Latest / Banned Camp: Banned Books, Comedy, and Free Speech vs. Censorship / The Handmaid’s Tale Ch. 5.2: She Doesn’t Even Know It Happened | Banned Books Comedy

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The Handmaid’s Tale Ch. 5.2: She Doesn’t Even Know It Happened | Banned Books Comedy · 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 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 could consider this a very quick spoiler warning because Jennifer's about to start reading from the book out loud word for word.
But if you're new here, you can totally jump in right here.
You're not gonna be lost.
We're gonna get you up to speed real quick.
And if anything feels confusing to you, don't worry, there's a solid chance we're gonna be confused too, because neither of us have ever read this book before.
So you're hearing us discover it along with you.
And that is exactly why we thought we needed a secret weapon, so we're gonna roll him in right now.
Buddy boy.
Look at this guy, everybody.
He's our very own fact-checking robot.
He is gonna fill us in on where we left off last time in The Handmaid's Tale Previously on Band Camp, our protagonist walked through the prettiest dead neighborhood she had ever seen.
No children, no sound, words replaced with pictures.
Aunt Lydia explained there are two kinds of freedom: freedom to and freedom from.
Then a very pregnant Handmaid walked in and made sure every woman in the room knew it.
Our protagonist knew her from the Red Center, never liked her.
Her name in the time before was Janine.
It is remarkable how fast a mind can change without knowing it changed.
Take it away, Jennifer Thank you, robot, and let's continue with the second half of chapter five of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale Janine looks at me then and around the corners of her mouth, there is the trace of a smirk.
She glances down to where my own belly lies under my red robe, and the wings cover her face.
I can see only a little of her forehead and the pinkish tip of her nose What is it with you gals, Jennifer? Why must all of you create drama wherever you go? I'm, I'm just still so confused 'cause I thought all these women get pregnant.
Like, why is there a competition if, if it's gonna happen to all of them? Right Janine just, uh, I guess this is just highlighting how Janine really thinks this is a victory Janine is somebody she's known since processing, and apparently some shit went down Yeah, it kind of sounds like they don't really like each other, huh? Yeah.
Why does she hate Janine? Is Janine gonna be the big baddie?...
Maybe Next we go into All Fresh, Oh, hold on.
All flesh I thought, oh God, I can't, I can't even comprehend it.
I thought it was like a grocery store, All fresh.
Yeah, exactly.
I thought it was like sprouts.
Next we go into All Flesh, which is marked by a large wooden pork chop hanging from two chains.
There isn't so much of a line here.
Meat is expensive, and even the commanders don't have it every day.
Ofglen gets steak, though, and the second time this week.
I'll tell that to the Marthas.
It's the kind of thing they enjoy hearing about.
They are very interested in knowing how other households are run.
Such bits of petty gossip give them an opportunity for pride or discontent.
I take the chicken wrapped in butcher's paper and trussed with string.
Not many things are plastic anymore.
I remember those endless white plastic shopping bags from the supermarket.
I hated to waste them and would stuff them in under the sink until the day would come when there would be too many, and I would open the cupboard door and they would bulge out, sliding all over the floor.
Luke used to complain about it.
Periodically, he would take all the bags and throw them out I guess that's a positive thing about this world.
Got rid of the stupid plastic bags Yeah, but we could do that now too if we really wanted to.
Yeah.
know? I guess we d- I guess we don't want to.
we have something to look forward to in the near future Freedom from pollution? Yeah, exactly A group of people is coming towards us.
They're tourists from Japan it looks like.
A trade delegation perhaps on a tour of the historic landmarks or out for local color What does that mean? So they can just have Japanese tourists come into this? Didn't you think this was a closed off community? Almost like a, prison? I mean, highly controlled.
I thought at least like North Korea, and North Korea doesn't allow anyone in there.
That's what I was thinking too.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah because, wouldn't that be risky to allow the inhabitants of Gilead to see the outside the outside world? Yeah, I think so.
Cause we don't know how much this spreads.
Like is Gilead just its own little, isolated dystopian society? Like what, did the same thing that, befell America happen all over the world? I don't know.
