"Thank you for creating this world for all of us": globality and the reception of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale after its television adaptation

Abstract

This article explores the reception of Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) after its adaptation into an award-winning television series produced by Hulu in 2017. The reception of the show is studied through a selection of English language articles published online, which are analysed in the light of Manfred B. Steger’s theories on globality. The television adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale has had a global impact thanks to its dissemination through the social media and internet news outlets and because of the random concurrence of certain social processes. The news items I analysed polarize themselves into those who argue that The Handmaid’s Tale series holds up a mirror to Trump’s America and those who reject this belief. In both categories, the commentators are co-opting a cultural product for ideological or political purposes.