Populism and its mediatization: the case of The Handmaid's Tale

Not a day goes by without a reference made to populism – both within the scientific community and within the political context – to define the attitude or characteristics of parties, movements and political context as a whole. Despite the fact that the object of study has its roots in a remote past, the real “boom” of interest is very recent. In the last decades there has been a succession of monographic works, both of theoretical and comparative political science and history with an impulse to study especially the populist language, strategies for the conquest of power and propaganda, the relationship with democratic procedures and political representation, the social content of populist policies and, finally, the structure of populist movements. Such attention also seems to be echoed in the media system, as, in our case, the TV series. This work has the purpose of investigating how the phenomenon of populism has affected the serialized fictional production. Even if the Atwood’s book “The Handmaid’s Tale” was published during the cyberpunk wave of the 80s, belongs to late 2017 its adaptation in the homonymous Tv show. It not only expresses a dystopian near future but shows the populism appeal of governors and people. The show was analyzed through a grid searching for the main themes of populism: results that many of the scenes are related to populist behavior, supporting the increase of interest in the topic even by the worldwide success.