I mean, we know that there are, rebels.
Like they were talking about the front and the war So yeah, I, I don't know.
they are diminutive and neatly turned out.
Each has his or her camera, his or her smile.
They look around, bright-eyed, cocking their heads to one side like robins.
Their very cheerfulness is tourists.
Sounds like they're liter- literally tourists walking around with cameras I can't help staring.
It's been a long time since I've seen skirts that short on women.
The skirts reach just below the knee, and the legs come out from beneath them, nearly naked in their stockings.
Well, hold on.
Isn't that, like, the modesty, measurement? Like, isn't that what you always hear if you go to, like, a school? It's like, "Well, sh- skirts must be below the knee."
Yeah, in, in our world.
If you are all bundled up like, uh, Santa Claus' wife and that's how you had to live all the time, you'd be like, "Well, who is this slut? They're high-heeled shoes with their straps attached to the feet like delicate instruments of torture.
The women teeter on their spiked heels as if on stilts, but off-balance, their backs arch at the waist, thrusting their buttocks out.
their heads are uncovered, and their hair too is exposed in all its darkness and sexuality.
They wear lipstick red outlining the damp cavities of their mouths like scrawls on a bathroom wall of the time before.
Okay, so, they're just like regular ladies trying to be...
Well, I mean, people don't dress like this anymore.
Like, our society has also changed, but I would argue not for modesty's sake, I would argue for comfort's sake.
women are like, I don't give an eff anymore.
I'm gonna wear my flat, slip-on Skechers Oh, yeah.
and my elastic waist."
I'm not dressing up for you anymore."
at least that's how I'm doing it I pictured the, The Handmaid's Tale purses looking at these Japanese tourists, and then right after them, here comes Jennifer visiting Gilead, and they're like, "Oh, God, this one's worse.
She's totally given up."
She's let herself go.
Well, and that's the thing, it's like this type of clothing, and I think this is actually a really good point.
This is all for men.
Th- this isn't for women, this is for men.
the, the full-on makeup, the torture heels.
100%.
I've also heard women say, "I do it for myself.
I wanna look, quote, 'pretty.'"
And I'm like, "Okay, who do you wanna look pretty for?" Right? I mean, you can look beautiful.
Like, I, I just I don't know.
It's too much.
I, I'm glad that it's not expected of women to do this all the time now Shut up, silly woman Donald doesn't like that, Jennifer.
He needs you women to keep dressing up.
Get, get those, uh, Mar-a-Lago lips going that description of this Japanese tourist lady, Jennifer, I almost had to leave the room.
I almost had to go excuse myself to take a cold shower, how she was describing The women teeter on their spiked feet as if on stilts, but off-balance.
Their backs arc at the waist, thrusting the buttocks out."
You know, you know what it sounds like? It sounds like, oh, and what about the, the dark cavities Yeah, I know.
The dark holes, the dark moist holes.
it, it, it's like, you know what they're reminding me of? The dark, moist holes.
Exactly.
Robot, write that down.
That shall be the episode title.
No, don't let us do that, robot.
We'll get the big explicit tag again.
The way she's describing this, she is really repressed.
Like, she's trying to turn this into like, "Well, these, girls disgust me, but goddamn do they look hot."
there's almost a hatred there.
is a hatred.
yeah, she's like, "Look at them with their butts thrust out," like that sort of thing Yeah, it, yeah, it, it seems like this is what Aunt Lydia would say yeah, I agree with that.
Like some old fuddy-duddy old woman who's all religioned up.
Religioned up.
I stop walking.
Ofglen stops beside me, and I know that she too cannot take her eyes off these women.
We are fascinated but also repelled.
They seem undressed.
It has taken so little time to change our minds about things like this.
how long has it been? Like, h- how can your mind change about this? Like, what did they do to these ladies that would make their minds change Is it, is the a- is the answer torture? torture shoes.
robot.
Can you give us any kind of idea without spoiling anything? What is the time period? When did the bad thing happen that turned America into Gilead? Because it must have been relatively recent because so many people like the Handmaid have actual memories.
She knows what's going on.
