Danielle Zahn

Stepford Wives was a very interesting film. I think that the "because we can" reason for making robot wives was fascinating. In the time this film was made there were concerns about corporations and roles of science and technology. I guess I can't understand why the men would want to kill off their wives for robot versions. Who in their right mind would find it fulfilling to be married to a robot? Why didn't they just make ideal wives in the first place instead of killing off the ones they had? I'm veryinterested in hearing some interpretations of why the men resorted to killing their wives.

It does seem to me that they [the men] were drugged or something. That one guy that came out of the Association (the guy from the Jeffersons) looked all sick. Was it because he saw his "new" wife for the first time, or because he was drugged somehow?

One thing that also bothered me: Why was there a replication of the bedroom? I don't see why they would go through all that trouble. Well, that is all I have to say (ask) for now.

  Joey Poole

This was a good film. I was shocked to find out that it was written and directed by men. I guess I should have watched the credits. I thought that this film was highly reminiscent of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Remember how we were discussing Invasion perhaps playing off of the rising tranquilizer habit in the '50's? That struck me when Joanna (or was it Bobbie?) wondered aloud if the wives of Stepford were on some sort of medication.

Speaking as a male here, frankly I don't see the attraction of having a Stepford wife. Sure the idea has some fascination. I would be burned at the stake of feminism if I related all of the joking discussion I had with my roommate on the subject, but the idea isn't really all that attractive. The idea of having a partner who was always willing and also kept a good house might strike at the heart of some male fantasies, but there is just no escaping the fact that, in the end, its just not going to be the same as genuine human contact. That's why I had a little realism problem with the film. I found it hard to believe that this many men would buy into the idea to the degree that they were willing to kill their wives. After some thought, though I finally realized that the realism factor didn't really matter. That is one important thing I have picked up from this class, that SF does have to be even remotely plausible to work. The film works as social commentary, and very effective social commentary at that. This film has probably caused me to think more than any other film that we've watched so far. Except maybe 2001, but with that film I was thinking "what does this all mean?", rather than thinking about the context of the film and how it relates to the things around me. This is not to say that The Stepford Wives is as good a film as 2001, only that it made me think a little.

 

Dale L. Theiling

It seemed interesting that, when his [Walter's] little girl said that she saw a man carrying a naked woman, the husband said that that is why they were moving to Stepford. You automatically think that he means that they are leaving to get away from that, but he could mean that they are going to Stepford so he can do the same thing...have a fake woman

Augie Nugent

Another thing I wondered about was the ending which was so bizarre. Why did they replicate Joanna's room and why did the robot want to kill Joanna? This made no logical sense to me and I think it only was added for the shocking horror ending with the main character's death. The last scene was very reminiscent of Invasion of the Body Snatcher 's . Even though the androids were wearing revealing clothes they still weren't as sexually appealing as the real women when they were alive.

  Mike Piekutowski

It seems to me that the movie corresponded to Mulvey's article in an uncanny way, and I find it hard to believe that the two works were completely independent of one another. The concept of the gaze is quite fascinating. I would like to agree with one of the comments in class yesterday about how the gaze seemed to shift between the male and female, as well as between the character and viewer. The film opens with a shot of the lead female through a doorway, giving the audience the voyeuristic feeling of seeing some private scene from the onset. The voyeur quickly changes to the photographer lead in the scene in which the mannequin is being carried across the street. It seems as if the director wants to emphasize this concept early in the film. Some other examples of the female becoming the voyeur occur when she sees the neighbor grope his wife in the yard and when the females listen to the couple having sex in the bedroom.

I believe that there is some significance as to which characters are allowed to become voyeurs. Though they are female, they are the ones who strive to create an action, thus trying to become male. They are allowed to play the male role as the active viewer, not the role of the passive viewee. It is as if the women's libbers are viewed as wanting to be males, and they are temporarily allowed to fill this role. It also corresponds to how the lead female wants to create a profession as a photographer,breaking into the male world from the traditional role of the domestic housewife.

