‘Don’t let the bastards grind you down’: Feminist resilience/resilient feminism in The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu, 2017–)

This article explores the tension that lies in construction of resilience, which is at once, hopeful and inspiring yet also danger positioning individual as responsible for lack welfare support available. In articulating these contradictory readings, I treat The Handmaid’s Tale a ‘site where meaning feminism(s) produced contested’ (Ferreday Harris, 2017: 240) television text whose storytelling techniques reflect what Jason Mittell (2015) refers to ‘narrative complexity’.