Man Bashing Mayhem
Stepford Wives is Out of Step

Maybe I'm just sensitive to the battle of the sexes because of my own relationship problems, but there seems to be an anti-male tone underlying the revision of the 1975 film The Stepford Wives. Starring Nicole Kidman and Bette Midler, this version doesn't play as horror but as a feminist satire.

Kidman stars as Joanna Eberhard, a high-profile network executive who's known for edgy reality programming that pits men against women. When an incident threatens to give the network bad publicity, they cut Joanna loose and she has a nervous breakdown. Her loving husband, Walter (played by Matthew Broderick), wants to give the family a fresh start. So he quits the network and moves the family to Connecticut.

The community of Stepford is, in a word, surreal. The women all look like supermodels and dress like June Cleaver. Led by Claire Wellington (Glenn Close), they even workout in high heels and dresses. The men, by contrast, spend their free time at the Men's Association, a club house filled with leather chairs, electronic gadgets, cigars, and brandy.

When Joanna meets some like-minded urban types at the town picnic, she begins to compare notes about her observations. Bobbie (Midler) and Roger (Roger Bart) join Joanna's obsessive investigation into the community. Bobbie is an anti-social author who constantly fights with her husband (Jon Lovitz). Roger is a flamboyantly gay man who describes his partner as a "gay Republican."

Of course, Joanna, Bobbie, and Roger are the "normal" ones here because they're from the city. (Typical New Yorker mentality.) The people in the community are abnormal because the women like to cook and clean, and everyone enjoys small town activities like 4th of July picnics and square dancing. As a Kansan, I tend to get peeved by stereotypes that equate wholesome values with backward thinking. So, as Joanna, Bobbie, and Roger begin to poke fun at the Stepford crowd, I secretly started rooting for them to die.

As the story progresses, the secret of Stepford does begin to pick off the remaining urbanites. If you've seen the original film -- or even paid attention to the trailer -- you know what the secret is, but I won't spoil it for you. Suffice to say, even if you do know there are still a few twists to make the movie interesting.

When Ira Levin's book came out in the 1970s, feminism was relatively new. The Stepford Wives tapped into the male desire to resist that change, and took it to its horrific extreme. In this incarnation, however, the feminist movement is 30 years stronger. The idea of a woman transforming into some idyllic 1950s image of the perfect housewife is ludicrous, which is probably why director Frank Oz decided to play the story as a comedy.

Yet, even as women are embracing their personal and professional achievements, the story centers not on the virtues of the modern woman as much as the failings of the modern man. Evidently political correctness does not extend to avoiding stereotypes about men. Every man (except Walter) is portrayed as a dumb, beer-swilling buffoon. Walter escapes this stereotype only because he seems to be a castrated goddess worshiper who willingly gives up everything for Joanna. The fact that she doesn't change -- isn't expected to change -- merely underscores the inequality in the modern male/female dynamic.

Whether Oz intended to or not, The Stepford Wives is not so much a satire as a manifesto. It clearly idealizes the modern woman and suggests that women who choose to raise children or become homemakers are somehow "programmed" by men. Although I found this film to be aggravating and unfair, I think it will play well with the Lifetime movie crowd.

MY RATING: 6 out of 10.

RATED:
RUN TIME: 93 min.

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