Stepford Wives Author: The idea of moving to the picture-perfect town of Stepford for Joanna and her family almost seems too wonderful to be true. It is, indeed. The quiet facade of the village conceals a terrible secret, and whoever learns of it will never be the same. The book Stepford Wives, whose title has entered the American lexicon, is both a psychological thriller and a biting indictment of a society that is fixated on youth and beauty.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira_Levin
Ira Levin’s parody book The Stepford Wives was released in 1972. The plot takes an unusual turn when Joanna Eberhart, a talented photographer and new mother in her charming Connecticut neighborhood, thinks the submissive women in her new neighborhood are robots created by their husbands. The title of the novel was used as the working title for both 1975 original and the 2004 remake.
The 1975 version and its three television successors were likewise created by Scherick. Scherick was credited with producing the 2004 version of the movie despite passing away. In a letter to the New York Times dated March 27, 2007, Levin claimed that the fictional town of Stepford was based on Wilton, where he had lived in the 1960s. A significant metropolis, Stamford, is around 15 miles (24 kilometers) from Wilton.
Loud rock music is being played upstairs by Bobbie’s husband and child to block out the screams of dread. Bobbie uses a knife to threaten her ex-friend as the scene comes to a close. Joanna has quit her profession as a photographer to become another Stepford wife, even though Ruthanne (the town’s first black woman and new resident) appears to be the town’s next victim in the story’s epilogue.
Plot
The spouses of their equally wedded counterparts’ equally attractive husbands are pitted against the men of Stepford, Connecticut, a fictional municipality in Fairfield County. Photographer Joanna Eberhart is prepared to begin a new life after leaving New York City with her family. Even after a romantic weekend, she worries more and more about Stepford’s submissive spouses who seem to lack autonomy, especially after seeing her once independent-minded friends—comrade newcomers to Stepford—evolve into mindless, devoted housewives. Her spouse, who is increasingly showing up at local men’s group meetings, downplays her worries.
As the plot develops, Joanna thinks that the Stepford wives are being poisoned or brainwashed into servitude by the men’s club. She researches the Stepford Wives’ pasts in the library and discovers that the club’s chairman is a former Disney engineer and that other members are creative people who are skilled at creating lifelike robots. Bobbie, a high school friend, writes to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ask about any potentially harmful compounds in Stepford as part of her inquiry. After some time, Bobbie grows bored with her previous pursuits and settles down to be a modest housewife.
At the conclusion of the novel, Joanna decides to leave Stepford, but when she gets home, she discovers that her kids have been abducted. He won’t let her leave the house, in spite of her pleadings. She escapes the house on foot, and the men’s club is swarming with people trying to find her. She accuses them of turning the ladies in her community into robots when they discover her in the woods and begs to be let free. They ask hypothetically, “Would you believe us if we showed you a lady bleeding?” after Joanna challenges their denials. They take Joanna to Bobbie’s house at her request.
Themes
Numerous feminism-related topics are covered in The Stepford Wives. The book explores women’s roles in the nuclear family and how they exercise control over their bodies through a sequence of events that take place in Stepford. [2] Prior to becoming wives and mothers, Stepford’s ladies had careers as successful businesswomen and campaigners. The Stepford men posed a challenge to this by transforming their wives into lifeless machines whose only function was to serve their husbands.
Consent
The veracity of this article is in doubt. You can discover relevant discussion on the discussion page if you’re looking for it. If any statements are being disputed, kindly help establish their veracity. (May of 2022) (Find out when and how to remove this template message) Consent is a topic that is touched upon in the Stepford Wives series. Stepford men make their women into robots because they are afraid of losing control of them. Males don’t require the approval of Stepford women or sex robots because they are both dead and obedient.
A 1980 television follow-up was titled Revenge of The Stepford Wives. The wives in this movie were brainwashed and given hypnotic tablets to keep them in a trance rather than turning into androids. The conspiracy’s architect was ultimately assassinated by a mob when the women managed to escape their training. In a 1987 television sequel/remake titled The Stepford Children, robots took the roles of the wives and kids of the male residents. At the episode’s conclusion, the conspirators were killed. The Stepford Wives was the third television movie to portray a female clinic director who brainwashed the local males into making ideal wives when it debuted in 1995.
Adaptations
A science-fiction thriller based on the book was directed by Bryan Forbes and stars Katharine Ross, Paula Prentiss, Peter Masterson, and Tina Louise in addition to William Goldman. Even though the majority of the story concentrates on gender conflict and the sterility of suburban life, it is significantly more evident in the movie than it is in the novel that the women are being replaced by robots. The robots in Goldman’s version of the book were designed in a more idealized Playboy Bunny style than they were in Forbes’, however it has been said that the Goldman version was rejected after Forbes’ actress wife Nanette Newman was cast in a role as a resident of the town.
Another movie, titled The Stepford Wives, was also released in 2004. Along with the aforementioned performers, this Frank Oz-directed movie also starred Nicole Kidman, Bette Midler, Matthew Broderick, Christopher Walken, Roger Bart, Faith Hill, Glenn Close, and Jon Lovitz. It was intended to be a little lighter in tone than the earlier ones. The women in Paul Rudnick’s reworked script are transformed into carefully supervised cyborgs rather than being killed and replaced by robots.
A strong woman (Glenn Close) is shown to be the evil mastermind behind all the atrocities done to other women towards the conclusion of the movie, and a homosexual town resident’s partner is changed into a “Stepfordized” person. In contrast to the majority of prior adaptations, there is neither death nor escape for those in charge of the narrative in this movie. Instead, the victims are freed from the control programming of their husbands and have to face the repercussions of their own choices.
In Fairfield County, Connecticut, both versions were filmed in Redding, Westport, Darien, New Canaan, Wilton, and Norwalk, among other locations. Several locations in Fairfield, Connecticut were featured in the 1975 movie, including the Eberharts’ house and the Greenfield Hill Congregational Church. In the 2004 movie Bedminster, New Jersey, the locale served as the backdrop for several sequences that were filmed there using local extras.
