The mysterious 1975 drama, The Stepford Wives, is a film that takes the struggles of American housewives in the 20th century to new extremes. The Stepford Wives can be interpreted as an example of the unknown dread and depression that many American housewives expressed feeling in the mid-1900’s, with the monotonous daily tasks and role in their household impacting the issue.
The portrayal of the wives in the film relate to the excerpts and arguments that Betty Friedman makes in her book, “The Feminine Mystique”. Friedman deeply analyzes the vast array of mothers in her generation, and their inability to feel fulfillment by being a mother and wife. Much of Friedman’s book also looks at the daily life of women, and how the same tasks take up all the time everyday, with little room left for women to be themselves. This is shown in The Stepford Wives, where the city-dwelling photographer, Joanna Eberhart, moves with her husband and children to the suburb Stepford, to which she finds a multitude of lifeless wives that personify the unknown problem that plagues women. Joanna does not share the the same ideals as these wives, because her focus is not on cooking, shopping, and cleaning everyday.
Joanna and her more progressive approach to womanhood clashes with the multitude of traditional submissive wives in Stepford, beginning with her hesitance towards her husband Walter’s involvement in a local men’s club. Joanna and another strong-minded friend, Bobbie, look to recruit the other wives in the area to a newly formed feminine club. At the first meeting, shown in the image above, the conversation among the wives quickly focuses on which cleaning products work best, strongly supporting Friedman’s writings on women not being able to talk about the unknown issue when together. There is a noticeable amount of fear and reluctance from the other wives when real issues, such as husbands or children are brought up, showing how trapped women really are with the role that society expects them to play.
In the image showed above we see the local hub and gathering place for the suburban housewife; the supermarket. The newly replaced wives carry out their daily tasks dressed in a way that strips them of their individuality and panders to the patriarch of their household. It is important to note that the supermarket in The Stepford Wives acts as a resting place for the wives, in that it is where we see the final version of the women in the film.
In Christopher Sharret’s “The Horror Film as Social Allegory,” it is written that “the demonic and the supernatural are tools marshaled by patriarchy.” This point strongly aligns with the themes in The Stepford Wives, specifically with the treatment of women by the men in Stepford. This is shown in extremity with the replacement of wives with husband serving robots, which hammers the patriarchs suppression and elimination of individuality in women. Society forced women to spend all their time being a housewife as opposed to actually finding personal interests and careers. This struggle is paramount in The Stepford Wives, further showing the horror in a seemingly normal suburban town.
Derek Stoberl CMS 353 