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The Stepford Wives: Difference between revisions
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''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 Ending|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 [[Housewife|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 Movie|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 [[Bowdlerise|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.
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* [[Robotic Reveal]]: Again, only explicitly done in the movie(s).
* [[Robotic Spouse]]
* [[Sex Bot]]
* [[Stepford Smiler]]: The [[Trope Namer]], with the remake providing the page image.
* [[Stepford Suburbia]]: [[Trope Namer|Ditto.]] The empty sterility of American suburbia is a major theme in the original film.
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* [[Alas, Poor Yorick]]
* [[Aluminum Christmas Trees]]: Yes, there actually ''was'' a reality show about putting a married couple's relationship to the test by separating them on an island full of sexy people. And ''yes'' it was on Fox.
* [[Armor-Piercing Question]]:
{{quote|'''Joanna''': Let me ask you something. These machines. These Stepford Wives. Can they say "I love you"?
'''Walter''': Mike?
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'''Joanna''': But do they ''mean'' it? }}
* [[Aw, Look -- They Really Do Love Each Other]]
* [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]]: Joanna. In the beginning, her pet project at the network she works at is a [[Reality TV]] show similar to ''[[wikipedia:Temptation Island (TV series)|Temptation Island]]''. At a press conference, while hyping up her show, she is confronted and ''shot at'' by a man whose marriage was ruined by the show, and who [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge|shot his cheating wife and her lovers in rage]]. Afterwords, Joanna is already planning out the reunion show to exploit the carnage she has accidentally inflicted, only to not only be fired from the network, but also blacklisted from television due to her utterly irresponsible decisions in programming.
** What does it say that ''that'' is probably the [[Take That|most unbelievable thing in the movie]]?
* [[Downer Ending]]: {{spoiler|Subverted. Walter destroys the computer controlling the wives, freeing them of their brainwashing.}}
** And then {{spoiler|either reinstated or double subverted kind of awesomely when the end, without showing the wives, implies that the '''WIVES''' are now in complete control and keep their husbands as docile servants.}}
** {{spoiler|It was said they were under "house arrest", so it's safe to assume the wives considered this was a fitting punishment in lieu of jail time.}}
* [[Gay Conservative]]: The gay couple in the 2004 remake includes one [[
* [[Heroic BSOD]]: Joanna.
* [[Married to the Job]]
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* [[Scream Discretion Shot]]
* [[Stepford Smiler]]: In addition to [[Trope Namer|the obvious]], Walter is also one of these, {{spoiler|until he cracks.}}
* [[Take That]]:
** Towards reality TV; see [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] above.
** "So I wondered, where in the world would nobody notice a town full of mindless, lifeless automatons? And then I thought, of course! Connecticut!"
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