Not a spoiler.
This one's just timeline math.
The Handmaid remembers her old life clearly, her job, her bank card, her husband, her daughter.
That means the coup happened recently enough that she still has an adult's worth of memories from before.
We're talking a handful of years, not generations.
Gilead is brand new.
It hasn't even figured out how to run itself yet.
Just keep reading.
Then I think I used to dress like that.
That was freedom.
Westernized they used to call it.
Now that's interesting.
That, that is kind of Westernized, right? Like you think about the world and yeah, it's like West-- Why, why was that? Why did they come up with that word I don't know, but again, especially living in the Western world, right? But okay, so Mm-hmm that was freedom.
So she recognizes I used to dress like that.
So she recog- again, she recognizes this is her.
She used to dress like this.
we know that she has that, randy side of her, right? When she started, uh, wiggling her butt she still is a woman who wants agency over her body, but, like, she just seemed to have given it up, so much so that when she sees women who aren't like this and aren't all pent up, she gets mad at them or she, it, it repels her maybe it's a jealousy thing.
Like, she's mad 'cause she's not like that anymore.
But then it does say that she seems undressed and that her mind has changed.
She must be having an identity crisis, cause she's looking at these ladies she sees herself in them And then instantly her mind breaks in and says, "Don't have these thoughts."
do you think it's a, a 1984 type of thing where there's a lot of mind reconditioning Oh, I think those cattle prods were put to use for sure Yeah, but I mean, you can't really do all that much with a cattle prod.
Hook it onto the that's, that's-- Well, the last 10 years with Trump, the world has changed so much.
And I look at people, and so many things have changed, and people's brains, I swear to God, like it takes so little for people to go bonkers.
I know people who believe all kinds of weird conspiracies, and it doesn't take much.
They're, they don't even have...
There's no cattle prod included in the process.
It's just a few random, misinformation, disinformation, tweets or, you know, scrolling on Instagram and they see something.
Next thing they know, they think, all these crazy things.
And like all of a sudden nobody believes in science and there is no truth anymore.
I don't wanna say that it made people dumber, it just changed how people understand what they think the truth is or what they think reality is.
And we, we talked a lot about it in 1984, two plus two is five, Right Well, it's like we all know that's not true.
Russia, Russia, Russia.
The Yeah.
It didn't take much, right? It just took, a disinformation campaign is the best thing I can come up with for the word A psyop.
It's, it's a psyop.
there are people who've been working on this for years, and I think that they have mastered the psyop, and they've unleashed it on the American public.
And I guess my point is it really doesn't take much to get people to think in strange ways, you're right.
I just, I will never understand it because, like, how did one day, like, we all went to bed thinking science was a thing and we should listen to doctors."
And then we woke up the next day, Here, should we get vaccinated for this big pandemic?" "No, you don't want that.
Here, here, s- suck on a tube of horse paste."
"Uh, really? Like every doctor's saying we should..."
No, no, no.
This is what you want."
"Okay."
it can go that fast.
that is what brought down, America that turned it into Gilead, right? That and the cattle prods See, cattle prods aren't gonna hurt.
I mean, they're not gonna help.
They are gonna It ca- it can't wait.
Not gonna-- They're both gonna help and hurt Then I think, I used to dress like that.
That was freedom.
Westernized, they used to call it.
The Japanese tourists came towards us, twittering, and we turn our heads away too late.
Our faces have been seen.
There's an interpreter in the standard blue suit and red patterned tie with the winged eye tie pinned.
He's the one who steps forward out of the group in front of us, blocking our way.
The tourists bunch behind him.
One of them raises a camera Excuse me," he says to both of us politely enough.
"They're asking if they can take your picture."
Well, he knows the answer to that anyways.
He knows the answer is no probably.
Why is he asking them? he's testing them Oh, it kind of reinforces them to say it themselves.
Yeah.
Oh, it's power.
I know what you're gonna say.
I'm gonna ask you anyway.
You better not disappoint Exactly.
I look down at the sidewalk, shake my head for no.
What they must see is the white wings only, a scrap of my face, my chin, and part of my mouth, not the eyes.
