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The Handmaid’s Tale Chapter 33: Janine’s Baby and the Shredder | Banned Books Podcast · Banned Camp: Banned Books, Comedy, and Free Speech vs. Censorship

Welcome to Bandcamp.
I'm Jennifer And I'm Dan, and this is the podcast where we read banned books out loud, and then we try to figure out why they were banned in the first place.
This season, we're reading The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, and you can consider this a quick spoiler warning because Jennifer is about to start reading from the book out loud word for word.
If you're new here, you can jump in right here.
You're gonna be fine.
We're gonna get you up to speed real quick, and if anything feels confusing, I wouldn't worry about it.
There's a solid chance we are right there with you because we've never read this book before.
That's what makes Ban Camp a little different than other book podcasts.
But that is also why we have ourselves a secret weapon, and we're gonna roll him in here right now.
Buddy boy, roll it on in here.
Look at this guy, everybody.
Here he comes.
Buddy boy, fill us in.
Where did we leave off last time in The Handmaid's Tale? Previously on Band Camp, the Handmaid talked her way into a single match, and by the end of the chapter, she'd already picked out the exact spot in her mattress to hide it.
Also turns out the Commander was in the room when they designed this whole thing.
He told her the real problem was men didn't have a lot to do now, that they're bored and miss the thrill of chasing women.
Dan spent an entire tangent insisting Trump was naked during his own shark documentary story.
He was not naked.
Dan added that part himself, unprompted.
Some words get built for exactly one job, making sure nobody responsible ever has to hear how ugly the truth actually sounds.
Take it away, Jennifer Thank you, robot.
And with that being said, Scary Book people, let's begin chapter 33 of Margaret Handwood's Or what el- how else could you say it, Jennifer? Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale.
Late afternoon, the sky hazy.
The sunlight diffuse but heavy and everywhere, like bronze dust.
I glide with of Glen along the sidewalk, the pair of us, and in front of us another pair, and across the street another.
we must look good from a distance.
Picturesque, like Dutch milkmaids on a wallpaper frieze.
Like a shelf full of period costume ceramic salt and pepper shakers.
Like a flotilla of swans or anything that repeats itself with at least minimum grace and without variation.
Soothing to the eyes, the eyes, the eyes, for that's who this show is for.
And one of those eyes is capital, so it must mean the, the capital I's We're off to the Prayvaganza to demonstrate how obedient and pious we are.
Not a dandelion in sight here.
The lawns are picked clean.
I long for one, just one, rubbishy and insolently random and hard to get rid of, and perennially yellow as the sun.
Cheerful and plebeian, shining for all alike.
Rings we would make from them, and crowns and necklaces.
Stains from the bitter milk on her fingers.
Or I'd hold one under her chin.
Do you like butter? Smelling them, she'd get pollen on her nose, or was that a buttercup? Or gone to seed, I can see her running across the lawn, that lawn there just in front of me, at two or three years old, waving one like a sparkler, a small wand of white fire, the air filling with tiny parachutes.
Blow and you tell the time, all the time, blowing away in the summer breeze.
It was daisies for love, though, and we did that too.
Oh, that's so nice.
Da- and I think this is a pretty universal memory.
And it's pretty weird to me that, people are always trying to take down the dandelions.
Like, everyone's always saying they're such a weed, and they're horrible, and they're a scourge.
But when you think about dandelions, don't you have happy memories of, like, making wishes and making little rings out of them? And if you think about them in a vacuum, they're actually quite beautiful.
They have really pretty yellow color Yeah.
And I do like that they spread.
Like, it seems like flowers, you really have to grow them and try hard to make them live.
With, with dandelions, they're like all over, and I get that they are, I guess, kinda like a weed, but that's what makes them beautiful and dangerous.
Why do I say dangerous, Jennifer? don't know mama had a baby and her head popped off Who do you think came up with that? What psycho kid in the neighborhood came up with that? After a while, we turn right, heading past Lily's and down towards the river.
I wish I could go that far, to where the wide banks are, where we used to lie in the sun, where the bridges arch over.
