Movies are incredible things. Not only are they entertainment and art, but sometimes they have major impact not just on popular culture but on genre itself. This is particularly true for sci-fi movies. With stories that often deal with technology, the future, and difficult questions about humanity, the sci-fi genre has given us far more than just some entertainment. It’s influenced actual science as well as introduced new concepts that continue well after the credits roll and 51 years ago today, one iconic movie gave us not only commentary about the human experience but a brand-new sci-fi term as well.
Based Ira Levin’s novel of the same name, The Stepford Wives opened in theaters on February 12, 1975. The film follows Joanna (Katharine Ross), a woman who moves along with her husband and children from New York City to the town of Stepford, Connecticut. However, soon after arriving in Stepford, Joanna starts to notice something peculiar about the women in town: they are all pretty, perfect and subservient to their husbands. As the film unfolds, Joanna makes a horrifying discovery about the “wives”, notably that the real woman have all been replaced by highly lifelike robots that the men control and, even worse, she’s next.
The Stepford Wives Is a Chilling Satire, But It’s Impacted Our Culture and Lexicon Beyond the Film
The Stepford Wives wasn’t necessarily a major box office hit when it first opened 51 years ago. The film was actually met with a mixed critical response and grossed only around $4 million at the box office. However, despite its relatively modest performance and some public criticism as a “rip-off” of the women’s movement, the film went on to make major cultural impact and, very specifically, gave birth to a new term: Stepford Wife.
Today, the term is not unusual. It’s come to be a pretty common descriptor for someone who seems to be brainwashed or controlled by another person (almost always a man), and that’s a direct reference to the wives depicted in The Stepford Wives. When Joanna arrives in the fictional town, she’s struck by how compliant her neighbors are. They don’t seem to have any intellectual interests or hobbies and they’re all obsessed with housework. They’re very sexually submissive to their husbands and, perhaps more chilling, in the case of her neighbor Carol, exhibits strange, repeated behavior after a minor car accident.
While it could be easy to chalk things like this up as just how some of the women in Stepford are, the idea that this is absolutely not normal hits when Joanna’s new friend Bobbie who has her own interests and ideas suddenly turns into the same sort of “zombie” that the other Stepford wives do. The stark contrast between the vibrant woman who could think for herself and the vapid, compliant shell is so stunning that the only real description that fits is “Stepford Wife”. It’s a term that is still used to describe someone that lacks personal interest or independent thought to this day, though the term has expanded to include more than simply women. While it’s a term that is usually associated with women and wives, the term has been expanded to cover anyone who seems robotic and brainwashed, with no life or interest of their own outside of their partner.
“Stepford” Has Now Become a Trope Explored By Recent Films, Too
Beyond simply language, “Stepford” has firmly cemented itself as a sci-fi trope as well. Last year’s movie, Companion, very directly references The Stepford Wives. In Companion, it’s revealed that Iris (Sophie Thatcher) is a companion robot controlled by her boyfriend Josh (Jack Quaid) and while Iris has a very different outcome than the women in The Stepford Wives, the film’s opening scene in particular mirrors the ending of the 1975 film. We also see the “Stepford” theme and trope in 2022’s Don’t Worry Darling and while the idea of forced domestic subservience isn’t new to science fiction, this particular take on it is something that we didn’t really see until The Stepford Wives. It makes for a fascinating example of how sci-fi can have a long reaching impact and remain a major conversation 51 years after initial release.
What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!