9/10/2023 0 Comments Movies like don t worry darlingThe film is deeply concerned with the bodies of its characters, but it also invented the Stepford wife, an archetype that is defined by resistance to the thought of a woman as autonomous. The book was adapted by screenwriter William Goldman and director Bryan Forbes, and while other horror films of the era - The Brood, Carrie, and Black Christmas - treated women’s bodies as sites of fear or transcendence, and grappled with the patriarchal culture’s anxiety about the displacement of male power, few films dealt with explicitly feminist politics like The Stepford Wives. The Stepford Wives - which follows protagonist Joanna Eberhart’s move to Stepford, Connecticut, and her quest to uncover why all the women seem like robots (it’s because they are) - is really about women caught between the social necessity of arguing for their rights and a capitalist culture that just wants them to buy stuff. The sexual revolution of the late 1960s and the strengthening of the feminist movement at the time forced broader swaths of society to examine the role gender played in their lives, often unequally, and Levin’s work recast those cultural anxieties with a surprising amount of empathy and consideration. Ira Levin’s novel The Stepford Wives was published in 1972, several years after Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique in 1963 and founded the grassroots activist group National Organization for Women. Photo: Merrick Morton/Courtesy of Warner Bros. As the cracks in Alice’s flawless world begin to disrupt her sense of self, the film’s striking resemblance to that other story of suburban perfection hiding an abuse of power beneath its mod façades becomes even clearer, and Wilde’s modern interpretation of Stepford’s aesthetics are called into question. The routines are the same (make dinner, buy stuff, lounge and drink), and the power dynamics remain unchanging. Florence Pugh’s Alice, one of the women in a development called Victory Project, dreamily dressed in flowery dresses and aprons and wrapped in floral shirtwaists, stays in town as her husband, Jack ( Harry Styles), goes off to work looking like he’s been plucked from a Mad Men costume party. In Don’t Worry Darling, the cozy familiarity of a mysterious suburban enclave occupies a nebulous space, out of time: It’s in the past, away from any kind of politics, and the women who live there are somewhat robotic. But why does Hollywood continue to replicate the aesthetics and tropes introduced in The Stepford Wives? Could that really be an effective measure for just how far gender politics have seemingly evolved? Both of these works are responses to the politics of their eras and uncertain about the future of feminism in America. The similarities between the films are plenty: There are housewives, husbands on pedestals, male-only secret societies, mid-century décor, and a woman who questions and challenges the reality that’s presented to her. Written by Katie Silberman and directed by Olivia Wilde, Don’t Worry Darling is transparent about its references to The Stepford Wives, a cult classic that has influenced other contemporary directors of social thrillers such as Jordan Peele. Photo-Illustration: by The Cut Photos: Warner Bros., Shutterstock
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