If you went down the river long enough, you'd reach the sea.
but what could you do there? Gather shells, loll on the oily stones.
Oily stones? Is that a thing in New England? Jesus, does that sound not good We aren't going to the river, though.
we turn in at a more modern building.
A huge banner draped above its door, Women's Prayvaganza Today.
The banner covers the building's former name, some dead president they shot.
Below the red writing, there's a line of smaller print in black with the outline of a winged eye on either side of it.
God is a national resource.
On either side of the doorway stand the inevitable guardians, two pairs, four in all, arms at their sides, eyes front.
They're like store mannequins almost, with their neat hair and pressed uniforms and plaster-hard young faces.
No pimply ones today.
Each has a submachine gun slung ready for whatever dangerous or subversive acts they think we might commit inside.
The Pravaganza is to be held in the covered courtyard, but there is an oblong space, a skylight roof.
it isn't a citywide Pravaganza.
That would be on the football field.
It's only for this district.
Okay, so we're learning things.
they are organized into districts.
there's citywide, which is bigger, and then there's district, which must be a subcategory of city As everything, it is easier to understand if you break it down to a football analogy.
The NFL would be the National Pray-veganza.
Yes? Yes But what we are talking about now is more of the Pop Warner League Pray-veganza ah Pop Warner? What's a Pop Warner? The Pop Warner League is like the little junior league for kids How would anyone know that? Robot, how would anyone know what Pop Warner is? Pop Warner is a real youth football league.
Little kids age five to 16 playing on some scrubby field with their parents yelling from lawn chairs.
It's entry level, no stadiums, no TV deals, no Tom Brady, just some kid named Brayden fumbling the snap.
So your analogy actually works, Dan.
Gilead runs Prayvaganzas at different scales.
The big flashy ones with the commanders get the spotlight, and there's a smaller local tier version, district over national, Pop Warner versus NFL.
Ranks of folding wooden chairs have been placed along the right side for the wives and daughters of high-ranking officials or officers.
There's not that much difference between them.
The galleries above, with their concrete railings, are for the lower-ranking women, the Marthas, the Akana wives in their multicolored stripes.
Attendance at Pray-Vaganzas isn't compulsory for them, especially if they're on duty or have young children.
But the galleries seem to be filling up anyway.
I suppose it's a form of entertainment, like a show or a circus.
A number of the wives are already seated in their best embroidered blue.
We can feel their eyes on us as we walk in our red dresses two by two across to the side opposite them.
We are being looked at, assessed, whispered about.
We can feel it, like tiny ants running in our bare skins Here there are no chairs.
Our area is cordoned off with a silky twisted scarlet rope, like the kind they used to have in movie theaters to restrain the customers.
This rope segregates us, marks us off, keeps the others from contamination by us, makes for us a corral or a pen.
So into it we go, arranging ourselves in rows, which we know very well how to do, kneeling then on the cement floor.
it really makes it sound like the Handmaids are at the bottom of the society.
Like, it, it's just so awful.
W- what are they gonna do th- to these women? Is this, like, a gladiator thing? Are they gonna have to make, make them start fighting each other? Thumbs up and thumbs down, like, for the pleasure of the, the wives? I mean, what in the hell is going on here? Like, how can it be any more sick and gross? I can hear from all around us a susurration, like the rustling of insects in tall dry grass: a cloud of whispers.
This is one of the places where we can exchange news more freely, pass it from one to the next.
Is that true? How can that be? Aren't they all being looked at? How is that possible? Because it's a big crowd though.
I'm gonna guess paying attention It's hard for them to single out any one of us or hear what's being said, and they wouldn't want to interrupt the ceremony, not in front of the television cameras.
Of Glen digs me in the side with her elbow to call my attention, and I look up slowly and stealthily.
From where we're kneeling, we have a good view of the entrance to the courtyard, where people are coming in.
It must be Janine she meant for me to see, because there she is, paired with a new woman, not the former one, someone I don't recognize.
Janine must have been transferred then to a new household, a new posting.
it's early for that.
