"Better never means better for everyone": White feminist necropolitics and Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale. Issue 1 (2nd January 2023)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- "Better never means better for everyone": White feminist necropolitics and Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale. Issue 1 (2nd January 2023)
- Main Title:
- "Better never means better for everyone": White feminist necropolitics and Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale
- Authors:
- Neville-Shepard, Meredith
- Abstract:
- ABSTRACT: This article builds on those who have critiqued Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale along racial lines and calls into question the esteemed status the show holds as a rhetorical resource for contemporary feminist activism. By drawing attention to the parasitical relationship that the archetype of the vulnerable (but resilient) white woman has to Black pain and death, I argue that the series further calcifies the dominance of white feminism, enacting what I term "white feminist necropolitics." To illuminate this theory, the essay presents a close analysis of The Handmaid's Tale . Specifically, I demonstrate how the show deploys post-racial logics to center a white feminist heroine whose story of saviorism relies on the cooptation of Black pain and the exploitation of Black death. Ultimately, this critical reading of the series points to the ways in which white feminism and necropolitics are intricately entangled.
- Is Part Of:
- Quarterly journal of speech. Volume 109:Issue 1(2023)
- Journal:
- Quarterly journal of speech
- Issue:
- Volume 109:Issue 1(2023)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 109, Issue 1 (2023)
- Year:
- 2023
- Volume:
- 109
- Issue:
- 1
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2023-0109-0001-0000
- Page Start:
- 2
- Page End:
- 25
- Publication Date:
- 2023-01-02
- Subjects:
- White feminism -- necropolitics -- post-racial -- whiteness -- Handmaid's Tale
Speech -- Periodicals
Public speaking -- Periodicals
808.5 - Journal URLs:
- http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rqjs20/current ↗
http://www.tandfonline.com/ ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1080/00335630.2022.2136738 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 0033-5630
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - 7195.930000
British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 26707.xml