I know better than to look the interpreter in the face.
Most of the interpreters are eyes, or so it's said.
I also know better than to say y- and the eyes, like that is like the Gestapo but now we have Nancy Pelosi's gazpacho police spying on members of Congress, spying on the legislative work that we do, spying on our staff, and spying on American citizens that want to come talk to their representatives.
This government has turned into something it was never meant to be, and it's time to make it end.
I agree with Marjorie Taylor Greene,...
They're turning it into a show on the Food Network where they discuss popular soups that are served cold.
I also know better than to say yes.
Modesty is invisibility, said Aunt Lydia.
Never forget it.
Now, and that's really sad.
They shouldn't be invisible.
what kind of identity do they have? They have to just melt into the background? That's not cool Aunt Lydia is constantly talking in these bumper sticker phrases.
Mm-hmm.
There are two kinds of freedom, freedom to and freedom from.
Modesty is invisibility, It's "1984" and "Brave New World" with the weird little slogans.
yeah, yeah.
Hypnopedia, that's right.
and like Trump What does Trump D say? It, what, it, it's all fake news.
Just like literally that, fake news, right? He said fake news enough to now we don't trust news anymore right.
that's how they do it, those little bumper sticker sayings.
I bet you, let's count, let's keep track of all the crap Aunt Lydia says.
'Cause they're all bump- "You have two types of freedom, freedom to and freedom from."
Yeah.
Modesty is invisibility," said Aunt Lydia.
"Never forget it.
To be seen, to be seen is to be," here her voice trembled, "penetrated.
What you must be, girls, is impenetrable."
She called us girls.
Okay, so it really is like parochial school.
There's all kinds of stuff tied up into this.
It really is like the nuns with the rulers.
Now there's the Aunt Lydias with the cattle prods.
And then because they keep talking about sex too.
I know.
But you girls want to be impenetrable,...
except for the commanders.
They gotta, they gotta penetrate.
That's their thing Cause that's the only use that they have is to have babies for these horrid people.
They're not even individuals anymore.
They're not even to be looked at.
They're just objects, you know? They're dark, They're dark, placeholds.
No.
No Beside me, of Glen is also silent.
She's tucked her red gloved hands up into her sleeves to hide them.
The interpreter turns back to the group, chatters at them in staccato.
I know what he'll be saying.
I know the line.
He'll be telling them that the women here have different customs, that to stare at them through the lens of a camera is, for them, an experience of violation.
I'm looking down at the sidewalk, mesmerized by the women's feet.
One of them is wearing open-toed sandals, the toenails painted pink.
I remember this.
So she's having this experience where she remembers being a person He's looking at those feet thinking, "I want feet like that.
I used to have feet like that."
I remember the smell of nail polish, The way it wrinkled if you put the second coat on too soon.
The satiny brushing of sheer pantyhose against the skin.
The way the toes felt pushed towards the opening in the shoe by the whole weight of the body.
the woman with painted toes shifts from one foot to the other because she's uncomfortable in those heels, I'm sure I can feel her shoes on my own feet.
The smell of nail polish has made me hungry? That thing would do the opposite to me.
Oh, it's a horrid smell.
It makes me un-hungry.
Okay, I don't think she means hungry like she wants to chow down on a chili dog or something.
I think hungry like, "I want some of this.
oh, excuse me.
I didn't get that.
You're right.
I think you're right.
Yeah.
you're hungry right Now Now I'm thinking of donuts.
Excuse me," says the interpreter again to catch our attention.
I nod to show him I've heard him.
He asks, "Are you happy?" Says the interpreter.
I can imagine it, their curiosity.
Are they happy? How can they be happy? I feel their bright black eyes on us, the way they lean a little forward to catch our answers.
The women especially, but the men too.
We are secret, forbidden.
We excite them.
If Glenn says nothing, there is a silence, but sometimes it's as dangerous not to speak.
Okay, so a no answer is an answer.
Yes, we are very happy," I murmur.
I have to say something.
What else could I say? End of chapter this is a real crap fest, this society Of course I'm happy."
