The 1960s saw the understood national belief that our nation was generally good and progressing towards a higher state of being stall out. Institutions set during the era when this belief was most prevalent, the 1950s, began to be examined through a different lens as “the end of history” approached in the sense of this dead end in progress. The nuclear family, and the gender roles inflicted by this institution went under great scrutiny in The Stepford Wives. As the reading points out, second wave feminism brought a shift of focus away from the existence of womanhood as infinite housework to issues such as rape, domestic violence, and pornography. No the less, the image of the housewife still persisted in 1970s ideology and became an embedded feature of our culture.
The Stepford Wives uses a staple of the 1950s, a presumably better time when the narrative of progress was still prevalent, as a feminist critique on the present roles of women in 1975 when this film was made. The Stepford wives represent a 1950s ideal, women as homemakers and mothers, subservient and beautiful. Joanna’s character, after moving to the Stepford community feels out of place as she does not embody or embrace the characteristics of these women. As the community and her husband continue to enforce the importance of having these housewife ideals, it is clear that in order to fill the role of an idealized housewife Joanna cannot have any self-identity as her own. In the case of the film, the gender roles enforced on Joanna are literally a trap, as she is turned into a Stepford wife robot, than the men benefit from. This in a much more tangible sense illustrates a feminist view on how patriarchal institutions trap womanhood in time, dehumanizing females into a gender reduced to housework.
I think this film is successful in introducing a mainstream middle class audience to the feminist arguments of the time. It was mentioned in class that a student felt as though they could not relate to the characters and therefore the film. I think a successful aspect to the film is that the characters lack a certain self-identity, representing a type rather than a person. This shows how insertion of women into gender roles benefiting a male dominated society as an universality, even if not to the extreme of become an enslaved house wife. Even so, the patriarchal power structure shown in the film is existent today and I think is very relatable from no matter what gender perspective, if any at all, you want to analyze this film with.
Even though the Step Wives does a good job at presenting feminist concerns I think it fails to enforce some key concepts as well. For instance Joanna before her robotic makeover, is meant to represent a “liberated” women; she has a self identity and interests outside of her marriage and motherhood. Yet her within her main passion, photography, she never reaches beyond the institutions feminists called argument against. The two subjects we see her capture are her children and a man carrying naked female mannequin. Both are arguably images of patriarchal entrapment of identity. So in a sense, even though Joanna seems to have a work outside the home, her art never goes beyond but merely captures her roles as a wife and mother. Also the film clearly demonizes housework, never allowing for the possibility for a woman to choice and feel self fulfilled as a housewife.
The film did demonize housewives, which is quite unfair. Although today women are working rather than staying at home, I can suspect that housewives had somewhat of their own lives. Being a Stepford wife meant that you were obsessed with housework and pleasing your husband. While only thinking about these things would not be healthy for a woman, it is okay for women to care about these things. I agree that women can be fulfilled with being a housewife. Nothing wrong with that.
ReplyDeleteAlthough that one aspect of the film bothered me a bit, I liked the rest of it. I'm a fan of horror/thriller films like this. It did remind me a lot of Rosemary's Baby. Which makes perfect sense as Ira Levin wrote both stories. The seemingly good husband is also the true villain in both stories. Guy allows Rosemary to be raped by the devil. In exchange the Castevet's put a curse on the lead actor in a play, blinding him, so that Guy can fill in for him. Walter, in The Stepford Wives, allows the mens association to turn Joanna into a robot for acceptance within the community. While it never shows if the men were threatened to do these things in either story, it still shows the one person that the women trust the most, their husband, as an enemy.
The article also raises the fact that this may not be considered a feminist film because the original story and script were both written by men. The film was also directed by a man. I'm not sure if you could say it wasn't feminist strictly because of these facts. All three men must have supported womens rights in some way to be involved in the project. Maybe not, but it seems likely.
Yeah you're right about the Rosemary's Baby connections, I saw a lot of parallels as well. They have different paces but for me the slower pace of Stepford Wives is almost more intriguing because it happens at an everyday speed, making the terror even more relatable and possible in real life. Well not really but you know what I mean.
ReplyDeleteThis is a good analysis, though a little bit compressed, such that some very keen observations don't entirely get unpacked. The point about Joanna's own life and talents themselves not really going beyond a very limited sphere is for instance very well-taken and worth exploring, as is the demonization of housework--which was also a major debate, even at the time, within 2nd-wave feminism. It was on this point especially I'd have liked to see a bit more precision with your use of the reading. 2nd-wave feminism was on one level way more complex than the focus on white upper-class women and housework--the debates about pornography, rape, sexuality etc _countered_ these more mainstream (also feminist) concerns and according to the reading the failure to resolves these debates were a large part of what brought the whole movement crashing to a halt in the 80s.
ReplyDeleteIt's worth considering also that if patriarchy is the overarching trap that certain strands of 70s feminism positioned it as, then Joanna has nowhere to go and no real way of escaping it. Her single attempt to do so, the consciousness-raising session with the other Wives, devolves almost instantly into product placement.