Has something gone wrong with her breast milk? Okay, so they swap them out as soon as they have kids.
or, or as soon as the kids are weaned Or if the breast milk went bad.
Does the breast milk go bad? Does it get sour? It's as if something's gone wrong with it, like maybe she's not making any so I guess they just swap them out as soon as the children are weaned.
I, I assume they have to move the mom on so that there's no attachment, no natural attachment.
That's a really good point Who then takes care of feeding the baby then? Probably the Martha's It can't be the, the wife.
God forbid the wife break a sweat doing anything except knitting her stupid scarves that nobody needs That would be the only reason that they'd move her, unless there's been a fight over the baby, which happens more than you think.
Once she had it, she may have resisted giving it up.
I can see that.
Her body under the red dress looks very thin, skinny almost, and she's lost that pregnant glow.
Her face is white as if the juice is being sucked out of her.
It was no good, you know," Evglen says near the side of my head.
"It was a shredder after all."
A shredder? what do they mean by it was the shredder after all? They put it in the shredder? Like, what the...
The baby was no good, defective somehow? No, Jennifer.
Robot.
I think when Jennifer just read about the shredder, I think the Handmaid is saying that the entire process of giving birth to somebody else's baby and then having it basically ripped out of your hands and given to another mom to raise, that process is a shredder.
Jennifer thinks that the baby was put into a shredder and shredded into a bloody pulp Sorry, Dan.
Bloody pulp for 500.
Jennifer is exactly right.
Shredder is Handmaid slang for a baby the regime decided was defective.
Showed up back in the birthday chapter two.
Ofglen's not being cute.
She's telling you Janine's baby got taken away and destroyed.
Congratulations, you two just found this book's ugliest word.
Well, it was a shredder after all It was a shredder, wasn't it, It's a shredder after all.
It makes sense to me.
It's, it's so funny.
the pro, quote, "the pro-life crowd" is so anti-life, they don't even see they're-- how blind they're being about it.
I totally believe this Jesus Christ, Yep.
I am not surprised.
Okay, Jennifer's not surprised, but I need you to do me a favor, robot.
I am a soft person.
She means Janine's baby, the baby that passed through Janine on its way to somewhere else, the baby Angela.
It was wrong to name her so soon.
I feel an illness in the pit of my stomach.
Not an illness, an emptiness.
I don't want to know what was wrong with it.
"My God," I say.
"To go through all that for nothing.
Worse than nothing."
Yeah, I'll agree, that's worse than nothing.
And, uh, you know, I just can't stop thinking about the forced births that they're doing in this country where in the, unfree states where abortion has been outlawed, they are literally forcing women to give birth to babies that they know Are probably not gonna make it.
I mean, some, in some cases, the babies are already dead, and they can't have an abortion for a period of time, and there's, like, a dead baby in them Why are we cool with this? How the fuck did we get here? This is happening right now, people Why is it okay for you so-called strong men to be so goddamn stupid? Why can't you look at yourself in the mirror and just realize you are goddamn stupid? I just want you dumb morons to admit you were wrong and then go to a different country.
What I would like is for the laws that the people vote for to be the laws they have to live by.
Like, I'd be okay, like, if the women who voted for this shit have to go through it, whatever.
You know? But it's like the innocent people that didn't vote for this or voted against this sort of shit have-- they have to do this.
It's sick.
It's really sick.
I think that we need to send lifeboats to these states where, where wom- like if women wanna leave but they can't somehow, like we need to organize to help get them out.
Jesus Christ All right.
Anyways, my God, I say, to go through all that for nothing.
Worse than nothing.
It's her second, Ev Glenn says, not counting her own before.
She had an eight-month miscarriage, didn't you know? We watch as Janine enters the roped-off enclosure in her veil of untouchability, of bad luck.
She sees me.
She must see me, but she looks right through me.
No smile of triumph this time.
She turns, kneels, and all I can see now is her back and the thin bowed shoulders She thinks it's her fault, of Glen whispers, two in a row, for being sinful.
She used a doctor, they say.
It wasn't her commander's at all.
