Trigger Warning

The Handmaid’s Tale Season 4

I started watching The Handmaid’s Tale over the quarantine in 2020. It was me and two other actors, one of us had already seen it and suggested it. We binged it all day and overnight some nights. We chose characters that we would’ve reacted similarly to… We gasped at the hypocrisy and patriarchy but nothing hit home quite like Season 4, which I just finished two days ago.

Spoiler Alert: When June finally made it home and still had to deal with Serena and Fred… All that she had been through including being shot while trying to escape… Watching her friends being hit by a train at their third time (I think) trying to escape their captors… To finally making it home after seven years… Watching that trial annoyed me. How do you face guilty charges of adultery after living under a totalitarian society where you have to do what you have to do to survive? Why was the woman still to blame for being complicit while trying to figure out the best way to escape? I was proud of June for never forgetting her truth, that none of this was ok and wasn’t going to work for her long term.

The Brainwashing: Fred Waterford really thought he was making the world a better place. I cringe at that group of men feeling all powerful enough to punish women for even reading… Serena’s finger was amputated for reading in their behalf… Her compliance was astonishing, despite the fact that she wanted to leave her husband and raise their baby on her own… I guess she got her wish with the way things ended.

The wrath of June: This is what triggered me the most in this episode. There was no way that she could’ve stayed present with all the trauma and survival instinct that became her life while living in Gilead. She was still operating under fear, grief, sadness and anger. Her daughter Hannah was still left to live under the rule of those men… The Commander raped her and his wife was complicit because of her desire to be a Mother. After all, Gilead existed to preserve the human race by increasing the birth rate so if she couldn’t conceive, her Handmaid had to.

Such a disturbing storyline. A woman’s only purpose in life is to produce a child and when they aren’t able to whether by choice or biologically, they are banished to the Colonies. Where they toil over the land under horrible conditions until their bodies literally wear away. To think that there are still regions of the world where women are seen as valuable for similar reasons and only held to that account… I was listening to a lady of Indian decent speak of her culture that no matter if she got an education, she was still expected to take care of the home and the children. Despite being a medical doctor if the choice came down to work or staying at home, it wasn’t even a question that’s where the woman belonged.

We all know that traces of this ideology still exist in society, even while living in a democracy. Men still want to have a say in regards to womens reproductive rights for one… Men and women still expect that the woman will be supported by the man, who will be the provider when she becomes a Mother.

I couldn’t help but ask myself, despite feeling the pain that June must’ve felt, was violence her only choice given the situation? She wasn’t ready to forgive the Commander but more importantly, she wanted the system to be destroyed… She took out all her pain and anger on the Waterfords and in the end, she forfeited her freedom… The freedom she fought so hard for and almost died for numerous times… It made me wonder, was it all worth it? I guess we’ll have to wait to see what redemption power season 5 holds…

This Is Us Season 5

I wasn’t ready for a recap of 2020 and the worlds events following George Floyd but in true This Is Us fashion, I’m glad that they addressed it. Episode 3 was hard to watch. In my household, race wasn’t ever discussed either. My Mom raised us and she never identified as black, she was a mixed ethnic Jamaican woman, that was her race and cultural identity. We were also raised as Jehovah’s Witnesses where racism apparently wasn’t penetrable. Nothing could break the laws of the Kingdom hope where all races and even animals were never at odds with each other. Our teachings of peace were in hindsight, toxic. It was a spiritual Utopia, where things of the “world” (reality) didn’t affect us; except that it did and if we showed that it did, it was because our faith wasn’t strong enough. Our faith was supposed to be strong enough to thwart any other belief systems, because ours was the only truth… They spoke of the spiritual armor often like we wore figurative bulletproof vests, helmets and full body armor… We were always at a spiritual war so I get how June felt when she wanted to break free from living in a society that was everything but truth. It was definitely not the only way to live…

Both of these tv shows triggered me at first but in a good way. I really got to think of what freedom means to me. I also got to think of how we process trauma. Just like our body goes into shock when something physically traumatic happens to us, it’s similar with the wounds that we don’t see. We live them and experience them over and over, in bits and pieces until we are finally free from them. How else would we be able to handle the trauma while experiencing it? We have to shut off the pain while living it, it’s the only way of survival but what’s left of us is scary at times… It also made me ponder that maybe we live in shock for most of our lives, focused on survival while denying our truths because they are just too painful to reconcile with… When we start healing our wounds by feeling our traumas and working through them, that is when we meet life head on and see it for what it really is. We no longer have to pretend to be carefree, or to fill our lives with nonessentials just to keep us distracted from feeling anything… It’s like an awakening… Finally being freed from the modus operandi society made us into…

I’m on episode 5 of This Is Us, with one more season to go. This show although triggering at times, is like therapy to a certain extent… The human experience is multi-dimensional to say the least and I appreciate the compassionate storytelling of This Is Us. I think that my favorite character is Randall, Sterling K. Brown does such a great job showing us the inner workings of a black man in America, searching to find his roots. An overachiever, successful yet sensitive father, husband and adopted brother. I hope to adopt one day…

Shows like this make us empathize with the similarities we face as people… Wanting to provide for our families and make our parents proud. Wanting to feel valued while never forgetting to value ourselves first and refill our well before quenching everyone else’s thirst… The complexities of who we are as a people at any given time is being played out before our eyes and family means so much to me. The older I get, the more I think of the quality of family life that I hope to one day be capable of enjoying and what that actually looks like to me. One day I also hope to be an excellent screenwriter. I guess a little bit of triggering can actually be therapeutic after all, many tears later.