The Handmaid’s Tale premieres on Wednesday on Hulu. Elisabeth Moss has been promoting the series for weeks, and I think she’s handling the sensitive questions really well. I mean, this is a miniseries based on a famous dystopian novel and the subject matter is: theocracy, women’s reproductive rights, women’s rights in general, how easily American democracy can collapse and how men really behave when they have all the power. Moss and author Margaret Atwood already did an excellent joint interview with Time Mag a few weeks ago, which I covered, in which they discussed feminism and how, fundamentally, women’s rights are human rights. Moss has not shied away from talking about feminism and women’s rights, but she is trying to speak with some nuance, as many actors would given the sensitive subject matter.

Which brings me to Moss’s recent comments about whether The Handmaid’s Tale is a “feminist story.” This is what Moss said during a Q&A session at the Tribeca Film Festival:

Moss was answering a question drawing a line between her character Offred and her Mad Men role of Peggy Olson when she circled back to the moderator’s previous query as to whether the cast considered the story a feminist one. “I mean they’re both human beings. They’re the same height. I really echo what [castmate Madeline Brewer] said, honestly, for me it’s not a feminist story—it’s a human story, because women’s rights are human rights. I never intended to play Peggy as a feminist; I never intended to play Offred as a feminist. They’re women and they are humans. Offred’s a wife, a mother, a best friend. She has a job, and she is a person who is not supposed to be a hero she falls into it and she kind of does what she has to do to survive to find her daughter. It’s about love, honestly, so much of this story. For me, I never approach anything with any sort of political agenda. I approach it from a very human place, I hope.”

[From The AV Club]

There’s been some backlash about this on social media and beyond. On one side, I genuinely think that Moss and the people involved with this series are simply trying to sell the show to the widest audience possible, meaning they’re worried that some people will refuse to watch it if it’s being billed as feminist propaganda (a term one of the producers used, like “feminist propaganda” is such a bad idea). And while I understand the tricky business side, I also think that’s bullsh-t. This is one of the most famous dystopian novels in the history of the English language, and one of the reasons for the story’s cultural longevity is because it’s so prescient about the realities of how easily women can lose their power in a society. It’s not feminist propaganda – it’s a cautionary tale and it’s a vital conversation. The people involved with the series need to lean into that history and those realities.

On the other side, I think Moss is making a completely valid point – if women’s rights are human rights, why not say this is a series about human rights and human dignity and human autonomy over one’s body?

Photos courtesy of Hulu, WENN and Getty.