The Feminist Critical Dystopia, Diluted: Adaptation and The Handmaid’s Tale

Framed by existing scholarly discussion of the feminist critical dystopia as a genre, this paper examines Hulu’s adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and whether it upholds the novel’s feminist political conventions. Outlining the series’ racialized female agency, its romanticized heroism, and its inflated utopian horizon, this paper ultimately delineates issues within translating mediums through adaptation.