this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2024
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Norm macdonald was somewhat inexplicably outraged by this book and Atwood in general, and constantly trashed her and handmaids tale on Twitter.
https://www.thewrap.com/norm-macdonald-handmaids-tale/
I think he turned a little more toward Christianity near the end of his life, so maybe that explains why the book made him upset.
he almost never posted anything very seriously, or really ever presented himself publicly in a completely serious manner, but every time he talked about Atwood or hating a handmaid's tale, which was many times, he sounded dead serious.
at times he was explaining how ridiculous the premise of her book was, before The Supreme Court struck down female bodily autonomy and health care.
I had a personal friend do the exact same thing, explaining to me how he thought sci-fi novels were ridiculous because you can't have oppression in the future since progress is always moving forward.
first, I tried to explain that history does not precede solely in a linear fashion, which he disagreed with.
then The Supreme Court and State governments outlawed medical care for women and I was like "this is kind of what I was talking about".
progress not being guaranteed with time passing.
I've never read the book. But it's wild how devout Christians never see Christian radicalism as the problem. Literally anything can be radicalized.
IHMO, if you just look at it like any other form of Tribalism (i.e. Political, National and even Sports) it absolutelly makes sense that people whose identity is a Religion (or a Political Party, Nation or even Sports club) cannot emotionally accept that those of "their tribe" are bad since one of the core foundations of Tribalism is exactly that "we" are good and it's the "others" that are bad.
The massive and for them extremelly important mental and emotional construct of self-validation and self-aggrandizing such people have based on their identity as member of a tribe (all those "we members-of-tribe are something-good" beliefs) - often at the cost of personal achievement recognition or as compensation for lack of personal achievement - would collapse if they accepted that the basic axiom of "membership of the tribe makes/proves people good/superior" is not true, so at the most basic psychological level they're driven to not question that axiom and to deny anything that might disprove it.
You're right about how they view their "tribe". I think it's interesting how tribalism unfolds though. At times you have ostracization (RINO, sects, gatekeeping). But sometimes it's staunch defense. You could see this in real time after January 6th when people couldn't decide if the insurrectionists were ANTIFA or patriots. It's just interesting when it goes one way or the other. Hell, in 2016 Trump went from the crazy guy in the room to the core of the party.
There's Progress in Technology and Science, but Socially and Psychologically Humans have barelly changed in millenia.
I think people often people confuse Scientific and Technological Progress with general progress, when for Human Society in general it's really more of a case of Same Monkeys, Better Tools.
(All of this IMHO)
He was more conservative than he let on.
https://jacobin.com/2021/10/norm-macdonald-anti-politics-anti-comedy-snl-subversion-stand-up
"He was more conservative than he let on."
no he wasn't. or at least there isn't any evidence of that.
he was a private person and was exactly as conservative as he let on publicly.
norm occasionally publicly talked about his politics, and also how he didn't like to talk about politics in general.
that article is about how he was anti-political and didn't like to disclose personal beliefs, not about how he was a secret conservative.
it's a little gossipy, but it's pop-culture spin on a few off-hand public comments over his entire lifetime of public appearances, not private, new information that changes anything already known to the general public.
How does your friend explain the "linearity" of the Dark Ages?
I asked about Egypt specifically and the rise and fall of empires in general, but apparently that was "not the same thing".
civilization advancing, stagnating, and regressing is not the same as civilization advancing, stagnating, and regressing.
his main stumbling block was that there was still birth control that he understood 200 years in the future.
he said there shouldn't be any pills anymore, because there's no way there would still be pills in the future.
I was like well there were pills 200 years ago from today.
but apparently "that's not the same thing".
so similar medical technology existing 200 years apart is not the same as similar medical technology existing 200 years apart.
and I was like maybe they put all their innovation into creating new materials for spaceships and they had a ain't broke don't fix it attitude toward birth control.
He's like yeah, but there's no way that any sort of technology like that could ever really go backwards.
and I had just watched this video about this specific diaphanous fiber weave that was like the most popular and technically advanced weave of all time that only the wealthy Romans wore, and it was due to a specific weaving technology for these super delicate fragile fibers, and that technology was not funded as rome went bankrupt and then was gradually forgotten and lost for centuries as the local weavers died out and didn't pass on their knowledge, so instead of some insane thread count, the leading weaving expert from that region of the world today can still only match like 30% of the thread count with modern technology and techniques.
and he was like "that's not the same thing".
so technology going backwards is not the same as technology going backwards.
how dull and bewildering an exchange that was.
but riveting to read and write about!
Norm was well-read, so if I were to guess he objected purely on literary grounds (the somewhat juvenile premise, the extreme lack of subtlety, etc.). He liked Russian classics which tend to be more layered.
norm's own autobiography is a collection of fictional stories auntie joked about literature, I see no evidence he gets particularly outraged over every novel following this standards and rigors of classic lit and this is the single offender he chooses to attack repeatedly?
I don't see how you can label the premise as even somewhat juvenile.
The premise is about women losing their civil rights in a society run by religious extremism.
gendered oppression based on religious extremism was part of the founding of a lot of countries, never stopped happening and now is happening even more, globally.
there are also books far less subtle with far more ridiculous premises that he has never commented on, although he chose this book and this author specifically to consistently sincerely lambast and insult.
The only way that makes sense as the only literary object of his unhumorous ire is that it offended something deeply personal to him, like his newly strengthened Christian sensibilities, which apparently he took seriously, even when talking to people in interviews.
If that's the case, there's any number of more overtly anti-Christian books out there that he could have criticised. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it seems unlikely.
It's basically YA, and one of those books that people cite so much that it gets obnoxious ("1984 waSn'T suPpoSeD tO be aN inStrucTioN mAnuaL")
"...that he could have criticised"
Norm took belief pretty seriously and didn't seem interested in the criticism of religion in general, and frequently stated he didn't like wasting time, so I doubt he would have read many books he didn't find interesting, while we know he read atwoods the handmaid's tale.
"...it seems unlikely"
that someone who took religions seriously openly talking about Christian faith and his respect for Christianity around the same time he began vocally persecuting an author and their work that criticized the Christian faith specifically?
seems pretty likely.
"It's basically YA..."
that describes accessibility to readership, not the nature of the premise.
The premise of religious extremism infecting and overthrowing government, leading to the gendered elimination of civil rights and bodily autonomy.
that the book is accessible to young adults does not make its premise juvenile.
those are exclusive characteristics.
maybe you didn't read this book? or you don't understand the difference between a literary premise and a reading level.
Yeah I'm out, I'm not getting pulled into a r/books tier argument about what is and is not written for teenagers. I've already had my fill of those on the other site.
"...argument about what is and is not written for teenagers."
still not at all the point.
you're mistaking premise complexity for reading accessibility, neither of which make any sense in context.
"if i were to guess..."
your foundation is assumptions based on the opposite of what Norm said and wrote.
you can read the article I posted above so you don't have to keep guessing outside of the thread's context.
Hey, I'd be honoured to have coffee with her. She's a legend. That doesn't make HMT not a YA book. There's a reason it's part of so many high school curricula alongside Fahrenheit 451 and Brave New World and 1984 and Catcher in the Rye. I'm not saying those are bad books by any means, but they aren't especially sophisticated. I had the same problem with the much-hyped Babel which, although I align politically with it, was as subtle as being hit in the face with a sledgehammer engraved with "colonialism bad".