By: Noha Sweid
In dystopian films, cinema transcends reality, manifesting as a critical tool that sheds light on the profound impact of religious extremism when it becomes a repressive political instrument dominating societies, particularly women. These films reveal a grim portrayal of rigid religious systems that exploit religion to justify the oppression of women, stripping them of their right to freedom and identity under distorted interpretations.
These works go beyond merely depicting suffering; they delve into analyzing the social and political patterns that produce such oppression. Through their characters, genres, and colors, cinema employs color as a tool for analyzing and symbolizing the struggles of women against forces of repression. Colors are used as potent indicators connecting a character’s psychological state to their social context, allowing for an interpretation of their worlds and conflicts.
Colors thus become an expressive medium that intensifies cinema’s vision of women’s daily battles for freedom, documenting their resilience in confronting oppressive systems. They also embody their psychological states with complex symbolic dimensions, reflecting their challenges and latent strength, as seen in the 1990 American film The Handmaid’s Tale, adapted from the novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood.
Directed by Volker Schlöndorff, the film utilizes colors as symbolic tools to express the layers of society in “The Republic of Gilead,” portraying a dystopian future ruled by a strict theocratic authority grounded in rigid religious interpretation. In this society, women are stripped of their individual identities and forced into predefined roles serving the regime. Women are classified into rigidly defined strata, each distinguished by a specific color with its unique characteristics that reflect the social role of women within that stratum.
The maids, for instance, wear red, while the commanders’ wives wear blue, and the workers wear grayish green. The choice of colors in the film is not random or merely aesthetic; it serves as a sharp critique reflecting the power structure in Gilead. It highlights women’s essence, interactions, and experiences within closed societies. Red, blue, and green represent the primary colors in color theory, forming the foundation for all life’s colors, excluding black, commonly associated with death, injustice, and authority.
This deliberate choice of colors suggests that despite the differences in women’s roles and experiences, they share a collective spectrum of human experiences. The interplay of these colors produces new hues, symbolizing shared struggles and sacrifices. While these colors may merge symbolically, the women remain united in their suffering, pain, and resistance. Their colors converge without blending into one unified hue, portraying each as part of a larger canvas. In contrast, black—the color of Gilead’s commanders—remains entirely separate, symbolizing death and oppression without interaction or life.
The color purple emerges as a blend of primary colors: red (representing physical violence), blue (symbolizing social deceit and psychological constraints), and gray-green (denoting exploitation and forced labor). These colors intertwine in The Handmaid’s Tale not only through the costumes but also in the décor, lighting, and cinematography, amplifying the tension and pressure endured by women in this miserable society.
Purple in the film reflects the convergence of social strata and the women within all the colors they wear. It connects physical and psychological violence and the social distortion that affects them all. This blending not only illustrates the interconnectedness of women’s strata but also symbolizes how oppression and humiliation become intrinsic to their imposed social identities, with each color narrating its bitter tale.
Thus, colors in The Handmaid’s Tale are more than fleeting visual details; they are expressive tools that contribute to portraying identity, class, and the violence inflicted upon women. They help build the story of social marginalization and the hidden resistance against an oppressive system.
Offred (previously Kate), the story’s protagonist played by Natasha Richardson, is one of the “Handmaids” wearing red attire. Stripped of their humanity and true names, these women become mere vessels for reproduction, serving the elite ruling families in Gilead, a society suffering from a demographic crisis caused by environmental pollution and declining fertility rates. Women’s bodies become a new battleground as they are forced into assumed identities, integrating them into the property of male commanders, their names serving as stamps erasing their individuality.
The color red carries strong connotations of violence and lust. However, in the film’s context, it becomes a symbol of harsh physical violence. As a foundational element in the composition of purple, red embodies their physical exploitation, marking the daily pressure exerted on their bodies within this unjust social order.
Offred faces coerced submission and a reality that denies her will and identity. Yet, as she clings to her sense of self, she begins to reclaim her lost pieces, defying the brutality of the system that has stripped her of all her rights.
Her struggle begins with an effort to retain memories of her past life—remembering the names of her loved ones, her husband, and her daughter, from whom she was forcibly separated. This internal conflict evolves into a silent rebellion as she takes risky steps, such as reading forbidden words and keeping secrets, reclaiming fragments of freedom in a world that denies her humanity.
Through her relationship with the Commander, Offred transcends her assigned role, exposing the fragility of the system. She exploits the Commander’s complicity to glimpse a different world, one that testifies to the moral fallacy of the regime. Here, she connects with characters who share her pain and desire for liberation, such as workers and servants, united in their longing for revolution.
Purple appears in Offred’s life and psychological state as a heavy symbol, embodying a mixture of oppression and a desire for liberation. It carries the contradiction between pain and hope, often symbolizing rebellion intertwined with scars.
When she becomes involved in the secret resistance, purple serves as a hidden force behind her dangerous and forbidden decisions in Gilead, reflecting her deep yearning to reclaim the life that was taken from her—a life imbued with freedom and dignity, even at great personal cost.
Blue, traditionally a symbol of peace and stability, takes on complex connotations in The Handmaid’s Tale. It represents the harshness of social deceit, appearing in the attire of the commanders’ wives, who hold high social status but are often unable to pregnancy and childbirth, relying on Handmaids for this purpose. Despite the stability and security the color suggests, here it exposes the profound tension and repression masked by traditions that impose a coercive role on wives and deceive them with a false sense of safety.
When blue meets red, it forms purple, hinting at inner fragmentation and conflict. The wives display a blend of artificial composure and concealed turmoil, as their inner selves erode under the weight of their social roles. Serena Joy, portrayed by Faye Dunaway, embodies these contradictions, oscillating between sadness and cruelty.
Her presence during the ritualistic rape of Offred by her husband is one of the film’s most harrowing moments, illustrating Serena’s profound tension and inner collapse. In this scene, purple strongly reflects the conflict between her social duty as a wife and her deep anguish at witnessing her husband assault another woman.
Green-gray, worn by the “Marthas” or workers, symbolizes calmness devoid of profound emotional engagement. While green typically signifies growth and renewal, here it appears muted, lifeless, reflecting a state of stagnation. It portrays obedience and the drudgery imposed upon them within a harsh system, signifying continuous exploitation and the constraints binding them to predefined roles.
This subdued shade of green is part of the purple spectrum, expressing excessive compliance born of complete helplessness. This helplessness not only stems from the absence of resistance but also reflects a societal and psychological constraint, forcing them to accept their reality without genuine hope for change.
The film relies heavily on shades of color as a cinematic tool to reveal the depth of internal and external struggles faced by women under an authoritarian regime. The nuanced purples symbolize social violence and tension, capturing the turmoil between suppressed pain and emotional transformation gripping the characters.
In addition to colors, Schlöndorff uses confined spaces to symbolize the isolation of characters in separate, enclosed units, reflecting the loneliness experienced by women in their internal lives or public spheres. Wide-angle shots in some scenes emphasize systemic oppression, reducing women to mere tools in Gilead’s society.
Whether the film successfully captures the spirit of the novel or not, it presents a profound visual and chromatic interpretation of women’s suffering. Ultimately, the color purple reflects the shared oppression endured by all women, with each stratum bearing specific aspects of violence—physical or psychological.
Purple emerges as a unifying color linking violence and domination to the rigid social structure constraining every woman, whether a Handmaid, a wife, or a worker. It represents the collective state of violation experienced by women in the film, regardless of their societal status or attire, all under the dominion of a single system enforcing submission to its harsh conditions.
