Saturday, June 24, 2006

Musing Pictures: The Stepford Wives (1975)

So I've finally seen "The Stepford Wives" (the original one, from 1975), and boy, is it creepy!

It's a somewhat dated film, but, after seeing it, I sort of got really peeved at the Frank Oz re-make from not too long ago. Oz turned it in to some sort of sordid comedy, whereas the original was really, truly, honestly creepy (as it should have been!)

One thing about it that struck me as a bit dated (thank G-D, too) was the "men are evil" attitude that it presented -- all of the men in Stepford (which is really little more than a stand-in for the rest of the civilized world) are selfish, ambitious, domineering and violent when it comes to women -- all they want is a sexual-satisfyer who will also keep the house neat, keep the kids well-trained and stay out of the way of business and other assorted "manly" things. I'm glad that men are being viewed a little more fairly these days than they used to be (I recently read "Self-Made Man" by Norah Vincent, which seems to be a part of a re-balancing trend...)

-AzS

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This isn't related to most of your post, but I got my dad to take Self-Made Man out of the library, and I think he's really enjoying it.

-Mattea

Arnon Z. Shorr said...

It's an interesting book -- in some ways enormously surprising. Seeing "The Stepford Wives" after reading it might make some people say "oh" in a contemplative sort of way -- it's an extreme example that drives home the point pretty well...

-AzS

Anonymous said...

Spoilers Below for the remake of Stepford Wives!!

It's interesting that in the original movie Men are viewed as being so evil because in the new version it's a woman who is behind everything. I haven't seen the original, so I wonder how it worked then.

~Max