For a time they were everywhere — women clad in striking crimson cloaks, inspired by the Hulu series “The Handmaid’s Tale,” silently calling attention to threats to women’s reproductive rights, from Brett Kavanaugh’s 2018 Supreme Court nomination hearing to protests in the U.K., Ireland, Poland and Argentina.
Eight years after its premiere, the series adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel is coming to a much lower-key close, indicative of all that’s happened in that intervening time, and the toll that becoming an iconic symbol, far beyond a mere TV show, can creatively exact on any work of art.
The subject matter of “The Handmaid’s Tale” obviously lent itself to that, but when the show began its trek to the screen, few could have clearly anticipated the way real-life events would draw it further into the collision of politics and pop culture, an intersection as treacherous to navigate as it is increasingly difficult to avoid.