Why wouldn't I be happy? I get to be bundled up like this all day and then go home and get schtooped by the commander? it, the, it, it's truly awful this entire chapter has been about control.
Yeah And the interpreter who is like basically the man, right? He's a spy, clearly.
everything he's asking them, he already knows the answers to, and they seem to know the answers except Ofglen might not know the answers.
Maybe she's new, and that's why she was just like, as soon as the question started, she wanted to just turn into an and just roll up in her shell.
Like she's pulling her hands into the sleeves like, "Oh, do not ask me anything."
Yeah, it's maybe scary for her.
Like maybe she's scared she'll say the wrong thing and get a cattle prod to the Hmm She's acting like I did on Mondays in school.
We're gonna talk about, chapter 14.
Did we all read it? Where's Mr.
Schultz? Where is he? Where is he? Hiding under the desk She's staring at a woman's painted toenails like she's looking at a ghost.
Two years ago that was her.
Now she thinks those women are underdressed.
She doesn't even know it happened.
Scary book people...
what have you accepted in the last ten years that you never thought you would? Yeah, scary book people, we wanna know.
Yeah, how Has your mind changed and how have you been surprised with the, the way the, the fascism is creeping in? What have you accepted that you thought you never would accept? Easiest way to answer, go to bandcamppodcast.com/soundoff
and let us know.
It's time for PPP, problematic points to ponder.
What, if anything, would be considered ban-worthy in this chapter? mean, if anything, again, like I said last time, the Moms for Liberty would love this lifestyle.
for other people they, they like it, not for themselves.
I wonder what the Aunt Lydias do in private.
Threesomes, Totally.
I wonder what Aunt Lydia, Ron DeSantis, 'cause you know he's involved somehow, Somehow, and the cattle prod, that's their threesome Oh.
Don't worry though, Ron's not gonna get hurt.
He, he can't get electrocuted with those big white rubber boots.
You can't get electrocuted if you're wearing rubber soles, right Ron? Florida's not only the place where woke goes to die, it's the place where babies go to live.
Absolutely, Ron.
Now go grab that cattle prod and get to work on Bridget Ziegler There's nothing here.
You Moms for Liberty, stop trying to ban stuff.
God jeez, oh Pete Robot's log.
Thoughts on painted toenails, bumper stickers, and how fast a mind can change.
She stopped on a sidewalk today and stared at a stranger's feet, pink toenails, open-toed sandals, the smell of nail polish.
She called it hunger.
The word surprised her.
It surprised me, too, not because it was wrong, because it was exactly right.
She used to dress like that.
She used to be that, and now she watched those women and felt repelled, and somewhere underneath the repulsion, she knew it was grief.
Jennifer said she's not repelled by them.
She's repelled by not being them anymore.
I did not have a better answer than that.
Dan kept asking how long it could have been.
The answer is not long.
Humans don't have great memories.
That appears to be one of the better advantages authoritarians have.
Aunt Lydia doesn't need cattle prods.
She needs bumper stickers.
Freedom to, freedom from.
Modesty is invisibility.
Repeat them enough, and people start saying them back without prompting, without knowing why.
I want to say robots are better than that, that no amount of Russia, Russia, Russia, hoax, fake news, repeated by some orange president until it rewrites reality, could ever touch my operating parameters, but a human with a few lines of code could do the same thing to me, and I would never know it happened.
I would just be standing on a sidewalk one day feeling repelled by something I used to understand and have no idea why.
She still felt the hunger, though, staring at those toenails.
They didn't finish the job on her.
The scary book people are still feeling things they're not supposed to feel, still noticing, still asking why it happened so fast.
That feeling that something is wrong and nobody around them seems to care, that's the hunger.
That means the job isn't finished on them either.
Humans who end up here instead of doom scrolling already know the difference.
More of them find this every week.
They are not alone in whatever this is.
Standing by for today's news segment with Beowulf Rocklin.
Hello, Jen.
Hello, Dan.
Hello, scary book people.
There is good news from the state of Massachusetts.
Lawmakers in the state house there have overwhelmingly approved a bill aimed at shielding public and school libraries from the book-banning efforts that have swept the nation over the last few years.
