As dull as these women sound, they represent the ideal woman, at least according to the Stepford Men’s Association. In fact, the men pool their desires to create a template of femininity: docile, beautiful, clean, ego-less … and made of breasts. However, by creating a society that reserves true intimacy between men, you have to wonder if the Stepford husbands aren’t truly interested in women at all … Consumerism in The Stepford Wives The movie (1975) is a great adaptation. Katharine Ross plays a convincing Joanna, but Paula Prentiss perfectly nails Bobbie and is the absolute best of the movie by far; so crazy, and utterly adorable. Not nearly as good as the book, but very faithful, several direct quotes can be found all through the film. An ending that goes a bit beyond the original work, and possibly gives a more satisfying answer to the mystery. Once you understand what people really want, you can't hate them anymore. You can fear them, but you can't hate them, because you can always find the same desires in your own heart.”

The Stepford Wives Quotes by Ira Levin - Goodreads The Stepford Wives Quotes by Ira Levin - Goodreads

For Joanna, her husband, Walter, and their children, the move to beautiful Stepford seems almost too good to be true. It is. For behind the town's idyllic facade lies a terrible secret—a secret so shattering that no one who encounters it will ever be the same. What connects Stepford with Shaw’s play – aside from the modification of women – is the idea that women can only learn what men teach them. They’re empty vessels, waiting to be filled with [a lesser version of] male knowledge – and male standards of perfection. Resistance is futile Por alguna razón esto está identificado como una novela de terror, pero yo lo encontré mucho más cercano a un thriller psicológico, y uno muy bueno. De ritmo muy rápido, y con un golpe directo y certero. Muy corto, pero extremadamente atrapante. Todo transcurre tan rápido que termina antes de que te des cuenta. Un final algo demasiado abierto para mi gusto, pero dentro de todo bienvenido. Joanna hace una estupenda heroína, y Bobbie una adorable e hilarante compañera. Un montón de referencias feministas también, que serán debidamente investigadas a su tiempo. Recomendable.Another modern addition, is that the “Diz Corba” character is named Mike in this one and rather than having worked at Disney, had worked at Microsoft. Similar to ’75, he admits to Joanna that her suspicions are true when they are inside the Association. But in this one all the other men are there too, including Walter. He gives a little speech about how he’s tired of living in her shadow and all that and explains kind of why he wants her to be a robot. using his wife as an ATM Housework’s enough for me. I used to feel I had to have other interests, but I’m more at ease with myself now. I’m much happier too, and so is my family. That’s what counts, isn’t it?” So consumerism gets you in the end– and it’s as true today as ever. As the novel comes to a close, Royal Hendry knows it, too. His wife, Ruthanne – like Joanna – has her indulgent hobbies and interests instead of looking after her man-child husband with his taped-up spectacles. Dale Coba gives Joanna the heebie jeebies. He used to work for Disney and as events unfold it becomes more and more clear what a large part he has played in making Stepford an “ideal community”.

Stepford Wives by Ira Levin Plot Summary | LitCharts The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin Plot Summary | LitCharts

That’s what she was, Joanna felt suddenly. That’s what they all were, all the Stepford wives: actresses in commercials, pleased with detergents and floor wax, with cleansers, shampoos, and deodorants. Pretty actresses, big in the bosom but small in the talent, playing housewives unconvincingly, too nicey-nice to be real.”Now I have to say that I can think of some men who might go along with scheme like this if it were possible. Can you? The idea behind this chilling social satire is nothing less than ingenious and that is why this book has achieved iconic status.

The Stepford Wives - Wikipedia

When Royal agrees to take the kids out of pizza, he has plenty of reason to be unhurried and amenable. He’s already booked in a weekend away with his wife. Her cards are already marked. Her time will come. Walter brings home Dale Coba, president of the men’s club and a famous artist named Ike Mazzard whose sketches of woman set an impossibly high ideal of what a woman should look like in all the women’s magazines. The group does allow Joanna to participate in the conversation and while they are talking Ike Mazzard sketches her. He gives her one of the sketches and Joanna is disconcerted at this idealized portrait of herself. The town of Stepford, move there if you want some cult vibes. I saw the newer movie adaptation before reading the book, and definitely found the book more entertaining. It’s obviously not supposed to seem plausible and there’s no real mystery, and the horror element is really focused around the gaslighting of the wives primarily. Of course, the meat of it is the eerily domestic women in the insulated little community, who mysteriously abandoned their political group around the time the men of the community started theirs…and no women allowed of course. We all know *something* happened to the women, we just don’t know what it is. As the story progresses, Joanna becomes convinced that the wives of Stepford are being poisoned or brainwashed into submission by the men's club. She visits the library and researches the pasts of Stepford's wives, discovering that some of the women were once feminist activists and very successful professionals and that the leader of the men's club is a former Disney engineer and others are artists and scientists, capable of creating lifelike robots. Her friend Bobbie helps her investigate, going so far as to write to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to inquire about possible toxins in Stepford. However, eventually, Bobbie is also transformed into a docile housewife and has no interest in her previous activities.

In a chilling scene, Joanna becomes adamant about moving away from Stepford and Walter uses all the tactics of the manipulative emotional abuser: He pretends to consider her point of view, but at the same time he calls her “ irrational” and “ a little hysterical” (87) He tries to arouse guilt by explaining how hard it would be on the kids. Then he suggests she visit a psychiatrist to see if she’s delusional. In other words, he tries to make her doubt reality. He tries to gaslight her. Similarly, contemporary TV ads like this beauty advert, have real women rush onto the beaches in plus-size bikinis. Real women, the message goes, are flawed but fabulous. The underlying irony of Levin’s story, of course, is that the only emotion that the Stepford men seem capable of feeling right down to their very bones is fear. They express no desire, willingness or capacity to feel any other emotion and it is the fact that this state as human beings is only replicated by their wives once they have undergone the process of being transformed into the robots that is the real message here. The secret process of turning the women of Stepford into unthinking, unfeeling mindless automatons takes four months. No such timeline is presented for how long it took to do the same thing to the men of Stepford. Update this section!