The Stepford Wives
23 Feb 2026 - letterboxd
There'll be somebody with my name, and she'll cook and clean like crazy, but she won't take pictures, and she won't be me!
I'm sort of in a 60s & 70s media-a-boo phase right now.
Paula Prentiss is breathtakingly charismatic and smexy as Bobbie - maybe missing the point of her character in the book, but that's beside the point. I just have a crush on her.
Honestly, seeing the movie warmed me up to the narrative more than the book. Walter is just so smarmy and nasty - the way he forces Stepford on Joanna and acts as if she is the selfish one for forcing him elsewhere, the way that first, he holds the idea of leaving much too late over her head much like teasing a dog. The powerlessness that comes from being a woman in this banal situation, a woman who is tied to family and relies on the good will of her husband. This good will is conditional at best; nonexistent at worst.
On an analysis of Adriana La Cerva from The Sopranos, a series that very much focuses on the helplessness of the financially dependant housewife, someone left a comment that the men who set the systems up and force women into these roles "treat [their wives] worse than an enemy" - true, simple & very relevant to Joanna, whose life, identity and image are torn from her for the pleasure of Walter in a long-con.
It strikes me that the suffering of the wives is completely unnecessary for the pleasure of the husbands, the owners - with this tech, there's no need to kill the original in the creation of The Stepford Wife, it is the fact that the original is inconvenient and not pleasurable. The original could go to the outside world and speak her non-consent as The Stepford Wife tells her husband that he is "the master". Of course, then, the police block off the roads and go on a manhunt. I think the fact that Stepford was once a more diverse place with an answer to the Men's Association is very interesting and speaks to reactionary groups as a whole. Every man here had his wife turned into his woman, likely first as a response to their women's association, stripping them of their minds and the hard edges that make bad sex dolls.
It's definitely one of those stories that is an allegory first and foremost, which isn't always my cup of tea, but something about seeing people act it out makes it feel more real and less of a 'lesson'. It's a very succinct allegory at that, so much so that it's become a shorthand of its own. How many women*, past and future, have been metaphorically killed to make way for the objectified domestic servant? The one thing I feel it does much worse than the book is the passage of time - maybe some more shots of the world outside would have done it some good, there. Get Out builds on similar themes very successfully as well, and even manages to avoid the downer ending. Interesting.
*Could we get something here with the added layer of destroyed identities with regard to lesbians and trans men/mascs next, please? The slight sexual tension between Bobbie and Joanna does not satisfy me here.
favorites
Character: Bobbie
Scene: Joanna stabs "Bobbie"