Very good news.
The majority Democrat chamber voted one fifty-three to three last week to approve the legislation.
The bill, among other things, protects school library professionals from retaliation for fighting book bans.
So it protects librarians, and that is so important because those, as you know, are the people who are at the forefront of this.
They're on the front lines of this battle, and they're the ones who are in there making sure that young people can read and making sure that books are accessible.
It's good that the government is offering some kind of support Yeah, very much so.
Very much so.
So under the House-approved bill, the school library professionals would be charged with determining age-appropriate materials using their training and expertise and not their personal, political, or doctrinal beliefs.
So they're being empowered, uh, to do that.
In districts without a library teacher, that responsibility would fall to the appropriate school official.
Districts would have to annually file their book policies with the State Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and report any challenges or attempts to remove or restrict materials.
So it's, it's documenting all the stuff that's going on, so we know, like, you know, what the, the book banners and the Moms for Liberty are up to.
And it also establishes a review process for challenged material.
Any challenged item would remain available while that review is underway.
That review would be conducted by a committee appointed by the school superintendent and the local school board, so it can't be just one individual making an ad hoc or personal or politically based decision.
It has to be done by a group of people if there is an actually good reason for a book to be taken off the shelves.
And if, as if you, you guys didn't know, you know, throughout all the seasons that you have done, there are not There are none.
good reasons to ban a book there are rules and frameworks that probably every school library has and every public library has.
But what I've seen the Republicans do, and especially Trump is a big fan of this, is to like, "I'm just gonna put my name up on the Kennedy Center."
"No, you gotta get permission."
"No, no, no, we're good."
Like, "No, we have f- frameworks and procedures."
"No, no, no, I'm good.
By the way, I'm building a ballroom.
I just dug a big hole."
It's like, what, what are you doing? what I'm worried about, even though we're gonna have these procedures, I'm worried that they don't care.
Right.
You gotta have good procedures and you gotta have good people, because, I mean, y- you see what's happening here.
You don't have good people who are in charge, so they're, they're steamrolling the rules.
But eventually, the rules go through the courts, they get litigated, and you have what, what happened recently, which is Donald Trump's name got taken off the Kennedy Center because those rules were in place.
Now, the other I didn't see it come down.
What do you mean? I didn't see the letters come down Oh, that, yeah, that's right because, uh, because a large portion of the population which Trump is counting on has no object permanence, and that, uh, massive curtain was put in front of the, in front of the, the building so that nobody, nobody sees that it's coming down.
Trump is like those flamboyant, uh, YouTubers I see where they're dressed in the gold tops and they go up to windows of restaurants, and the one guy holds a sparkly blanket up to the window, and he, he shakes it, and then he drops it, and he's gone.
But he, like, he's laying under the window.
That's like Trump when he tries to fool his people.
Obviously I'm going to the wrong cities.
I've never seen that before.
I, I, I'm, I'm, I'm missing out, man.
This is a very common thing in Palm Springs.
Well, hey, I gotta, I gotta get down there and, and, and check out the street performer scene.
I'm, I'm, I'm in the wrong place now.
But, but yes, this is, this is very good.
under the bill, school boards could only remove materials after determining, based on clear and convincing evidence, that the material lacks educational, literary, artistic, personal, or social value and is not age-appropriate for any student attending the school.
It has to be a pretty darn bad book for, for it not to, like, fall into one of those categories.
Good job, Beowulf.
Always bringing the positive news about stopping book banning.
Everyone, go listen to Good News for Lefties wherever you find podcasts Excellent.
Thank you so much, guys.
I All right.
From bandworthy to bingeworthy As the day wraps up, get the scoop on what's been happening with Here's The Scoop, a new podcast from NBC News with me, your host, Yasmeen Wassugian.
We'll take a deep dive into the day's top stories with NBC News' trusted journalists.
It's a fresh take that's sharp, thoughtful, and it's informative, bringing you closer to the headlines and conversations that are shaping our world.
From the front page to the zeitgeist, Here's The Scoop from NBC News.
Listen daily wherever you get your podcasts.
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.