He can only see an arm’s reach in front of him, as he slowly walks down an unfamiliar hallway. The floorboards creek with every cautious step he takes, creeping further and further down the musty, wooden paneled corridor. His dimly lit flashlight illuminates majestic, life-size portraits on the wall. One by one he can see flickers of Stepford families past. As he looks them over, something strange jumps out right away. Glowing beauties stand beside chubby older men with crow’s feet and coke bottle glasses. Occasionally, a smattering of smiling children is also present.
Suddenly, the quiet, serene soundtrack turns suspenseful. The man with the flashlight is an intruder, being secretly hunted by the Stepford husbands. In a matter of seconds, they surround him in their burgundy coats and penny loafers, determined looks on their faces. The time has come for another transformation. In one swift moment, fear sets in on the face of the man with the flashlight. The screen goes black.
Scenes like this can’t help but leave viewers with that prickly feeling on the back of their neck. The suspense builds and you can’t help but feel your pulse quicken. As humans, it is in our nature to respond to imaginary fear evoked through film, as well as novels. And like The Stepford Wives, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstien uses horror elements to get a bigger message across. Although it may not seem apparent at first glance, a closer look at these two works shows that The Stepford Wives and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein both reveal that society’s conception of perfection is inherently skewed.
One of the first monsters introduced to American popular culture was Frankenstein. Named for the creature created by Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s 19th Century novel, his beginnings were never to be a green monster with an intelligence level of a caveman that wreaks havoc on our cities and towns . In the novel, the scientist endeavors to create a being of beauty. He says, “His limbs were in proportion, I had selected his features as beautiful.” It is not until after he toils away at work for months on end that he realizes his final product may come off as more grotesque than he planned. And as the story goes, Frankenstein is then abandoned and subjugated; left on his own will to survive in a society that bases acceptance on outward appearance.
This situation in The Stepford Wives is very similar. Like Victor, Clair Wellington has the vision of the perfect being. She strives to create a husband for herself that represents outward perfection and grace. She wants a perfectly functioning member of upper-class society. Unlike Victor, her vision is successful and she goes on to create an entire community of beautiful housewives, whose appearance is tailored by their husband and whose personality is controlled via a remote.
Both Frankenstein and the wives of Stepford are mere products of their surroundings. They never asked to be created in the model of perfection. They are judged from the moment of “birth” and are taken advantage of. Their own wants and wills come second to those of their creator. Frankenstein’s “monster” yearns for companionship and never receives it. The wives of Stepford are slaves to the whims of their husbands.
Taking a step back to the scene first described, a new outlook is born. The horror of creation has lead to an all out manhunt. In this scene, the partner of one Stepford man is about to meet his demise. The men of Stepford have come for him and are about to send him to the creation lab for redesign. He will be stripped of his former personality and in its place will be a new set of abs and a different behavior. The way this story is filmed adds to the horror aspect of the situation. The growing suspense and darkness is much like that in the first novel of it’s kind, Frankenstein.
The situations of the ‘created’ can be looked at one-dimensionally as purely unfortunate, but there are larger implications at play here. The society that the ‘created’ are brought into are judging them based on a warped perception of beauty. Frankenstein’s monster can be looked at as beautiful for his will and determination to learn to talk and function humanely, based alone on what he sees the humans around him doing. His development as an alien to the most basic form of humanity, creation, is something to be honored. His inner drive is beautiful and deserves recognition as such. On the other side, the wives of Stepford are scary and regrettable creations because they are devoid of real emotion or individuality. Keeping in mind that it is not their fault, they aren’t truly beautiful even if they are perceived as such.
From this, one can learn that our society’s view of perfection is dangerous. Just look at the industry behind current media: It is evident that today’s entertainment industry is fraught with vanity and the depression and pain that can come from it. The subjugation of monsters like what Frankenstein has become and the danger than can come from perfecting creation is a sign of a sadly anti-intellectual climate and the unfortunate dire importance of looks. These media outlets should be a message to society to begin to look beyond outward appearance. We are inherently trained to think in this pattern, yet it must be broken before it breaks us.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Ed. Maurice Hindle. London: Penguin Books, 2003.
The Stepford Wives. Dir. Frank Oz. 2004. Film.
