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FILM
Stepping all over Stepford
Creating a perfect world
Despite the compelling addition of a gay couple,
this classic story was better left alone
Screenwriter Paul Rudnick on the allure
of the suburbs and Bette Midler’s faux pas
by
L is a B r a d s h a w
read Ira Levin’s 1972 novel
The Stepford Wives when 1
was about 12. My mother
wasn’t exactly into feminist
literature, hut she certainly was
into horror, and The Stepford
Wives is both.
Levin’s popular fiction and
plays have been consistently
mined by filmmakers to great
effect: Rosemary's Baby, The Boys
from Brazil, No Time for
Sergeants. Not only do his novels
reflect deeply seated cultural
attitudes most Americans would
rather ignore, he possesses an
enviable ability to push the
“what if’ button without
destroying suspension of disbe
lief. He’s an artist utterly adept
Can Nicole Kidman
at illustrating what happens
when you take the darker parts of desire one step fur
ther than you thought you could.
The Stepford Wives is such a story. Joanna is a
Manhattanite who moves with her husband and kids
to an idyllic Connecticut suburb only to find the
women there are all creepily “perfect” housewives,
always in a dress and full makeup with no ability to
converse about anything but cooking and cleaning.
Witnessing the “change” of seemingly intelligent,
normal women like her, Joanna has to figure out just
what the hell is rotten in Stepford.
The resulting 1975 movie was a perfect adaptation
of the chilling story with a feminist edge. Which makes
it more puzzling how the remake screwed it up so very,
very badly.
Certainly an update of Stepford wasn’t a bad idea:
Women have more economic and social choices than
they did in 1975, but the backlash against the feminist
movement can he found today as easily as it could
when Levin, who is one of very few postmodern male
writers to articulate the issue so effectively, explored it
again and again.
Gay screenwriter and playwright Paul Rudnick
(Jeffrey ) teamed up with director Frank Oz (the two
also conspired on In & Out) to bring Stepford into
the 21st century. This time the story’s two heroines,
played by Nicole Kidman and Bette Midler, aren’t
just looking to join a consciousness-raising group,
they’re a television network president (albeit fired)
and a famous writer, respectively.
These women’s husbands (Matthew Rnxlerick and
Jon Lovitz), always in the shadow of their wives’
Lisa Bradshaw: The original Stepford Wives is very much a cult classic. Is it
intimidating to remake it?
Paul Rudnick: It is.. .and that’s why it’s good to have a large-scale new take on
the material.... Thankfully, women have made certain strides in the past 30-odd
years, so my new version is about the genuinely powerfully
women— women who are CEOs and supreme court justices and
senators— and why they’ve given, you know, your more timid het
erosexual men big new reasons to be terrified and vengeful.
I
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save Roger from becoming the perfect Stepford wife?
glory, have new, more modem reasons to want to re
create their spouses according to the standards of the
prestigious Stepford Men’s Association.
And Rudnick, MO intact, wrote a gay couple
into the script. A t first this seems antithetical to the
point of the war of the Stepford sexes, but when you
realize that the flamboyant Roger Bannister’s (Roger
Bart) partner feels Roger is just a bit too gay, you
begin to understand the parallel and enjoy this new
intriguing twist.
Where Rudnick and Oz go terribly wrong is in
veering from black comedy (which might have
worked) into a rushed slapstick that insults the pac
ing as well as-the story. So desperate to ensure laughs,
they’ve spent more time proving how “robotic” the
Stepford women are than in exploring what made
them that way.
They have also made the mistake, as they did
with In & Out, in slapping on an ending that seem
ingly has nothing to do with the rest of the film (and
certainly nothing to do with the original material).
The four lead actors do have a lot of chemistry
together, and Midler and Kidman are wonderful at
dishing with gay Roger. But snappy one-liners will
only take a movie so far.
What’s missing from this new Stepford is the ten
sion, the mystery, the slow but steady onslaught of
audience and character realization that should per
vade the story— regardless of the year it’s set in. Rud
nick and Oz’s movie certainly lcx>ks pretty (at $90
million, it ought to), but it’s missing its soul. Which is
pretty ironic.
in
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L B : The original story is about gender oppression and back
lash to the feminist movement. How does a gay male couple fit
into that?
P R : The idea of the gay couple in the suburbs was juicy because
there’s that whole issue nowadays of gay assimilation. The fact that
now that gay people have kids, that dtey may very well be able to
Paul Rudnick
marry, you wonder, are gay people turning into a mirror image of
the straight world? Is that a desirable thing, is that just a raturai part of equality?
I know lots o f people who are wrestling with that idea o f is being gay solely an
urban phenomenon and suddenly they want lawns and SU V s and strollers. So it
seems right at home in Stepford-—in a way that, personally, I find a little scary.
Then there’s the idea erf controlling your partner.... That it’s about a power strug
gle, whether it’s between men and women or same-sex couples, there are certain uni
versal urges at work.
L B : You’ve definitely upped the camp in this Stepford,
P R : There is a certain campy potential in the fact that the suburbs are fetishized,
which happens in the original, and we’ve taken it further. Because nowadays the
suburbs include these ridiculous McMansions where people are spending $ 11 million
o n ...40,000 square feet of Tudor French château, and there’ll be a couple and their
one child living in all this splendor.
That seems both absurd and also weirdly attractive, which was something i want
ed the movie to address. Even when the suburbs seem utterly evil, there’s also some
thing very alluring about them .. .it’s beautiful to look at.
L B : You wrote isn't She Q reat starring Bette M idler....
P R : Yes, I did, and l apologize deeply- [Laughs] Bette Midler is a wonderfully tal
ented woman, and we shouldn’t hold Isn’t She Great against her.
L B : O r you?
PR: Or me. We’ve served our time in movie-making house arrest for that one.
LB : Well, that was just my segue into talking about Bette Midler, who you
also worked with in The Stepford Wives. I just saw an interview with her in The
AdiHfcate, and she refused to say she supports gay marriage.
PR : I read that, too, and I found it pretty appalling ’cause Bette is, you know, a
i ery good person, and 1 was shocked, actually, at her waffling on that particular ques
tion the way I’d be shocked at anyone, gay or straight, imagining that it’s an issue
with a pro and con. You know, it’s like an easy one.
LB : I think you need to give her a call.
PR: Please, I’ll give her a smack! I have the feeling that she’ll now make amends,
because she certainly needs to .... There is such an overwhelming relationship
between Bette and the gay community.... That does come with a certain responsibil
ity that she did seem to be shirking. I’m as stunned as anyone by that. JT1
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