The Handmaid’s Tale is back on Hulu for a third season and, to market the new run of episodes, the streaming service organised a large-scale art show in New York City. Specifically, it installed 140 mirrored statues of female figures at Madison Square Park’s Flatiron Plaza.
The reasoning behind the project is a slightly depressing one, reflecting the theme of gender inequality in the dystopian show based on Margaret Atwood’s novel. The new female statues were placed to make up the difference between the city’s already-existing male and female statues. Yeah, of 150 commemorative statues, only five are currently female.
“We thought that it was really unfortunate and a stat that should be brought to light, given history and the countless ways that women have helped shape our country and fought for equality,” says Michal Shapira, senior vice president of news content partnerships and ad sales for Ignite at WarnerMedia, to Adweek.
Alongside the statues, which were up yesterday (June 7), actresses wearing the iconic red dresses and white bonnets of the handmaids handed out flyers about gender disparity by two of NYC’s female statues, including one for Gertrude Stein.
Unfortunately, the whole project only ran for a single day, but hopefully the awareness it raised will inspire positive change. Organisations such as women.nyc have already pledged to build monuments celebrating female achievement, but with such a big gap a bit of help definitely can’t hurt.