As for Danielle's question as to why there was little struggle in the final conflict of the movie, I have somewhat of an answer. She has been active the entire movie, trying to start a career, a new women's movement, and as the gazer. In a moment of weakness and fear, she once again regresses to the traditional role of the passive female. In this moment, she can not act, nor effectively resist the male dominated society (not only of the town, but also society as a whole). In this moment she allows herself to fall back into her more traditional role, and thus she has inescapably fallen into the set scheme of things. After this, she becomes a robot, the passive servant of the active and controlling males. The final scene of her as a robot serves to affirm this notion.

Lastly, I wanted to discuss the final shot of the eyes as the credits began to roll. As has been said, the eyes have been referred to as the window to the soul. Though we now the robot has no soul (thus no eyes in the confrontation scene), the female lead does. In this scene she loses her life, both physically and metaphorically. She has become victim to the men's intentions, and she has thus become a passive entity. The final shot shows how the men wanted to transform their wives into automatons, and her soul is seen to have been placed in what the male's deem as the more desirable social position.

 

James Jackson

I thought that the story for this film was great. While it was similar to Body Snatchers it managed to be quite original. It was a storyline that I think that a lot of guys can relate to. Every man wants the perfect woman and Stepford Wives took the dream just a little too far...way too far. O.k maybe the men could have their wives replaced by clone/robots, but how in the hell could you ever trust the thing. They kept screwing up throughout the movie, and they are programmed killers (I assume that they all kill their original persons). It looks like the men would be just a little scared of them.

There was one part of the movie that I didn't quite understand. When the family dog was taken away, I assumed that it was because it would be able to recognize that the clone was not who she looked like. I know that in a lot of movies like this, with the use of body doubles, the animals are the first and sometimes only ones who can tell if the people are real or clones. But if this is the case why take the dog to the clone, wouldn't it make more sense to just do away with the dog for good.

 

Daniel Presnell

In Laura Mulvey's article, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," she discussed the different aspects of the gaze in Hollywood cinema. She examines the role of "scophophilia," or the pleasure of looking. There are several scenes in the Stepford Wives where scophophilia adds an interesting twist to the narrative. The first example is the meeting of the husband and the wife of his next door neighbors. She is seen as almost floating across the yard with a casserole in hand. The viewer gets a shot of the husband's eyes as he scans her body. There is an eerie erotic feel established in this scene which seems to repeat itself throughout the movie. But the most interesting thing about this movie is that the gaze is not limited to the male, but is also used by the female. This occurs when Ross' character crosses the street to return the casserole dish. She spots the woman in the yard, pruning her trees, when suddenly her husband gropes her breast and then leans down and kisses her. Ross looks on in a highly voyeuristic manner, where once again, an eerie erotic feel is established. Here, the gaze is not done by a male but rather a female. This suggests that the sexuality of the female is no longer repressed, even though the suburbs have altered every other aspect of her life. The third important gaze comes when Dis watches Ross while she prepares a drink in the kitchen. The viewer is shown the backside of Ross' body, from Dis' point of view. The camera surveys her body, as does Dis. His gaze is sexual as well as it is business, because he is in charge of building her replicant. This difference in the point of view of the gaze is very important for supporting the main idea of the movie. It would deteriorate the narrative if we as viewers were only shown the male's point of view, in what is a movie about females.

One last thing I found interesting in the Stepford Wives, was the use of sound. The sounds in the movie seemed to be exaggerated. It originates to support the diegesis, then almost seems to become non-diagetic. The most obvious example is the scene in where the buzz from the car door alarm becomes extremely loud. This use of sound seems to suggest the "unpleasantness" of modernity and technology. (This also supports the theme of technology as being dangerous) The sound in this movie seems to be heavily influenced by the work of Walter Murch, especially in Coppola's.

 

Robert L. Helms

I would like to hear thoughts that anyone has on the religous issues that might be involved in this movie, in particular the whole "playing god thing". In some sense, I think that this movie may have been trying to tell domineering males what would happen if they succeded in their attempts to control their spouses. In some sense, they would get a "Stepford Wife" a shallow and uninteresting partner which is certainly not as good as the model provided by God.  

