1 week Ago By Daisy Phillipson
The Handmaid’s Tale Season 6 will also be the last, and its themes are arguably more relevant than ever. Ironically, the Margaret Atwood novel upon which the Hulu series is based has faced multiple bans in the US. The long-running TV show will come to a close with its sixth and final chapter, which premiered the first three episodes on Hulu on April 8.
The trailer teases a Handmaid revolution, but before then, Gilead’s reign of terror is far from over. What’s left of the US government is now under threat thanks in part to Gilead’s propaganda tool: New Bethlehem , a “liberalized” territory where women can read, write, and work. But the same can’t be said for the rest of America.
This terrifying dystopia was first laid out in Atwood’s 1985 The Handmaid’s Tale novel, which has since been banned in certain institutions. Why The Handmaid’s Tale was banned Since it was first released, The Handmaid’s Tale book has been banned or faced calls for banning in a number of states across the US – in schools and libraries – due to its sexual content, profanity, anti-Christian allegations, and for featuring LGBTQ+ characters. It has appeared on the American Library Association’s list of most challenged books for three decades running, from 1990 to 2019, with some of the earliest reported bans occurring in the late ‘80s.
In 1992, the book was challenged in Waterloo, Iowa, schools due to concerns over profanity, sexually explicit material, and statements considered defamatory to minorities, God, women, and the disabled. The following year, it was removed from the reading list at Chicopee High School in Massachusetts for containing profanity and sexual content. Related “Brutal” Handmaid’s Tale scene scrapped after star refused to film it In 2006, a parent complained to the Judson school district superintendent that The Handmaid’s Tale was “sexually explicit and offensive to Christians”.
Although a committee of teachers and parents petitioned to have the book maintained, it was temporarily banned. These are just a few of the past cases, which have only escalated in recent years. According to the American Library Association, book bans and attempted bans have continued to reach record highs, reporting 695 challenges in the first eight months of 2023.
In 2025, The Handmaid’s Tale was among the books affected by Idaho’s HB 710 law, which restricts access of anyone under 18 to materials deemed “harmful to minors” in both schools and public libraries. This law led to the reclassification or removal of several classics, prompting legal challenges from publishers and free speech advocates who argue that the law’s definitions infringe upon First Amendment rights. The irony, of course, is hard to ignore: a story written as a warning about censorship, repression, and the control of women’s bodies is itself being censored in the real world.
Margaret Atwood fought back with “unburnable” book In 2022, following a stream of bans across the US, Margaret Atwood partnered with Penguin Random House to create a fireproof, “unburnable” copy of The Handmaid’s Tale. It was eventually auctioned off for $130,000, with the profits going to PEN America, a nonprofit that advocates for freedom of expression. The author went on to discuss the issue in a 2023 op-ed for The Atlantic , in which she wrote, “To those who seek to stop young people from reading The Handmaid’s Tale: Good luck with that.
It’ll only make them want to read it more.” Atwood continued, “It’s shunning time in Madison County, Virginia, where the school board recently banished my novel The Handmaid’s Tale from the shelves of the high-school library. I have been rendered ‘unacceptable.
’” “This episode is perplexing to me, in part because my book is much less sexually explicit than the Bible, and I doubt the school board has ordered the expulsion of that. Possibly, the real motive lies elsewhere,” she wrote. Atwood speculated whether the board had acted “under the mistaken belief that The Handmaid’s Tale is anti-Christian,” saying that the story is actually partly inspired by the Bible.
“The novel sets an inward faith and core Christian values – which I take to be embodied in the love of neighbor and the forgiveness of sins – against totalitarian control and power-hoarding cloaked in a supposed religiousness that is mostly based on the earlier scriptures in the Bible.” Find out when the next episode of the TV adaptation drops with our guide to The Handmaid’s Tale Season 6 release schedule . We’ve also got recaps on Season 6 Episode 1 , Episode 2 , and Episode 3 .
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