The Movie: Stepford Wives (1975)
What Is It?:
Despite being the creation of men, The
Stepford Wives treads where no horror film had before and few have since:
feminism. Katherine Ross is a young wife and mother with ambitions of becoming
a photographer who “messed a little with women’s lib” while living in New York
City. Now she and the family have moved to the pre-fab community of Stepford,
Connecticut, where she is surrounded by submissive wives and husbands who
gather to collude in the mysterious Stepford Men’s Association. Finding a
likeminded ally in neighbor Paula Prentiss, Ross scratches through Stepford’s
veneer and is horrified by what she discovers. Although its title wives have
entered the vernacular as shorthand for subservient women, The Stepford Wives does not receive the attention it deserves as
one of the sharpest films of its day.
Why Today?: Today
is Wife Appreciation Day—think of today’s movie as a lesson in what not to do
today.
