How The Handmaid’s Tale Changed the Conversation About Women

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How The Handmaid’s Tale Changed the Conversation About Women

Since Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale was adopted for television by creator Bruce Miller, the conversation about women in society has shifted. In some ways, women have made great strides to break that glass ceiling, and in other ways, the progress for American women has taken a retroactive turn that makes this show all the more relevant and telling of what the future could hold. This is juxtaposed against shows like VEEP, Shrill, and Killing Eve, that show how far a woman can go and the breakthrough women are making in leadership, from the boardroom to the White House. The fight for women's rights, from the wage gap to body autonomy and access to healthcare are currently facing unexpected highs and lows. Join ALOUD for a conversation with executive producer and creator of The Handmaid’s Tale Bruce Miller and television critic of the Los Angeles Times’ Lorraine Ali on the role women have politically, culturally, and economically, and how that growth could be easily threatened.
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Bruce Miller is creator, showrunner, and executive producer of the critically-acclaimed, Emmy, Golden Globe, and Peabody Award-winning series The Handmaid’s Tale, based on Margaret Atwood’s groundbreaking novel. Miller began his writing career on NBC’s long-running hit ER and has been a writer/producer on Syfy’s Eureka and Alphas and the CW’s The 100. Originally from Stamford, Connecticut, Miller attended Brown University and currently resides in Los Angeles with his wife Tracy, with whom he has three children. Lorraine Ali is a television critic of the Los Angeles Times. Previously, she was a senior writer for the Calendar section, where she covered culture at large, entertainment, and American Muslim issues. Ali is an award-winning journalist and Los Angeles native who has written in publications ranging from the New York Times to Rolling Stone and GQ. She was formerly The Times’ music editor and, before that, a senior writer and music critic with Newsweek magazine.