crowd. Protestors start to run as bodies start to fall. Offred and Moira take cover in a coffee shop and tracer fire and bullets fly outside. What seems like a mortar round hits and shatters the glass. The war is beginning.

Back in the present, Offred braves leaving her room. She can’t hide from the household forever. Downstairs, Serena Joy is cleaning out a room for a nursery. “By His word, all things are possible to him that believes it,” she tells Offred, overjoyed at the prospect of a child of her own. She believes that Offred is the miracle that she prayed for, but Offred can’t let her continue this delusion. She admits she’s not pregnant. Serena Joy’s face falls, then hardens. She drags Offred upstairs and throws her back in her room, which she is no longer allowed to leave. “Things can get much worse for you,” Serena Joy announces. Offred cries.

We switch back to Ofglen, who wakes in the whitest location known to man. It’s a hospital, and she has clearly just undergone a procedure while anesthetized. She lifts her hospital gown to see the equivalent of a jill strap over her pubic area. Aunt Lydia appears to tell her that she can still have children and “things will be so much easier now. You won’t want what you cannot have.” What is unspoken in words is that “Redemption” was a cliterodectomy. Now it’s Ofglen’s-real name Emily-turn to cry, but to a weird 1980s soundtrack that makes no sense whatsoever.

I started this recap talking about “Bury Your Gays” and why I find this episode plays into that troubling trope, but for the mainstream media, the weight of this episode was not in the hanging of Ofglen’s lover, but the horror of Ofglen’s cliterodectomy. How terrible that a white woman in the United States underwent genital mutilation, these news outlets gasp. What more terrible, unexpected thing could possibly happen? It really makes you think…And it’s true that it’s certainly an unusual context, but this response misses that perhaps Ofglen would have found it more traumatic that her actions resulted in the death of a woman she loved than that she underwent genital mutilation.

Why should physical deprivation be more acutely painful than emotional loss? Furthermore, and not to beat a dead horse, but there is a massive double standard here between the gay and straight characters: Offred suffered a few cattle prod zaps but has been shown kindness by the men around her (Nick and the Commander). Ofglen, on the other hand, had her lover murdered in front of her and then was given a cliterodectomy. So when Offred lies on the floor and cries because she’s not going to get ice cream from Serena Joy any time soon, I have little sympathy for her.

What say you, readers? Is this another “Bury Your Gays” problem, or should we be grateful that there are still two lesbians (Moira and Ofglen) on the show?

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