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Sex, cooking, and cleaning. Those are the things women are meant for, according to the men of Stepford. And that is not much of a stretch, now, is it? What man would not want to come home after a long day at work to find his beautiful, busty wife setting the dinner
table, with a cocktail and hors d'oeuvres waiting for him in the sitting room? That is what the men of Stepford come home to every evening: a perfect home with a perfect wife who cooks the perfect meal. In fact, everything is so perfect, one cannot help but think that life is too good to be true.
And it is. Those Stepford wives are not real women at all. Instead, they are robots, just like the animated robots that families see at Disneyland. Except these robots are made to be touched and played with. In The Stepford Wives, women are literally objects; not people. The three versions of The Stepford Wives, the book, the 1975 movie, and the 2004 movie, all share a general plotline, but the 2004 movie took a completely different approach to the story. Instead of being a movie about the sexist tendencies of many men, the 2004 movie was more a mockery of high-powered women. This mockery is apparent not only in the characters, but also in the changes in the story line.
The character of Joanna Eberhart is the best and most significant example of this difference. In both the novel and the original movie, Joanna is a stay-at-home mother with a small hobby in photography. She was involved in the women's rights movement, but, while very intelligent, was not remarkably outspoken or loud about her opinions.
In the 2004 movie, however, Joanna is an executive of a television network, and the creator of several new shows. To gain an idea of Joanna's character, one can merely take a glimpse at the reality shows she created. Take, for example, "I Can Do Better!" This is a trivia game show between husband and wife, in which the wife always seems to win. The questions include things like "who makes more money," and "who enters Iron Man triathlons every year and wins," (The Stepford Wives 2004).
Or look at the slightly racier "I Can Do Everybody!" in which husband and wife spend a week on an exotic island, and each are given the opportunity to pass some time with various lovers. In the pilot episode, the husband, a rather meek man, spends the week with only one woman and merely talks with her the entire time. The wife, a simple but clearly strong-minded woman, spends her week with a myriad of lovers, and decides to leave her husband at the end. A pleasant concept, is it not?
Can the creator of two such shows be the same person as the woman with a simple hobby of photography? Definitely not. On one hand there is the woman who merely wants men and women to have equal standing in society, and on the other is a woman who makes a living out of creating shows that make men appear weaker than their wives.
Another character who provides a wonderful example of mockery in the 2004 movie is Claire Wellington, the wife of the president of 
the Men's Association. Claire is the welcome-woman to Stepford, and also runs many social functions for the women. She seems to be the leader of the pack of Stepford wives, and teaches their "workout" sessions, in which they do motions of household chores, such as "be a washing machine!" At the end of the movie, the audience learns that Claire was once a highly successful brain surgeon and genetic engineer, and had top-secret contracts with the Pentagon, as well as with other companies. Then, one day, she came home to find her husband, Mike, with her young, blonde assistant. She killed them both, then set out to make a "perfect" place, using her skills to make a robotic copy of her husband. All she wanted was "...a world where men were men and women were cherished and loved. A world of romance and beauty, of tuxedos and chiffon; a perfect world," (The Stepford Wives 2004). Claire Wellington is clearly another woman with a lot of power but a very twisted mind.
Both these women have personalities that make the average person cringe. They are representatives of the driven women of society, but instead of promoting such women, the movie brings them down. The 2004 Stepford Wives suggests that such women cannot function without having a mental breakdown, as both Joanna and Claire have in the movie. Joanna went into a severe state of shock after she was fired from her job, and Claire turned into a maniacal murderess with an obsession of creating the perfect world when she found her husband cheating.
The change of the beginning of the story also demonstrates the mockery of women with power. The 2004 movie, instead of opening with the move into Stepford, opens with a network presentation in an auditorium, during which Joanna presents her new shows to the 
network's supporters. After a clip of "I Can Do Everybody," the unfortunate husband approaches Joanna from the aisle and asks her why she would do such a terrible thing. He then attempts to shoot her, but misses. After this ordeal, Joanna meets with her boss who is forced to fire her to prevent the network from being brought down after the shooting. Joanna proceeds to walk out of the offices as if nothing happened, and then releases a blood-curdling scream when she is alone in the elevator. She then has a mental breakdown and is treated with electroshock therapy before her husband moves their family out of New York and into Stepford. This change of story line seems to suggest that women have to be slightly neurotic to be successful at all, and are also emotionally unstable when disaster strikes.
Just like Claire Wellington, Joanna was very successful in her area of expertise, but when her security was threatened, she could not handle the strain and had a mental breakdown. While Joanna was unable to function until she had intensive therapy, Claire turned to insane murder and developed an obsession with perfection.
In neither the book nor the original movie does Joanna have a mental breakdown. Both versions open with the move into Stepford, and the character of Joanna remains very mentally stable. The only hint of insanity was when her husband asked her to see a psychiatrist when Joanna voiced her suspicions of the Stepford men. While Joanna may have seemed a little mentally troubled, her suspicions were, in truth, very well grounded.
Even Joanna's attempt to fit in with the Stepford women is a mockery in the 2004 movie. When they first arrive in Stepford, Joanna's husband, Walter, suggests that she stop wearing black because, "only high-powered, neurotic, castrating Manhattan career bitches wear black. Is that what you want to be?" Joanna replies by simply saying, "ever since I was a little girl," (The Stepford Wives 2004). When she changes her wardrobe to sunnier clothing, she is informed by a friend that she looks "like Betty Crocker... At Betty Ford," (The Stepford Wives 2004).
The 2004 version of The Stepford Wives is clearly a mockery of women in positions of power. The characters of Joanna Eberhart and Claire Wellington clearly demonstrate this mockery, as do the changes in plot and Joanna's mocked attempt to fit in. Even Joanna's small, meek husband delivered insults to career-minded New York women. There is only one small question left: the original book and movie were serious comments on the sexism of men in the 1970s. How serious of a comment is the 2004 movie on "high-powered, neurotic, castrating, Manhattan career bitches," (The Stepford Wives 2004)?
Contact Tess Thompson
December 1, 2009