Cheyenne: We are so excited to get into our topic today, but we have a little housekeeping to get out of the way first.
Rachel: Our show is made possible, in part, by our patrons on Patreon for as little as $3 a month, you can get episode shoutouts, access to topic polls, and be able to listen to hilarious outtakes.
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Cheyenne: Alright, so today. This is super exciting. Something that you may have noticed this episode is a little different than our usual. Typically we have. . . I don't know how to describe it, like
Rachel: like a set budget topic.
Cheyenne: Yeah!
Rachel: that we discuss.
Cheyenne: Yeah
Rachel: For the most part.
Cheyenne: Yeah, and I mean, we make that fun, at least we think so...
Rachel: mhm
Cheyenne: So this one's a little bit different because we are recording what we're calling little mini-episodes where we get to do something a little bit more fun than our usual fun. These ones will be anything really that kind of comes to our mind, that's not super serious finance related. So, this one, we're going to talk about the finance and economics of a TV show. I don't know that will always follow this format specifically, but it'll pretty much always be something like this where it's a little bit it kind of pulls two of our worlds together where we both like reading, watching TV movies that kind of stuff and we like finance so this one kind of like combines those but these mini-episodes will kinda always be something fun and a little bit more creative and out there where we get to be more nerdy than we usually are.
Rachel: Yeah.
Both: Laughter
Rachel: I thought it was a little bit funny and ironic that you use the word fun to describe this one because while I think it's fun if we are talking about a Handmaid's Tale today, which is super good, both as a book and a TV show, but it's not necessarily what I would describe as fun. So. . .
Cheyenne: Very true. Something noteworthy. I read the book. I really liked the book, and I haven't quite read the, I think, was it a prequel that was released after the original I don't remember what the order of the books were.
Rachel: Mmm, The Testaments?
Cheyenne: Yeah.
Rachel: So I have not read that one either.
Cheyenne: Okay, so I haven't read that but I read the books quite a few years ago I was pretty young. And, well, read the book not books. . . book and I had no issue with that, but I for my mental health cannot watch the series. It's just it's very stressful for me.
Rachel: That’s fair.
Cheyenne: And it's just like to real or to like to close to being too real or what the deal is but I cannot do it.
Rachel: I have watched the TV show, but I will say, I am working on season three, which is the one that just finished. Right now, because it came out in 2020. And it turned out that 2020 with a TV show about a dystopian future was just a terrible combination for me. I'm working through it now and enjoying the season, but it's pretty gritty.
Cheyenne: It is. And I think that that's. I don't anticipate they'll, they'll always all be super heavy series that we picked this just happened to be the first one. And I've already thought of a couple of characters from shows and series and movies that I'd like to do this with because I think it's just kind of fun. But this one I also very specifically thought to myself, I wanted to make sure that we put it out there right away with this one about so that if anybody else has the same issue that I do where it's just too much like you can skip this you don't have to listen to it.
Rachel: Right! With the, with the finance piece, I would also just add that I'm not anticipating in the course of our conversation that we're going to get into, frankly, a lot of the violence that is inherent to the series.
Cheyenne: Mm-hmm.
Rachel: So, do with that, what you will.
Cheyenne: I feel like that's worth noting as well. Yeah, that's a good point.
Rachel: So I kind of as I was. . . having read the books and watched the TV show. I was trying to think about how to like describe what are we seeing visually on TV and what are we reading on the page. And I feel like what it really is described is like communism in wartime right because like in the books the Handmaid's always go to the market to get like the foods items, but they basically have like ration tickets but because it's a dystopian future and women aren't allowed to read, there's pictures on the ration tickets of like the food item that you're able to get and you can like save your ration tickets for like a steak or whatever but there's that communism piece that comes in when people are. . . there are people like the high levels of leadership that don't have to stockpile their ration tickets and stuff like I get those nice things.
