The Stepford Wives: Difference between revisions

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Content added Content deleted
(Trivia)
No edit summary
Line 48: Line 48:
* [[Gay Conservative]]: The gay couple in the 2004 remake includes one [[Invisible to Gaydar]] member who is a [[Gay Conservative]]. His partner is a [[Camp Gay]].
* [[Gay Conservative]]: The gay couple in the 2004 remake includes one [[Invisible to Gaydar]] member who is a [[Gay Conservative]]. His partner is a [[Camp Gay]].
* [[Heroic BSOD]]: Joanna.
* [[Heroic BSOD]]: Joanna.
* [[The Man Behind the Man]]: The viewer is led to believe that Mike is behind the operation, but really {{spoiler|he's just a Stepford Husband created by his "wife" Claire, the real [[Big Bad]] of Stepford.}}
* [[Married to the Job]]
* [[Married to the Job]]
* [[Not His Sled]]: The 2004 remake had its own [[Shocking Swerve|shocking surprise ending]], where it's revealed {{spoiler|the wives weren't replaced by robots.}}
* [[Not His Sled]]: The 2004 remake had its own [[Shocking Swerve|shocking surprise ending]], where it's revealed {{spoiler|the wives weren't replaced by robots.}}
Line 57: Line 58:
** "So I wondered, where in the world would nobody notice a town full of mindless, lifeless automatons? And then I thought, of course! Connecticut!"
** "So I wondered, where in the world would nobody notice a town full of mindless, lifeless automatons? And then I thought, of course! Connecticut!"
** The original's Disney reference is updated to a dig at America Online ("Is that why the women are so slow?"). Most of Disney's pioneering work with animatronics was done in the '60s and '70s, making the reference somewhat dated by 2004.
** The original's Disney reference is updated to a dig at America Online ("Is that why the women are so slow?"). Most of Disney's pioneering work with animatronics was done in the '60s and '70s, making the reference somewhat dated by 2004.
* [[The Man Behind the Man]]: The viewer is led to believe that Mike is behind the operation, but really {{spoiler|he's just a Stepford Husband created by his "wife" Claire, the real [[Big Bad]] of Stepford.}}
* [[Troubled Production]]
* [[Utopia Justifies the Means]]: {{spoiler|What appears to be the villain's main motive for turning the women into robots.}}
* [[Utopia Justifies the Means]]: {{spoiler|What appears to be the villain's main motive for turning the women into robots.}}
* [[With or Without You]]
* [[With or Without You]]

Revision as of 12:06, 4 September 2016

The Stepford Wives started life as a 1972 novel by Ira Levin. In it, Joanna Eberhart, her husband Walter, and their two young children move from New York City to the eponymous Connecticut commuter-town. Joanna becomes friends with fellow new arrival Bobbie Markowe, as the two of them also become more and more concerned with the behavior of the other housewives in Stepford, who are all impossibly beautiful, housework-obsessed and totally submissive towards their husbands, who in turn are all members of the "Men's Association." The novel was successful enough to be made into a movie in 1975; William Goldman's script was fairly faithful to the original, with the major difference being a far more explicit finale showing what was happening to the wives. In both versions, the wives were robot duplicates that replaced the original women after their husbands had them murdered. Both versions of the story had Downer Endings.

While just a modest hit in theaters, the film quickly sprouted a meme in the 1970s, with the term "Stepford Wife" becoming a catchphrase used to describe female homemakers who were sexually repressed and only concerned with domestic chores.

No theatrical sequels were made, but the movie spawned, over the course of two decades, three made-for-TV "sequels": The Revenge of the Stepford Wives, The Stepford Children, and The Stepford Husbands. The lack of Levin and/or Goldman's involvement was painfully obvious, and all three films were also victims of bowdlerization: in Revenge and Husbands, the victims were not killed and replaced but instead merely brainwashed, while Children had the replaced teenager left alive for no readily-apparent reason, allowing in all three cases for a rescue and happy ending.

In 2004, Frank Oz directed a more overtly comedic remake of the original film. The production suffered from severe behind-the-scenes turmoil, including actors walking off the project and some last-minute reshoots. Many viewers found the revelations of the resulting finale to come completely out of left field and contradict the rest of the movie, but as always, Your Mileage May Vary.

Tropes used in The Stepford Wives include:

The orginal film/novel, and its sequels, provide examples of:

The 2004 version provides examples of:

Joanna: Let me ask you something. These machines. These Stepford Wives. Can they say "I love you"?
Walter: Mike?
Mike: Of course. In 58 languages.
Joanna: But do they mean it?

Joanna Eberhart: It's... It's not our world. It's not us. And I'm picking up our kids from camp right now, and we're getting out of here. With or without you.