Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Stepford Wives: Family Values Being Dragged Through the Mud

Well, last week I just had the unfortunate experience of watching some Left Wing drivel out of Hollywood. Watching the Stepford Wives was supposed to be an evening of dark humor and mild suspense. It turned out to be nothing more than a thinly veiled political statement against traditional values. Namely the traditional American family.

From the moment I saw the fictional community of Stepford, I knew something wasn’t right, and not just because I already knew the plot of the movie going in. I knew that somehow, some way, this movie would be used to discredit the American housewife, and I was right.

From the moment the main characters, a high powered female TV executive recently fired from her job due to bad publicity thanks to an angry, gun-toting former contestant on the infidelity promoting game show “I Can do Better”, and a “house husband” played by Matthew Broderick, whose idea it is to move to Stepford in order for his wife to recharge the batteries and maybe connect with her on a more personal level, move to the seemingly benign Connecticut gated community, things are weird. All the women are thin, blonde, and beautiful, and are creepily cheerful 24/7.

This in and of itself is only marginally creepy, however, until you find out the reason why. The reason Stepford is the way it is is because each of the women who live there is being forcibly mind controlled by their overbearing husbands. Even the gay couple, who moved to Stepford for the same reasons the other families did, is affected, with the overly effeminate character being "reeducated" into acting more masculine so that he can run and win a bid for the Connecticut state Senate.

Put this into the atmosphere of Stepford, which is overly patriotic, with the American flag everywhere and music such as The Halls of Montezuma playing during picnics and other city functions, and you have the makings for a movie that deliberately tries to discredit family life in every way shape and form. The housewives are drones, the husbands are overbearing louts, and the two characters who believe in the 1950's stereotype are a robot and a lunatic!

So what does this say about the characters in this movie? A lot. it says that anyone pushing the traditional view of the American family is either a robot incapable of thinking for themselves, or a lunatic trying to "turn back the clock."

Think I'm kidding? Consider this: The man I mentioned above, who was a contestant on a fictional reality show, is portrayed as a gun-toting psycho. The women who make up the Stepford Wives were all in positions of power, but were subverted by their overbearing, underachieving husbands because the men were "afraid" of their wives. Jon Lovitz, who is hilarious in many of the movies he does, specifically answers his wife's question of "why can't you clean the house once in a while?" with "because I have a PENIS?" As if that exempts him from doing any kind of housework.

The end scene of the movie is, while humorous to some, insulting to yours truly, as it shows the men trolling through the grocery store utterly and completely lost, as if they have no idea what to do. The laughter of their respective wives is heard as a voice over, adding insult to injury. Apparently someone wanted to show men their "Proper" place in the universe.

All in all, the movie was a waste of time, and I felt the need to shower immediately after watching it.

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