Cheyenne: So in preparing for today's episode I actually I had to go through and do a little bit of research on, specifically the economics involved in the series because it had been so long since I'd read the books And as I mentioned, I really struggled with the TV show so I just don't watch it. I haven't tried to I tried watching the first episode, right after the series were released and I was just like, nope, and really long time. And I had forgot about the, the use of those, those ration tickets I thought that was just kind of interesting. But that was something that was pulled in because really it's just like when you read it, it seems like something that would never actually be used in real life. Maybe we're just at the cusp of an age where we would know this and I don't know that anybody may be younger than us but I guess I don't know. They really did use these, like you said in like in war times, a thing that were used I.
Rachel: Right.
Cheyenne: So it's, it's an interesting. It's an interesting pull, because, man. That took a turn in my head. So, the reason I think it's so interesting is because when you specifically when you're talking about communism. . . There is an argument made that if everybody just had what they needed that there would be less violence. And without getting too much into it something that we learn in pretty early on in the series is that that's not true. Everybody has just you know what they need and, maybe, maybe they need a little bit more I truly can't remember that piece of it but I do think it was just like basic needs have been met. But I think the thing that that ruins it is that there is the ability to like save up those ration tickets and get something nicer and so there is that incentive to steal from people, essentially.
Rachel: Right. Well, and I feel like the problem with this type of economic system is really the problem with any type of economic system is that you assume that everybody is just kind of like even Steven. We're all going to be happy with having our basic needs met. And you basically have to be a complete moron. To realize that that is not the case at all. When you live in a society built on patriarchy, as we do, the people who've always been told that they deserve power are going to continue being like, “Well, of course I should get more I deserve more”. right you've been told her whole life that you deserve more than those women or this non-white people and that's the problem to my mind anyway.
Cheyenne: Mm hmm. I think that. . . Honestly I wish I remembered more about the series because the little tiny bits that I do remember here in there. . . it was so long ago, and I'm. . .
Rachel: This is totally what you do when you're getting ready to record a, an episode that really is supposed to just be for fun, I did look up a journal article from Pacific Affairs. It's called Communist Party and Financial Institutions: Institutional Design of China's Post-Reform Rural Credit Cooperatives. Oh yeah.
Cheyenne: That is one hell of a title.
Rachel: Right, right, a thrilling read. Because I thought you know like Yeah, we do actually have a pretty good example of a communist country that's like a major financial powerhouse in the global economy, and how it ties into The Handmaid's Tale, for me anyway. Um, so, China has what are called rural credit cooperatives, it's basically like a credit union, for rural people right like co-op model that we're all familiar with, you know, in theory, owner owned and operated, only they're not. I'm just gonna read this from the article that's, I didn't think I could paraphrase it effectively. The author of this article says that “rural households consistently contribute more than 80 percent of total deposits, but account for only one-third of total loans.” And these are the only financial services that rural people in China, which most people in China, live in rural communities have access to. So basically what you've got in communism is what we see in The Handmaid's Tale. The money is there. Most of the people aren't getting it.
Cheyenne: Right. We really did just go from talking about The Handmaid's Tale just straight up talking about communism.
Rachel: Yeah,
Cheyenne: Whatever. It's fine. I get into this debate, significantly more frequently than one would think. Communism, in theory, is great. Like, it works. The thing that makes it not work are assholes.
Rachel: Right like people are the worst!
Cheyenne: They are.
Rachel: We suck.
Cheyenne: We do and it's, it's hard. I get that, like, And I think that I think that communism was one of those things that works really well in small groups. So like if we could just do like pockets. Communism like that would be perfect, but like, it's, it's so hard to make it work on any type of a national level. Because people in power, just somehow become the worst.
Rachel: Right! The other thing that I have to imagine that makes the whole thing work. . . of course like we like in the books right you get the impression that I got to stop saying books, plural, in the book.
Cheyenne: I did the same thing.
