The remake of this campy thriller starring Nicole Kidman has made a much-needed change to its ending

The big picture

• The original
  Stepford Wives
  It is a dark reflection of second-wave feminist fears and women’s loss of autonomy.
• Frank Oz’s 2004 remake modernizes the story with humor, happy endings, and powerful female characters.
• The remake lightens the feminist message but gives women a happy ending, reclaiming power in a comical way.

The story of The Stepford Wives of novelist Ira Levin received a film adaptation three years after it was written in 1972. The film starred the iconic Katherine Ross (The Graduate), along with a variety of other renowned actors, such as Peter Mastroson, Paula Prentiss, Nanette NewmanAND Tina Louise. It was directed by the English director Patrick Forbes (Séance on a Humid Afternoon, The L-shaped room) that didn’t stray too far from the source material. Levin’s story reflected fears about the growing popularity of second-wave feminism. Women were becoming more financially independent, marital rape had finally been outlawed, and Roe v. Wade had been implemented by the Supreme Court. The original Stepford Wives It was a dystopian horror story for feminists and a dream fantasy for male chauvinists.

On the contrary, Franco Ozthe 2004 remake starring Nicole Kidman AND Matthew Broderick not only modernizes the story for the present, but also changes key factors that completely change the tone from the dark and hopeless ending of the original. Oz’s version is humorous and light, changes the dynamic between Joanna and Walter, and most importantly, gives Joanna and the Stepford women the happy ending they deserve. While the remake glosses over some of the original’s pressing women’s rights issues, Oz finds a way to modernize the feminist themes with hilarious and entertaining turns of phrase. It completely transforms the story from dystopian to kitsch, and is incredibly effective in doing so.

The original “Stepford Wives” is a dark dystopian thriller

The 1975 film starts out cheerful, but quickly becomes unnerving. Joanna (Katherine Ross), her husband Walter (Peter Mastroson), and their two children move out of town to a picture-postcard Connecticut suburb called Stepford. Joanna befriends her neighbor Bobbie (Paula Prentiss) and together they begin to notice strange things about the other women who live there. The wives emulate the “ideal” role of the nuclear family, taken straight from a 1950s housewife’s guide with their entire lives revolving around cooking, cleaning, and taking care of their husbands. It turns out the husbands are in cahoots with their wives, and each “Stepford Wife” has been killed and replaced by robot versions of herself. Although Joanna tries to save herself, she is betrayed by Walter and suffers the same fate as the other wives.

The 1975 version depicts Stepford as a dark and hopeless town. It basically absorbs all the resistance against feminism and spits it out in a suburb called Stepford.. It manifests the illusion of the “good old days” when the average woman was financially dependent on her husband, worked as a housewife, and was expected to be unassertive and submissive. Joanna bonds with Bobbie over common interests (they are the only women in town who wear pants!), but the friendship is quickly torn from Joanna when Bobbie becomes the next victim. While the film has some qualities that put it in the horror/thriller category, it is also a tragedy. Joanna loses everything: Bobbie, Walter, her children, her love of photography, her personality, her soul and her life. All that is left is an empty shell that mimics her appearance.

The original Stepford Wives revolves around women who lose all their autonomy and individuality, which is what makes it so terrifying. This was Levin’s intention, as his novels often dealt with women’s issues (he wrote Rosemary’s Baby(after all). This is not a funny movie, and it’s not meant to be. It’s a critique of a hypothetical society that refuses to evolve, and a commentary on the evil ways it might play out.

The 2004 remake of “Stepford Wives” is comical and light-hearted

By comparison, the 2004 adaptation of The Stepford Wives It is essentially a modernized and humorous version of the original, with the women coming out on top this time. Frank Oz (The Dark Crystal, The Little Shop of Horrors) featured a finale that uplifted women instead of depressing them. Like the original, it features a star-studded cast with Nicole Kidman, Matthew Broderick, Bette Midler, Christopher Walken, Glenn Close, Hill of FaithAND Roger Bart. But there are key aspects that completely change the vibe from the original. While 1975 Joanna has an interest in photography, her main job is taking care of her children with Walter as her primary provider. 2004 Joanna (Kidman) is the powerhouse of the family with a booming reality TV career and Walter (Broderick) is constantly in her shadow. Also, while 1975 Joanna is interested in the Woman’s Liberation Movement, 2004 Joanna specializes in creating reality TV that uplifts women and demeans men. All of the sexist and social issues raised in the original film, while still draped in satire at times, are even more exaggerated for comedic purposes in the remake.

