The Stepford Wives (1975 Film) - Theme

Theme

Throughout most of history women commonly have had fewer legal rights and career opportunities than men. Women were seen as wives and mothers, not lawyers and photographers. The most effective aspect of the story's plot is an examination of the drastic measures some men will take to control women. The men create replicas of their wives and kill their original human counterparts, even while they just as well could have filed for divorce. The new wives don’t have opinions or careers, they undertake and enjoy all aspects of housework and will forever remain beautiful. In the film the men create these women to fulfill their own fantasy desires. The robots exist for their personal pleasure only.

The men utilize their talents to create wives that lack character, brains, ambition, creativity, and independence. Their goal is to create women they can control; wives that enjoy housework and fulfilling their husband's every need. The duplicates are "new and improved" versions of their wives. They have larger breasts, narrower waists and higher cheek bones. These robots are sexual objects, so they are intended only to accommodate their husbands' desires while having none of their own.

Modern women stand as potential threats to the male-controlled order, because they are outspoken, determined, and aggressive. The two women that are seen as the threat throughout the movie are Bobbie and Joanna, who were the only women wearing shorts, overalls, and pants; by the end they dressed and behaved like Stepford housewives. Joanna tries to start a women's association where real issues and emotions are discussed, while the robots are only programmed to talk about housework. All of the wives of Stepford were once female activists who had goals and ambitions until the men felt that there was a need for change. The women become isolated from the real world; they are attractive, sexualized property. These women are helpless, incompetent, and no longer able to defend themselves.The plot also continues a theme of patriarchal critique dating at least from Mary Shelley's 1818 novel "Frankenstein", which, unlike most movies of the same name, is intimately concerned with the implications of men's control of the manipulation of life, a concern of outstanding relevance today, when genetic engineering, DNA therapy, cloning and synthetic lifeforms are an ever increasing reality are all in the cards. Ira Levin made this a theme in other science fiction novels he wrote, including This Perfect Day (1970) and The Boys From Brazil (1976).