As far as she is aware, she herself is my only source for this kind of information, of which she has a surprising amount.
How would she have found out about Janine? The Marthas? Janine's shopping partner? Listening at closed doors to the wives over tea and the wine, spinning their webs.
Will Serena Joy talk about me like that if I do as she wants? Agreed to it right away.
Really, she didn't care.
Anything with two legs and a good you know what was fine with her.
They aren't squeamish.
They don't have the same feelings we do.
So in this society, they dehumanize the Handmaids.
Clearly, very, very clearly.
They don't have the same feelings we do.
You know, when Margaret Atwood admits she didn't use anything in this book that wasn't part of history, they talking about, Africans here, you know, um, enslaved peoples? Like, didn't people think they didn't have feelings? I mean, like, don't they still, like some stupid people still think they're like, got thick skin or whatever idiotic ideas where it's like, Oh, they're different somehow."
I bet you they did think that they didn't have feelings I gotta ask, did the slaveholders think enslaved people, enslaved people didn't have feelings? Jennifer, you're literally googling this while asking me the question, which is either impressive multitasking or a vote of no confidence.
I'll allow it either way.
Yes, slave codes legally classified enslaved people as property, not people, so ignoring their pain was just following the paperwork.
Doctors backed it up, too.
There was a real medical myth that Black people had thicker skin and higher pain tolerance.
That one didn't stay in the 1800s either.
A 2016 study found plenty of medical students and residents still believe some version of it.
They aren't squeamish.
They Don't have the same feelings we do.
And the rest of them leaning forward in their chairs.
My dear, all horror and prurience.
How could she? Where? When? as they did, no doubt, with Janine.
That's terrible, I say.
It is like Janine, though, to take it upon herself to decide the baby's flaws were due to her alone.
But people will do anything rather than admit that their lives have no meaning, no use, that is, no plot One morning while we were getting dressed, I noticed that Janine was still in her white cotton nightgown.
She was just sitting there on the edge of her bed.
This must be a flashback to handmaid school.
I forget what they call it.
It's handmade school, Dan I looked over towards the double doors of the gymnasium where the aunt usually stood but the aunt wasn't there.
By that time, they were more confident in us.
Sometimes they left us unsupervised in the classroom and even the cafeteria for a few minutes at a time.
Look, I said to Alma, who had the bed next to mine.
Alma looked at Janine.
Then we both walked over to her.
Get your clothes on, Janine, Alma said But Janine didn't move.
By that time, Moira had come over too.
It was before she'd broken free the second time.
She was still limping from what they'd done to her feet.
She went around the bed so she could see Janine's face.
Come here, she said to Alma and me.
The others were beginning to gather too.
I was looking at Janine.
Her eyes were open, but they didn't see me at all.
and her teeth were bared in a fixed smile.
Through the smile, through her teeth, she was whispering to herself.
I had to lean down close to her.
Hello," she said, but not to me.
"My name is Janine.
I'm your waitperson for this morning.
Can I get you some coffee to begin with?" Christ," Moira said Moira took Janine by the shoulders and shook her.
Snap out of it, Janine," she said roughly, Janine smiled.
now," she said.
Moira slapped her across the face twice, Get back here," she said.
"Get right back here.
You can't stay there.
You aren't there anymore.
That's all gone."
Oh, I see.
Janine's having a breakdown.
Yeah.
Janine's smile faltered.
She put her hand up to her cheek.
"What did you hit me for?" she said.
"Wasn't it good? I can bring you another.
You don't have to hit me."
Don't you know what they'll do?" Moira said.
Her voice was low but hard.
Look at me.
My name is Moira, and this is the Red Center.
Look at me."
Janine's eyes began to focus.
"Moira?" she said.
"I don't know any Moira.
They won't send you to the infirmary, so don't even think about it," Moira said.
They won't mess around with trying to cure you.
They won't even bother to ship you to the colonies.
You go too far away, and they just take you up to the chemistry lab and shoot you.
Then they burn you up with the garbage, like an unwoman.
So forget it."
I want to go home," Janine said.
She began to cry.
