The Stepford Wives

Abstract

The Stepford Wives (Forbes, 1975) occupies an unusual position in cinematic history. As is often the case with cult texts, the film itself was a box office flop, despite the hype of its initial release in the US. Though it was intended as a feminist diatribe, it was fervently derided by Betty Friedan, whose 1963 book The Feminine Mystique is literalised in The Stepford Wives. Even Ira Levin, author of the original 1972 novel from which the film was adapted concedes he was less than enthused with what he saw on screen. Despite this, the term Stepford wife has become idiolect for a particular kind of one-dimensional, upper-middle class woman who is figuratively, and to some extent literally, an automation. Indeed, one does not need to have heard of the film or Levin’s book to be familiar concept. Significantly, The Stepford Wives is not a moment in film history. It is an entire universe. It spawned several made-for-television sequels that speak back to gender politics of the 1980s/1990s. It was reimagined by Frank Oz in 2004, starring a high-profile cast including Better Midler and Glenn Close. More recently, it inspired Jordan Peele’s critically acclaimed horror film Get Out (2017). This timely and compelling study gives The Stepford Wives the serious scholarly attention it deserves. In doing so, the significance of the film as a socio-cultural and socio-political document in its own right is underscored. While the intention of this book is to pay homage to Forbes’ The Stepford Wives, it goes far beyond this, locating the film in the traditions of the gothic, the histories of feminism and fictional imaginings about artificial women, and real-world developments in social robotics and AI