The Stepford Wives

The Stepford Wives (1975) was famously dismissed as a "rip-off of the women’s movement" by Betty Friedan, whose work had been a primary inspiration for Ira Levin’s 1972 source novel. Friedan’s comment has become the foundational myth of Stepford’s engagement with second-wave feminism: the notion that the film is emblematic of an inauthentic, watered-down version of these concerns, served up for public consumption.

Crucial to this notion is the focus on its three male "authors"—the novelist Ira Levin, the original screenwriter William Goldman, and the director Bryan Forbes—and the question of whether the film merely reflected their perspectives. Thus, in my discussion of the film, I wanted to draw on newly released archival materials to investigate their authorship from a place that was more empirically grounded than previous studies.

For example, William Goldman’s criticism of the casting of Forbes’s wife, Nanette Newman, as one of the Stepford wives, has become as well-known a put-down as Friedan’s. The crux of Goldman’s critique is shrouded in misogyny, with his complaint that Newman was "...an attractive brunette. But a sex bomb she isn’t." By casting Newman, he argued, the "whole look of the film had to alter," ditching the "tennis costumes" and the "parade of Bunnies walking through the A&P in shorts on their perfect tanned legs" because "she can’t wear the clothes."

In researching the book, I discovered that there is little evidence to support Goldman’s claim, and that in fact, Forbes’s vision was far more subtle and disturbing, in which control over women is exerted via elaborate housewife cosplay. More importantly, much of the work in support of this idea can be attributed to the women in below-the-line jobs, who contributed to the film’s aesthetic but who have not been mentioned in previous critical analyses of the film.

Three sources were crucial to this process. First, the archival papers of the film’s director, Bryan Forbes, held by the Margaret Herrick Library in Beverly Hills, contain a complete collection of the daily production reports for the film, which give a detailed overview of the decisions made throughout its filming. Forbes’s correspondence with Levin and Goldman is also part of the collection and helped reveal some of the creative decisions made during the writing and filming process. Second, a collection of Forbes’s draft screenplays is held by the British Film Institute in London, which helped me see how the script was developed over time in light of comments made by Goldman about changes to his original version. Finally, the collection of Goldman’s papers is held by Columbia University, showing the research he conducted into the Stepford story and his often expletive-laden messages to Forbes! Combined, these sources suggest that, in fact, Stepford’s authorship is much more complex than Goldman has claimed.

Stepford has left an indelible legacy in popular culture, with the notion of the ‘Stepford wife’ being adopted across a wide range of material. In a world where the gradual erosion of women’s rights is epitomised by actions such as the partial reversal of the Roe v. Wade (1973) provisions, online performative portrayals of the #tradwife, and social media feeds pushing increasingly unrealistic beauty standards to young women, the film is arguably more pertinent now than it was on its initial release over fifty years ago. In writing this book, I hope that I have been able to highlight how the film speaks to these concerns, and by drawing on the archival material outlined above, provide a new insight into its production and relevance to audiences today.

Ongoing thread. More from Paul Moody to follow.