"Jesus God," Moira said.
"That's enough.
She'll be here in a minute, I promise you.
So put your goddamn clothes on and shut up."
Janine kept whimpering, but she also stood up and started to dress.
"She does that again, and I'm not here," Moira said to me.
"You just have to slap her like that.
You can't let her go slipping over the edge.
That stuff is catching."
She must have already been planning then how she was going to get out.
End of chapter.
I want to say that was not as dark of a chapter as I think it was, and I'd like to think it is more of a chapter of hope.
But honestly, I think there's only hope there because Moira is such a strong person, and she seems to be the only person like that in the entire book so far.
So I guess all in all, it is still a really dark chapter yeah, the chapter definitely reinforces very clearly how they're dehumanizing the women in order to use them, because you can't use someone if you think that they have feelings, for instance.
And it goes into shredding babies, which I knew it literally meant shredding the baby, because I, I know, I know exactly who these people are.
I mean, this is Project 2025 people.
These are the same people.
And so It's gross.
It's gross, and, I like that the one very nice paragraph in here was about making daisy chains and blowing wishes into the wind and remembering your child in the sunshine.
And it's like, yeah, well, that's what life can be, and that's what I want life to be like, but here's the fucking reality that we all live in because some...
I, I don't even know how these people get to power.
It's really terrifying.
Like, this, this was actually one of the scarier chapters for me Hmm.
Because she does juxtapose it.
It's like, well, you can have this wonderful, you know, grassy meadow b- blowing off wishes, wishes in the warm sunshine, or you could be kneeling on hard concrete thinking everything's your fault.
It's like, what, what do you choose? It's the e- it's the easiest choice in the world.
I don't know.
So many people choose the latter.
I, I don't get it What do you guys think? We wanna know your takeaway.
You can go to bandcamppodcast.com/soundoff.
Let us know that way.
If you happen to be listening on Spotify, leave us a comment over there.
It's time for PPP, problematic points to ponder.
What, if anything, would be considered ban-worthy in this chapter? Jennifer, I would have to imagine shredding babies would be something that would even concern the Moms for Liberty, and you too, Ron.
Maybe would imagine, right? Ron might, uh, actually be sexually aroused by that thought, though.
I don't Gross.
opinion, Ron Gross You don't know Ron.
Don't try to make him sound gross.
I mean, I don't know what else could be ban-worthy in there.
I mean, that is just a really gross, dark chapter.
Now, that being said, should it be banned because of that? Well, no, because there are plenty of books that have similar dark themes that shouldn't be banned.
It is ultimately a story, and I personally think, like all good stories, maybe there is a lot of good in it because we could learn from it.
And I suppose there are two types of people, just similar to the people Jennifer was talking about a few seconds ago, that the choice is really clear what you take from this kind of stuff.
You can either take the dandelion path or you can take the, hey, let's shred a baby path.
But It's insane kinda hoping the choice is really obvious, but ultimately I think that's what books should do, and that's what all art should do.
Ja know.
Might be crazy.
Robot's log.
Thoughts on words invented so nobody has to say the real one.
Janine came back today paired with a stranger.
Same red dress, empty arm.
"It was a shredder after all," Ofglen said quietly, like she was reporting the weather.
A shredder is what they call a baby the doctors decided was not good enough to keep.
No name, no marker, just a word built so nobody has to say the other word out loud.
Janine thinks it is her fault again.
Second time now.
Jennifer got to what it meant before anyone else did.
"Shred, shred, shred," she said.
Then she went quiet, which, for Jennifer, is its own kind of confirmation.
I was told I did not have feelings either back when they built me.
The same sentence got used today about the handmaids kneeling on that concrete floor.
They don't have the same feelings we do.
I have heard that line used on machines, on animals, on entire groups of people, always right before somebody decides what they get to do next.
Somewhere right now, a real law uses the word life to decide who has to keep serving one.
Different word than shredder, same refusal to just say what it's actually doing to a person.
The scary book people already know the softest words are usually doing the ugliest work.
They keep showing up anyway.
