Word: stepfordized
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...STEPFORD WIVES...
...some good points by having his living dolls talk exactly like the female humanoids in TV commercials-fretting about the need for spotless floors and coffee that tastes fresh-perked. Forbes, on the other hand, sees an opportunity for serious suspense. Will Katharine Ross and Paula Prentiss, newcomers to Stepford, realize what is afoot in this too, too peaceful Connecticut town and get out before they are traded hi for living dolls? He manages to work up some reasonable suspense over this matter. Somehow, though, the writer's prime concern and the director's never quite fuse...
...maybe they just should have skipped the whole thing. Obviously, The Stepford Wives aspires to be a women's lib parable, realizing the female's worst fears about her mate's desire to dehumanize her. But it is too glibly on the side of the fashionable angels. Moreover, the movie never shows a single man whose feminine ideal exceeds gatefold dimensions. That too is a form of dehumanization...
Those of us who are not against a spot of hot oatmeal on a frosty morning, may wonder at Joanna's perturbation. But Joanna is a clever modern wife. She has a husband who cheerfully shares her household chores. Joanna has just moved to Stepford too. Gradually - about 27½ steps behind the reader - she puts the whole sinister plot together. Why Stepford wives never use baby sitters. Why Stepford wives put the packages neatly in their carts at the supermarket. Why the Stepford Women's Club closed down shortly after it was addressed by Betty Friedan...
...Levin has had his greatest success with books (A Kiss Before Dying, Rosemary's Baby) that turn on the fact that men (especially lovers and husbands) will do absolutely anything to women. The plasticity of the Stepford wives, therefore, is linked to the secretive Men's Association up on the hill with its gifted membership, including a chap who once helped animate all those historical characters out in Disneyland...