I have been a fan of The Handmaid's Tale for a while. I read the novel when I was in high school. I saw the film a few years after that. And I have been really excited and intrigued by the way the Hulu series expands and fleshes out, and also slightly modifies, the world Margaret Atwood created. (I haven't yet read the sequel novel called The Testaments)
The Hulu series' first season covers roughly the same ground as the novel and film, supplemented by flashbacks and more detailed characterizations. The subsequent seasons move into uncharted territory. One of the most welcome changes: in the novel and the film, the Republic of Gilead was blatantly racist and essentially sends all Black people off to labor in the colonies as the cursed Children of Ham. On the show, on the other hand, the regime is not so exclusive, and so we see people of color at multiple levels of society, as Commanders, Marthas, Handmaids, Wives, Econopeople (which means more jobs for black actors, more representation, etc.) This also creates space for interesting kinds of intersectional analysis of June's character and the world of Gilead.
More recently, I've started to explore another way in which the show seems distinct based on the fact that its star, Elisabeth Moss (also producer, executive producer and occasional director) is a Scientologist. This season especially I've started to wonder if Scientology is influencing the way the story is told.
In this current season (Season 4), after serving many years as a Handmaid in Gilead, the main character June Osborne (played by Elisabeth Moss) finally manages to escape and reunite with her husband in Canada. As a result, instead of being focused on really basic needs like survival, escape and not getting mutilated or raped (which is basically what the first three seasons were about), June finally has time to focus on less basic issues like dealing with severe psychological trauma and her relationship with her husband. June has some clear symptoms of PTSD. The catch is that is that the Church of Scientology is famous for its stances against psychology and psychiatry. So its not likely that any show run by a Scientologist would ever depict characters benefitting from conventional therapy. And, Lo and Behold, that's pretty much what we see on the show.
Vice: Scientologists Really, Really Hate Psychiatrists
It would be really interesting if someone more familiar with Scientology could thoroughly unpack what is going on this season (and in earlier seasons) . We see numerous traumatized Gilead refugees in Canada, but they don't seem to be getting any professional mental health help. There is a kind of peer support / group therapy (?) lead by June's friend Moira (who is a computer programmer, not an actual therapist). But even so, June doesn't seem to quite fit into, or get much benefit from the group. In fact, June seems to subvert the norms of the group. Instead of being interested in healing she seems to be all about promoting angry confrontations.
For example, in episode seven of season four (called "Home") June spends most of the episode in a kind of trance, but does manage get noticeably "better" after she has a scene angrily confronting Serena:
In a similar way, we see another ex-Handmaid named Emily also confront Aunt Irene (a character we've never seen before but who turns out to be primarily responsible for much of the trauma Emily experienced in Gilead) and she is also reduced to a sobbing kneeling mess on the floor.
In Scientology there is a whole course called "How to Confront and Shatter Suppression". (A "suppressive person" is a Scientology term for the ultimate anti-social type) and I wonder if this "shattering" is what we are seeing in how June and Emily treat their opponents.
Another basic Scientology concept is the Silent Birth
Silent birth, sometimes known as quiet birth, is a birthing procedure advised by L. Ron Hubbard and advocated by Scientologists in which "everyone attending the birth should refrain from spoken words as much as possible" and where "... chatty doctors and nurses, shouts to 'PUSH, PUSH' and loud or laughing remarks to 'encourage' are avoided". According to Scientology doctrine, this is because "any words spoken are recorded in the reactive mind and can have an aberrative effect on the mother and the child." Hubbard believed that breaking the silence during childbirth with words could adversely affect the child later in life
I mentioned it here because it occurs to me that on the show when June has her second baby she managed to run off and have the baby alone. And then in the eighth episode of season three "Unfit" I noticed that there are two main childbirth scenes, and in both of them we see all the other handmaids telling the expectant mother to "push" and "breathe" while Moss' character stands noticeably apart from the group, silent (except for a voiceover) with her arms crossed (pictured above). Almost as if she were silently protesting the non-silent birth.
One last possible connection between the show and Scientology (even if only tangential) which I'd like to consider is the notion of the Scientology stare.
Tony Ortega: Scientology's fundamental feature: the thousand-year stare
Tony Ortega: Scientology Starts Out as Staring Contests
Wikipedia: Training Routines (Scientology)
A large chunk of Scientology training is apparently related to staring and maintaining eye-contact. I imagine that some of the skills developed in their courses is probably legitimately good for actors. And apparently Elisabeth Moss gets a lot of mileage out of this training since many episodes, especially the first and last scenes tend to feature intense close-ups of Moss staring into the camera.
Fans Can’t Stop Joking About Those June Close-Up Scenes on The Handmaid’s Tale
Well, those are my thoughts for now. I really do think it would be fruitful for others better versed in Scientology to further explore ways that Scientology concepts might percolate through the Hulu series. Are there other examples of Silent Birth? Are there other ways in which Scientology perspectives on mental health show up? Are the forces of Gilead not just generically "evil" but do they exemplify specific Scientology claims about "suppressive persons" ? Does character development on the show make sense in terms of the heroes overcoming the reactive mind and going clear? Anything else?
ADDENDUM: Another possibility which came to me after posting: I have not yet read the sequel novel The Testaments, but I've read some summaries. One of the interesting developments is that the character of Aunt Lydia in the books is revealed to have been a secret dissident opposed to the regime from the beginning. She lost her job as a judge when Gilead was created and quietly did what she could to destroy the regime from within. From what I remember of the first novel, that revelation is surprising but not inconsistent with the character. She did her job and mouthed platitudes but I didn't have the impression that she was extremely cruel.
On the other hand, the tv show's version of Aunt Lydia (played by the amazing actress Ann Dowd) is pretty clearly a dyed-in-the-wool Gilead loyalist. She's not just maintaining a cover. She sadistically enjoys using her cattle prod to punish the disobedient Handmaids and gleefully supports punishing dissidents. Now it would be interesting if the show had gone in a direction more like the book where Aunt Lydia's loyalties were more ambiguous; where she cared for the Handmaids while serving the regime, but without being so sadistic. (In Harry Potter terms, More Severus Snape, less Dolores Umbridge).
Now, where could Scientology come into this? Well, it seems to me that the Scientology view is somewhat dualistic and unforgiving, especially when it comes to what is called a suppressive person. And if Gilead is supposed to represent a regime of SPs, then perhaps Moss would be less inclined to have Aunt Lydia show as much moral complexity as suggested by the books.
Ok, I'd like to reiterate, I'm not claiming that the above examples are evidence that Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale is some kind of Scientology-propaganda. But I would say that there are some interesting points of contact between Scientology doctrines and what we see on the show (especially when it comes to those elements where the show differs from the novels). And is intriguing to think about how Moss' personal views are being reflected in the show.
