<aside> 💡 Erasing Race: Adapting The Handmaid's Tale
In this essay, I aim to disentangle the problematic representation of people of color in the television adaptation of the novel The Handmaid's Tale. This representation ranges from the excommunication of people of color as Children of Ham in the 1985 novel by Margaret Atwood to racializing as well as simultaneously inadvertently deracializing them in the 2016 adaptation for the Hulu television series. I will analyze this intersection through the conceptual frameworks of Linda Hutcheon's discussion of racializing and deracializing. I will do so by juxtaposing two contradictory categories of the representation of race in the Hulu adaptation of the novel, respectively the representation of the characters of Moira, Luke & Hannah on the one hand and Ofmatthew/Nathalie on the other hand. By doing so I argue that casting people of color in this television adaptation of this novel does not automatically ensure a racialization as long as it fails to explicitly engage with the problematic underlying racialized dynamics.
Keywords: adaptation studies, interpretercreator, casting, racializing, deracializing.
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<aside> 💡 An article I coauthored with David Geneste on the importance of teaching visual literacy. [Dutch]
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Geneste, David & Waleson, Anja. 'Kijken naar de vijfde vaardigheid: Beeldgeletterdheid in de levende talen.' Levende Talen Magazine. editie 6. pp 10-15, 2018
©️ Anja Waleson → You can find me at the intersection of education, literature and activism.