Although I have not seen the current movie, I did watch the original "Stepford Wives" TV movie several decades ago. (I've since quit watching television.) It was extremely entertaining, but there was a subtle message in it that has interested me over the years. Now that I hear a new version of this story is out, I am reminded of some of the "messages" contained in the original film that are pertinent to the things we stand for on this site.

The first thing that attracted me to the original movies was the beautiful Victorian style clothing of the women in the film and their clean houses. Right away, I was drawn in! I absolutely love looking at show homes and home decorating sites with beautiful colors and arrangements. I have a favorite antique store that is located in an old house, where the proprietor has created a dining room, bedrooms, living room, kitchen, and bathroom, with everything in them for sale. Each room is a different color theme, and each room feels like home. I jokingly tell her that I love coming there, because there are no dirty dishes piled in the kitchen and no laundry to be done. The original "Stepford" film had all the elements I admired in home living. Everything was neat and clean, dinners were served on time, and happy, contented wives loved and honored their husband--and the husbands were courteous of them, also.

Eventually, the viewer discovers that when a bell rings in the neighborhood, these perfect wives take a pill, which regulates their perfect behavior. They are all brainwashed, subjugated, and programmed to do all the laundry, meals, and other things. The bell rings, and the ladies start cooking and cleaning!

A liberated reporter comes into town and begins to investigate. She discovers that there is a central control station where a man rings the bell at a certain time. The husbands are all in on the plan--husbands who are tired of the way things are going "in real life" where the women are independent, wear pants, and cut their hair.

The reporter exposes the whole sham, and the culprits are made to own up to the terrible thing they've done to their wives. The wives are then taken off the program and the pills to live in freedom once again.

Anyone watching this film would naturally be justifiably infuriated at the men who did this. I wonder, however, if this film was a type of slam at the full-time homemaker. It portrays her as a robot who has no free will and who has to have pills in order to daily program her into dressing beautifully and making a perfect meal, or having a beautiful home.

One thing that bothers me about the new "Stepford Wives" is that so many of my personal friends--and even I--look like these poor, programmed housewives in the town of Stepford. I have friends who love the clothing styles of the 50's and collect them as a hobby. One girl I know hunts the patterns at antique stores, sews them, and then wears them daily in public.

After a major part of the population has seen this movie, will they automatically think of "Stepford Wives" when they see homemakers dressed beautifully? Could the film create a prejudice and a judgementalism against the full-time homemaker, who really loves her home and is trying to make it run smoothly? Will not this film make many young girls wary of getting married, buying a house, and creating a cozy place for her family?

Will the word "wife" itself create a hatred for the term "wife" in real life? What do you think this film will do to the minds of the young girls who see it today? The film itself could actually indoctrinate these young girls as it portrays happening to the wives in Stepford.

How many times have you heard the term "Stepford Wives" since that first film was produced 20 years ago? I've heard it many times when someone wants to refute the idea of becoming a full-time wife, mother, and homemaker. It is considered something bad, something programmed, and something mindless.

What's worse about this movie is that, while the pitiful wives in Stepford are well-groomed and have lovely dresses, the reporter looks like something that just came straight from spending the night behind a trash can in an alley. She has the creepiest hair style and the most drab, depressing clothing. She, however, is in her right mind, while the well-dressed, orderly wives in Stepford are controlled by pills that are regulated by Central Command. Do you see what I'm getting at?

If the story-tellers and film-makers wanted to be absolutely truthful, it is the women who leave their children daily, take long rides to work, and do the same thing over and over in an office cubby-hole, at a warehouse, or in front of a cash register, who must have an alarm bell and often take the pills to keep them going.

Most women have to fight off feelings of regret when they leave their children every morning. Most women suffer from standing on concrete floors in factories or at the local Wal-Mart. Eventually, they will have to take pills for both kinds of pain, in order to keep functioning and bringing in that paycheck.

If a real, honest portrayal were done of real women in society today, it would show how these women wish they could be home, doing something more productive with their days; how they hate their drab uniforms; and how they wish they could have more control over their lives. Instead, they are regulated by alarms and buzzers and time cards, and, yes, even pills, so they can overcome their physical and mental pain long enough to get the job done.

The movie portrays the reporter as having more freedom and more interesting work than the homemakers. In the film, it is true, but in real life? Most of the jobs that women do outside the home these days are just as boring and mindless as the liberators say that homemaking is (and it isn't). More women are choosing home these days, and we certainly hear no complaining from them as they walk away from the work force. According to this movie, it is because they are programmed.

I may be completely off-base about this movie. Maybe I'm reading more into it than was intended. Maybe it is just an entertaining story. I would, however, challenge Hollywood to create an honest film about real women in the real world, trudging sleepy-eyed off to work after their alarm goes off, but I don't know if we can trust Hollywood with film anymore. Sometimes I think they ought to have their film taken away from them until they learn to tell the truth.

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