Rachel: You get the impression that there was a war and now it's over and then in the TV show right like the women are fighting back and so like the worst still going. Either way, you get the impression that a lot of people that were there are not there anymore either killed by the war, killed by the totalitarian state for disobeying the religious right, or just fled the country as refugees and left all their stuff behind. So, in country, presumably where there's not a ton of manufacturing but you still got all these clothes and whatnot. That can continue to be repurposed for the population that remains. And how say this vacant, that can be used for the people that remains. And I imagined that that is also probably super helpful in just keeping things trucking.
Cheyenne: I haven't like I haven't thought about the series, like the like the TV series, in a long time. And I like I said I haven't read the book . . .
Rachel: I think it's been it's been at least 10 years for me but probably more.
Cheyenne: I, so I read it when I was a student in Upward Bound definitely been more than 10 years for a few more than. Yeah. We're getting to uncomfortable numbers now, I’ll have to reread it because it probably oh gosh it's probably even worse now. But I didn't realize until we were preparing for this, how, like how well written. It is and how ahead of her time Margaret Atwood was with this.
Rachel: Mm hmm.
Cheyenne: It's kind of incredible, and I used to like I used to try and get people to read it and they're like, Oh, you know what is it about this was before it was like this huge Hulu hit. It's been one of my favorite books for years. And you would think that because of that I would remember more about it but I don't. I was just described it as people I was like, It's like 1984, but feminist,
Rachel: Basically. Yeah. It's the one thing that I've always found the books. It stuck with me. And when I don't have anything else to think about, I don't think about this as they described like the typing of prayers, when you walk past the print shop on your way back for the market Do you remember that.
Cheyenne: No.
Rachel: She described it as like printers that were just like constantly printing out prayers that people would phone in like as though, like having them written would make them more likely to come true. And as I've gotten to be like a boring adult I’ve thought about, like, how does that component work? Like is it like did they have this massive amount of like infrastructure of people who are like typing remotely, to like print these out, or is it like a voice to text style situation where, like, that's the one of technology that Gilead has held on to to print out these prayers.
Cheyenne: That is interesting. I also like the cynic in me immediately goes to, why would they waste time and money on that and then I went, son of a bitch because they, they want to know what people are praying for just in case it's something they need to interfere with hate that.
Rachel: The other part of the wonders, like, Is it because it's kind of inferred in the book that this is what's happening. But is it just like a show, so that people that are walking by, are like, look at how devout out all my neighbors are they're phoning in all these prayers but nobody's really doing it.
Cheyenne: Maybe and now I'm like, Okay, I gotta read it
Rachel: I know after I had to read it.
Cheyenne: Yeah, well we have it on audiobook. Because that's how I got Bridget to read it was, she I got her to listen to the audiobook. And she watches the series from time to time. It's one of those things that she'll watch when I'm not around because. . . for as cynical as I am of as person like I'm real squishy with my feelings like I can't watch that shit.
Rachel: I mean, I feel like it's like you said at the beginning, like, It's so real.
Cheyenne: Mm hmm.
Rachel: Right like we've got the whole pro life movement in the United States, it's not a far leap from pro life to women who could have babies we're going to force you to have as many as you can before you die. Yeah, I mean, like . . One other thing that I was thinking about today, with regard to the series, If female rage. If patriarchal societies could be monetized Holy moly we'd be rolling in it.
Cheyenne: Mhm, I mean, it probably could be except that you know men control the economy, blah blah blah, breaking us down but like, if they could find a way to make money off of female rage, then there'd be a lot of money in it.
Rachel: Mhm
Cheyenne: I hate, hate everything really.
Rachel: That's why we're friends.
Cheyenne: really angry about
Rachel: most things but not at each other
Cheyenne: Yes, it’s perfect! We just happened to hate pretty much all of the same things.
Rachel: So I think just quickly wrapping up the actual episode. I would like to know, has any of you that are listening. Have you ever read Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood or watch the show? And if you have, what do you think? You should definitely let us know, ‘cause we’d love to continue this conversation on social media or over email or even in another episode with you.
Cheyenne: Yes.
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