UK Edition
Ofcom receives complaints about ‘torture porn’ and violence in new Handmaid's Tale series as viewers switch off
Channel 4 has defended the second series of The Handmaid's Tale after viewers complained to Ofcom about gratuitous violence.
Many have said the show, which includes a scene where a woman has her eye removed, has become too graphic to watch, saying they could no longer watch "torture porn".
The television show is based on the best-selling book by Margaret Atwood, in which women are raped and forced into slavery in a dystopian patriarchal society.
The first season of The Handmaid’s Tale was shown in Britain last year to critical acclaim, and told the story as written in the original novel.
However, the new season has been written from scratch, although Atwood has given it her approval. Ofcom, the broadcasting watchdog, has received two formal complaints about graphic violence in the first episode, which aired on May 20.
Labour MP Jess Phillips, who previously worked for a domestic violence charity, told The Sunday Telegraph the violence was “gratuitous”.
She said: "I have been watching it and largely still enjoying it but I did find the violence in the first episode a bit gratuitous.
“When I worked in Domestic Abuse services I found that I couldn't watch any violence against women on the TV as I had to remain distance from the horror that the women I sat amongst had suffered, however I think its portrayal has a place but always the threat of violence and the sinister coercion tells the story better. Off screen menace is always more effective."
Author Rebecca Reid wrote on Telegraph.co.uk: "Watching the horrific torture of women should not be easy. It should not be fun. And it should serve a purpose. I’ve ceased to believe that it does have a purpose in the Handmaid’s Tale."
Viewers wrote of their shock at the violence on social media, with feminist writer Sian Norris tweeting: “Think I'm opting for British Scandal over Handmaid's Tale. Everything I've read has said its gone full power torture & VAWG. I know what violent men do to women. I don't need to watch it dramatised on TV.”
One Twitter user said: “ Second series is a huge disappointment. Repetition of misogynistic violence to women unnecessary- we got that in the excellent first series. I’m out. #tortureporn". Another wrote: "I watched the first episode and haven't been able to watch it since. It's unspeakably grim.”
Some compared it to horror series SAW, with one joking: “That feeling when you watch the start of Season 2 of the Handmaid's Tale and you feel like you need to watch a Saw film just to see something less violent and harrowing.”
Channel 4 responded to these complaints, telling The Sunday Telegraph: “The Handmaid’s Tale is a multi-award-winning and critically-acclaimed drama based on Margaret Atwood’s bestselling novel.
“We are confident that the series complies fully with the Ofcom Broadcasting Code and each episode is preceded with on air continuity announcements forewarning viewers about the nature of the content."
Senior writer on the show Kira Snyder agreed that the second season was more harrowing than the first, recommending viewers watch something more light-hearted afterwards.
She told Refinery29: “It’s a brutal world that we’re depicting. “If people want to follow up The Handmaid's Tale with an episode of The Mindy Project as a palate cleanser, I completely get that.”
However, Ms Snyder said the writers try not to veer into “pornographic misery,” explaining: “We don't want to be exploitative, and we need to keep picturing the hope and the resistance and how even in the worst circumstances people's better natures can survive.”
She warned that later episodes in the series, which is currently airing on Channel 4 are going to be difficult to watch for some, as it deals with dark themes around motherhood and getting pregnant.
Ms Atwood told Hay Festival this week that fans need to “chill out”, explaining: “It’s a television series. If you’re going to have a series you can’t kill off the central character and you also can’t have the central character escape to safety in episode one of season two. It’s not going to happen.”
Campaigners have protested the amount of violence against women in UK television shows. The Fall, a hit BBC drama, was described as a "rape fantasy" by critics, and accused of glamourising violence against women in 2016, while last year.
The Night Manager came under fire from campaigners against domestic abuse after a woman was seen being beaten.
Earlier this year, feminist commentator Germaine Greer criticised the graphic imagery in scandi noir drama The Bridge, which shows a graphic depiction of a female murder victim, who has been buried up to her neck and stoned to death.