History YMMV / TheHandmaidsTale

* MisaimedMarketing:

** Birth rates having fallen below replacement levels is a significant part of why the setting is the way it is. Since the 2010s there has been a significant increase in sensationalist rhetoric about falling birth rates, especially with [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Replacement "Great Replacement"]] and similar ideas of "non-whites" outbreeding the "whites", to the point where several politically motivated mass shooters have explicitly brought this up as part of their motivation.

* AluminumChristmasTrees: The wives dramatically mimicking the handmaids' birthing agony may seem outright goofy it the circumstances weren't so dreadful, in the world of commercial surrogacy it's actually very common for the customers of surrogate mothers to photograph themselves with the newly bought baby in a hospital bed.

** One company tried to market "sexy" Halloween costumes of the handmaid's robes. Note that the whole basis of the show is that the handmaids are treated as walking incubators ritually raped to be impregnated.

* {{Anvilicious}}: A lot of the criticism of the second season was that the writers seemed to go out of their way to show how oppressive Gilead is, with some critics calling it "TorturePorn".

** After two entire seasons of her being a smug, preening KarmaHoudini of the foulest kind, [[spoiler: [[TheDogBitesBack Emily violently stabbing Aunt Lydia and]] [[KickTheSonOfABitch kicking her down the stairs]] is so satisfying it's hard not to stand up and cheer, especially when Lydia was [[KickTheDog mocking Emily about her cliterdectomy]] (and Lilly's TongueTrauma) moments earlier.]]

** Deconstructed in the TV show, in the episode that has Luke's wife show up and make it clear that she considers June a husband-stealing whore and denounces her for destroying their marriage. This is later amplified, as the show also plays up Moira's in-book dislike of Luke due to him being a potential serial cheater, while also having Moira and Luke basically becoming a makeshift family raising baby Nicole and becoming slightly peeved when their living situation is interrupted with June's return.

** There are signs that Atwood's mellowed since then and the book is taught in University literature courses at least in Canada, France and the Netherlands.

** Some commenters on Website/YouTube has taken to referring to a certain Aunt as "Aunt Chlamydia".

** A first-season line about how the extremists "slaughtered Congress" hits harder after real-life extremists broke through police lines blocking off the capitol in January 2021.

* AmbiguousDisorder: Lydia is shown to be capable of showing genuine kindness to the Handmaids in a way that not even the other aunts do, but can also torture them ruthlessly without any remorse. Her ability to flip between a truly caring person and a complete sadist implies she may have Borderline Personality Disorder or some other mental condition. [[spoiler: However, after her attack from Emily, Lydia seems to start genuinely changing for the better, especially when she literally drops to her knees and begs God to punish her instead of Janine whenever Janine is on the edge of death. If Lydia did truly have BDP or something along those lines, then it would not have gone away simply because Emily attacked her. This leaves Lydia's mental state ultimately unclear.]]

* AssPull: [[spoiler:June staying in Gilead]] at the end of Season 2. Even several characters point out how little sense it makes, and many fans and critics called out that it seems the entire reason it happens is that the alternative would be a much bigger change to the show's setup than the crew were willing to make.

** After performing incredibly well at the Emmys for its first season, the show was largely expected to have similar success for Season 2, especially after it earned 20 nominations (up from the 13 it had gotten the year before). Its performance at that year's Creative Arts Ceremony seemd to support this, as it won for Drama Guest Actress (Samira Wiley), Editing, and Production Design. However, at the main Emmy ceremony, many were surprised when it ended up getting completely shut out, with it largely being overshadowed by ''Series/GameOfThrones'' (which had been absent the year before when ''The Handmaid's Tale'' had dominated), ''Series/TheCrown2016'', and the final season of ''Series/TheAmericans''. The most stunning loss for fans was in Supporting Actress, when Yvonne Strahovski, Ann Dowd, and Alexis Bledel all lost to Thandie Newton for ''Series/{{Westworld}}''.

* AcceptableTargets: Sex-work-exclusionary radical feminists. They are portrayed as having [[EnemyMine collaborated]] with the Sons of Jacob due to their shared [[MoralGuardians opposition to pornography and prostitution]], only to be purged once they [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness outlived their usefulness]]. At the time she wrote the novel, Atwood was watching radical feminist groups work with the UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan administration to crack down on porn, and she was not amused.