The tone of The Stepford Wives The remake is modernized not only by reversing the roles of Joanna and Walter, but also by introducing a queer couple, Roger (Bart) and Jerry (Courtesy of David Marshall). Roger’s animated personality irritates Jerry, who leads him to trick Roger into becoming a Stepford Husband. Roger’s personality changes from outgoing and flamboyant to hyper-masculinized and serious, allowing him to “fit” into the heteronormative standards of Stepford. Oz emphasizes this point to demonstrate that Stepford doesn’t just change wives, it also changes “feminine” gay men to fit into the nuclear family culture that is the norm.

Another major change in the remake involves Glenn Close’s character, Claire Wellington. The finale reveals that Claire is the one who invented the microchips to create the Stepford Wives, and her husband Mike is also a robot victim. After Claire discovered that Mike was having an affair, she killed him and his lover and created the Stepford Wives program to “fix” marriages from her own delusional perspective. A woman creating the Stepford Wives program throws a curveball to the original, where men invent and imply the program themselves. Having Claire as the mastermind could be interpreted as a downplaying of the original’s feminist message, but it can also be seen as further reinforcing it.

Claire is a brilliant neurosurgeon and creates the program with her engineering and expertise. She lets the town believe that Mike is the creator of the program and presents herself as a ditzy and unsuspecting blonde when, in reality, she is the one responsible. Although she is undoubtedly a psychotic female character (not too dissimilar to Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction), is triggered by her disrespectful and unfaithful husband, implying that his actions are a snowball result of society’s mistreatment of women. In the original, all the male characters willingly give in to the process and knowingly kill their wives for the “improved” version of them, even Walter. The 2004 version is more promising, as Walter and Joanna work together to defeat the program and return the wives to normal.. Although Walter is embarrassed by Joanna’s career compared to his own, he learns to support and embrace her. Also, instead of being killed by their robot dopplegänger, their microchips are deactivated and they return to normal just in time to confront their husbands.

Does the ‘Stepford Wives’ remake downplay women’s struggles?

While The Stepford Wives The remake lightens the message of the original film, but also gives women a happy ending. While many aspects of the remake make fun of some of the serious issues raised in the original, it does so in a way that is self-aware and more up-to-date. The remake is still a feminist film, but both approach feminist issues in different ways: one uses shock value and desperation, and the other uses irony and humor.

The remake reclaims power for women through Joanna’s professional success and reveals that all of the wives were also powerful career women before they were transformed. They were judges, lawyers, and best-selling authors, all of which are more significant than Joanna’s 1975 photography hobby. The status of the women is elevated in the remake, and conversely, their husbands are all shown as weak and worthless nobodies. They perfectly embody the incel stereotype, and that was Oz’s intention: to imply that men who want dumb, submissive wives with no value outside of their bodies are usually weak idiots. Wild Olivia he expanded this idea with Don’t worry darlingwhere incel husbands created their own 1950s-style virtual reality for their unsuspecting wives, kidnapping their minds to trap them in the man-made reality. But needless to say, The Stepford Wives I explored it better.

The end of The Stepford Wives The remake only gets more positive. The wives return to normal just in time to unleash their wrath on their husbands. Unlike the original, the husbands pay for what they have done and are forced to remain in Stepford under “citizen’s” arrest, running errands, cooking, and cleaning the chores they imposed on their wives. Ultimately, both films have different purposes.. If audiences want to be transported back to the 70s to understand the gender inequality of the time and why women fought so hard for equality, the original is the best option. If they want to be entertained and relax with some wine and charcuterie, while still getting a blast of feminism, the remake is the perfect choice.

The Stepford Wives (2004) is available for rental on Amazon.

Rent on Amazon