IMHO, the true source of the horror in this movie was the thought of living with such a creature. I take great joy in perversity and would rather kill myself than spend one month married to a bloodless, stupid, touchy-feely, Bradybunch robot like this.

 

Jeffrey McQuillan

 I liked how we are given hints in the beginning of the film of what's to come. I never saw the film until now, but I knew the basic plot. When I saw the man carrying the mannequin down the street in New York City, I thought it was a nice bit of foreshadowing. Like somebody else in class, I found this film to be very similar to INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. STEPFORD is a new take on BODY SNATCHERS. Instead of a man, we have a woman who sees that all the women in town are strange or become strange. She has a friend who also sees that people are acting strange and in the end the friend is replaced. Our heroine's sanity is even questioned. But, unlike our hero who escapes, our heroine is "taken over" as it were. I did like the use of doubling in the film as it pertains to male control over women. First we have the guy drawing the picture of our heroine, which is one of those ways in which a man takes control of the woman. By making a drawing of her, he owns her in a way. It was really neat when we got that mirror shot with both her and the drawing of her. First, we have the real her, then the mirror image of her, and then the drawing. The husband can't deal with the real her because of the treat she represents to male order. He can and does deal with the image of her in the mirror and the drawing. What's interesting is how the mirror image of her represents the robot, but the drawing also represents the robot as well. The men use the drawing to construct the likeness of the robot and the doubled image of her in the mirror is replaced by her robot double. One could even say that the mirror also reflects (no pun intended) her image on the movie screen. I don't buy this idea, but when we see the robot version of Ross, it is the only time she is presented as sexual. This ties into the idea one of the articles states about how only robots take on the sexual. I wonder if I should head out to Disneyland. Those robots were pretty life-like. I guess that's what that old guy did- make robots for Disney.

 

Steve Hearndon

I think it is fitting and proper to compare this film to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, so I will do just that. What made Invasion frightening (or tried to) was the concept of creatures from outer space landing on earth and taking over our bodies. The root of this fear was that it could happen to anyone, man, woman, or child. The "pods" stole a person's individuality and turned them into emotionless beings. The key, though, was that the threat was an outside force, whether you see it as communism or actual aliens, that was different and completely separate from the American audience that viewed the film. I believe what makes The Stepford Wives much scarier is the fact that the "scary monsters" were humans, men to be specific. It is a much scarier concept to think of humans hurting each other because it is more realistic. A movie about aliens or supernatural creatures invading a town and killing people might make for a scary plot for a movie. But, no matter how well the special effects are done, no matter how feasible the scientific background, you still leave the movie saying, "Thank goodness that can't really happen!" When you see a film about a serial killer, or a war, or something involving someone doing the killing instead of something, it is much more frightening because it can happen, and often does.

Now, granted, artificial intelligence has not arrived to the point that what was done in Stepford Wives can actually be achieved. However, the realism is still there in that we all know there could be men who would do exactly what the men did in the film. (When Joanna asked Diz why they were doing this, he merely replied, "Because we can.")

I think the resolution of this movie as compared to Invasion is something important to look at. Considering the time period of Invasion, and looking at the pod people as communists, we must note that the film was resolved in a positive way. We know from the beginning that the hero will get away, because the movie opens with him in the hospital, explaining his story. In the end, the men believe him (because of the overturned truck with pods in it), and they start alerting officials and rounding up people to go and fight back. Therefore, we the audience can all walk away from the film feeling happy and knowing that the goodguys will defeat the badguys and all will be well.

In Stepford Wives however, considering the time period and the struggle against sexual discrimination, it is interesting to note that the film did not have a positive ending, but rather a very negative one. Even though it fits with the rest of the film, I was still very surprised by the ending. I was hoping that, even if she couldn't stop what they were doing, she would get away. But she didn't. She fell victim just like all the rest. I think the message this sent at the time was that there was no end in sight for how women were being treated. The ending of Invasion supports the American vision of faith that we put in our government and our way of life that we would prevail against the threat of communism. The ending of SW tells a different story. It sends the message that, although there needs to be change in the way the women are treated, the ones who have the power to make the change, the men, are unwilling to do so. And until they become willing, or are made willing, the plight of women is hopeless.

 

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