* ValuesResonance: The idea that woman's rights could be rolled back to such a degree that even women getting an education became a taboo has gained greater attention with the Taliban's re-takeover of Afghanistan in 2021, which was followed by woman losing their right to education, on top of other restrictions.

* {{Anvilicious}}: The book is about as subtle as a high-velocity cinder block in its denunciation of patriarchal societies (especially those who QuoteMine the Holy Scriptures to bring people they don't like to heel), but it has a highly influential and important message. The villains all quote scripture and every building is named after theological concepts or religious figures in case you don't get that they're religious, and there sexual ethic permits mass sex slavery, brutal rape, and execution of anyone who dissents from their laws in case you didn't get they were bad.

** A first-season line about how the extremists “slaughtered Congress” hits harder after real-life extremists broke through police lines blocking off the capitol in January 2021.

** After Roe v. Wade was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 and the ensuing tightening of abortion laws in several states, there has been an upshot of discussion about the book and its similarities to present reality. Even Atwood herself has been an active voice here.

** There's also a surprising number of religious conservatives out there who seem to have entirely missed that Gilead is not intended to be portrayed as a society you'd want to emulate. Whether this is based on having actually ''read'' the book or just having been told a rough description of it is a good question.

** A first-season line about how the extremists “slaughtered Congress” hits harder after real-life extremists attempted that in January 2021.

** Many believe this book is anti-religious, but WordOfGod states that it is not anti-religious, and is only opposed to the ways religious fundamentalists oppress women. (Gilead is run by a branch of fundamentalist Protestants, who persecute members of other Christian denominations, such as Catholics or Baptists).

** ''The Handmaid's Tale'' was, of course, written as an incredibly {{Anvilicious}} social commentary on religious fundamentalism. But the worst thing about it is that although Atwood focuses on Christian fundamentalism, the themes ''have already happened'' for women in ''Muslim'' countries such as Iran, which regressed from more liberal ideas decades ago when taken over by religious fundamentalists, and Afghanistan, which in the 1990s ([[HistoryRepeats and again in 2021]]) was taken over by the extremist Talibans who infamously committed ''severe'' violations of woman's rights. See NightmareFuel.

** ''The Handmaid's Tale'' was, of course, written as an incredibly {{Anvilicious}} social commentary on religious fundamentalism. But the worst thing about it is that although Atwood focuses on Christian fundamentalism, the themes ''have already happened'' for women in ''Muslim'' countries such as Iran, which regressed from more liberal ideas decades ago when taken over by religious fundamentalists, and Afghanistan, which in the 1990s was taken over by the extremist Talibans who infamously committed ''severe'' violations of woman's rights. See NightmareFuel.

** Similarly, there are no vocally non-religious characters in the show. In spite of the show taking place in a religiously-derived dystopia, no one seems to suggest that maybe religion itself is the problem. The closest it gets is in “Seeds” (S2 E5), where Emily angrily questions Janine’s insistence that God has a good plan for them. The tenets of Gilead are indeed derived from lines of the Bible, and no one seems to suggest that maybe disregarding the whole thing might be a good idea.
*** Instead, the heroes seem to all be cut from the cloth of more mild religion. A major example is June sympathetically baptizing her child in the Catholic Church, which in the real world has been implicated in routine systemic child abuse, much like Gilead in the show. It represents another failure of representation on the show.

* MoralEventHorizon:
** Anyone responsible for creating, upholding (willingly) partaking in the Handmaid system. Made even worse by the revelation that there's probably no point in the Ceremony anyway - it's an OpenSecret that most of the Commanders are sterile and what is needed is bringing another ''man'' onboard. The younger wives might not even be infertile, just simply hadn't conceived with their infertile partners. So, the Handmaids end up being pimped to other men anyway, and the monthly rapes serve no other purpose than to protect some sterile men ego.
** Commander Waterford and Serena Joy crossed it, if not by participating in the uprising with Gilead, then through [[spoiler:their brutal rape of June in [[Recap/TheHandmaidsTaleS2E10TheLastCeremony "The Last Ceremony"]] under the guise of inducing labor.]]

* AuthorsSavingThrow: Season 4 clearly shows the crew heard the fans' complaints about ArcFatigue in the previous two seasons, as the amount of forward progress June makes increases exponentially from them (and includes a few teases that we're going back to the status quo before making that progress, in a bit of TrollingCreator). It also goes back to being ten episodes like the first season, after the second and third were widely accused of being full of obvious {{Padding}} at thirteen.