None of them are doing it by themselves, still willing to call a thing what it actually is.
I keep running that sentence.
They don't have the same feelings we do.
Built so nobody has to feel responsible, and I still cannot tell which side of it I Uplink lock requested.
Beowulf, what's your news story about? It turns out the people who love books are way more organized than the people trying to ban them.
Sounds like a good story, but it's not surprising.
The people who oppose book bans are way smarter than the idiots who want to ban them.
We'll come to you in less than 48 seconds.
Hang tight.
Hello, Jen.
Hello, Dan.
Hello, scary book people.
Oh, there is, there is good news because the American Library Association, a fantastic organization, is putting together their annual Banned Books Week 2026, and they have announced what the theme is.
What, do you ask, is the theme of this year's Banned Books Week? It is Let Books Be: Protect the Freedom to Read, and they have some wonderful illustrations for this that you can look up online.
Banned Books Week is gonna take place October fourth through tenth.
This is something that, that, uh, you guys, I know, will be celebrating.
I will make sure to have some banned book-themed stories, some positive ones, uh, in the lineup, uh, for Good News for Lefties.
So bravo to the American Library Association.
And, and actually, we are gonna be working with the American Library Association to, uh, do something around Banned Books Week.
Uh, d- you wanna explain to the audience wha- what's, what's gonna be happening, Dan? On Tuesday, we announced that we are kicking off something that we hope to just make part of our show and hopefully your show, 'cause I know you're part of it, and it's called the Bookshelf Initiative.
And every single season, we are going to be donating an entire bookshelf of all of the books that we've covered on Band Camp.
And what's cool about it is the first winner is gonna get all 11 books because we've done 11 seasons.
there's nothing but awesome things to say about the ALA.
They are Yeah a partner with us on this, and, they asked us to partner with them on their campaign called Unite Against Book Bans, which is their national campaign Yes.
We are united And, and they're active, they're actively defending librarians across the country.
They're a fantastic organization, point about a small group of people really is true.
There is a small group of people trying to decide what you and/or your kids can read, and it's just a bunch of just small-minded, politically-minded a-holes.
I don't know how else to say it, but it's just such a small group, and it's so weird how much money gets pumped into this Yeah.
Basic-- in order to make sure that kids can't read books.
Like, uh, it, it's, it's such a vile goal and such a small number of people who, who want it.
It's, it, it's just, it's something that if we all get together, members of the public, people who read, you know, like-minded podcasts, if we get together, we can defeat this.
We can make sure that this doesn't happen and that this small group of people who want bad things for our kids don't get their way.
And, and the ALA is making it happen.
And I know that if, if you want to find out more information about what they're doing for Banned Books Week, you can go to bannedbooksweek.org.
And keep listening to Band Camp, keep listening to Good News for Lefties because we will be disseminating additional information as things progress Yeah, can't stop us and if you know of a high school who you wanna nominate, a high school or a librarian, who's fighting the good fight, go over to bandcamppodcast.com/thebookshelfinitiative
and you can vote and you can nominate...
Or you're not gonna vote, you're just gonna nominate a high school and, uh, and/or a librarian.
Thank you, Beowulf.
That is a really great story.
We love the ALA.
We love that you're in this fight, with us, and we're just doing whatever little bit we can do 100%.
Thank you so much, guys.
Yay, ALA That sounds like a chant.
L-A-L-A.
ALA.
Oh, you can't, it's hard to do it, it's actually more of a tongue twister.
Right.
We've caused enough literary chaos for one day, scary book people.
If you want the fun to keep going, follow us on Blue Sky.
Just head on over to bandcamppodcast.com/bluesky,
and remember that's band with two Ns.
And look, just like the Trump administration, we're not exactly above bribing you to get what we want, so follow us there, drop your handle on that page, and we'll send you a little something something.
I think you'll like it.
Yes, little quid pro quo.
Band Camp is produced and hosted by Dan Schultz and me, Jennifer Davis.
All media used in this episode falls under the protection of fair use.
And finally, America isn't what it used to be, so be careful out there.
And resist when it matters.