The Stepford Children (dir. Alan J. Levi, 1987)
To digress for a moment: Filmmakers and sci-fi story writers like to take the air out of America’s seemingly ubiquitous myth of 1950s America. There seems to be an unspoken fantasy held by most Americans (or at least conservative Americans) of a white, clean, non-violent, character-free, white-picket-fence nation full of many suit-wearing men, obedient housebound wives, and non-sexual clean-cut teenage children. This is the ideal we strive for, right? Sci-fi and horror stories tend to indicate that there’s something sinister about this ultra-clean fantasy, always implying that there might be something criminal or even demonic about this alluringly placid lifestyle. People who live in big cities are especially suspicious, as we city-dwellers tend to prefer bustle, noise, late nights, coffee shops, bars, art, cheesy movies, and more opportunities for open sexual activity.
But I bet there is a perfectly decent city or two in this great nation of ours who actually do live in that sort of domestic bliss. The people are happy and calm in their traditional roles, and there is not a whiff of oppression or hate anywhere in town. They may not have many gays, blacks, or Jews in their town, but that’s just a matter of circumstance; they’d welcome those people, if they thought to trek through. They’re not oppressive people, they’re smart and open-minded. They’re just quiet, and maybe a little old-fashioned. I bet the denizens of these real-life placid American towns probably resent movies like The Stepford Wives, that openly vilify the lifestyle they have been raised in.
The Stepford Children is a preachy and stultifying movie that centers less on domestic fantasy and more on suspicious teen angst. Hating authority is a phase all teenagers go through, so music and movies and even philosophers that cater to the dismantling of all authority figures are very appealing to high school kids. The Stepford Children is a teenage fantasy of the highest order.
Stepford, CT is still up to their old tricks, and we’re back to the bio-bot conceit. The Men’s Association is still around, only now they’ve moved into teenage territory. Not only are they replacing their wives, but if their kids become too wild – in the movie, depicted by punk hairdos and leather jackets – then they are replaced by well-behaved avatars. We see John Cameron Mitchell (who would go on to direct Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Shortbus) get replaced early in the film, just because he refuses to go fishing.
The lead teens in question are David and Mary Harding (Randall Batnikoff and Tammy Lauren). Mary sports one of the biggest hairdos I’ve seen outside of the movie Hairspray. The teens begin noticing the weird, ultra-square behavior of their peers in Stepford, and bring it to the attention of their stepmom Laura (Barbara Eden), who also becomes suspicious. The teens begin to notice sudden changes in some of the town’s new moms as well. The ultra-cool mom who drives her daughter to school on a motorcycle eventually becomes a homemaker. These homemaker images are more odd in 1987 than they were in 1975.
I have nothing else to say about the story to this film. It should have been shorter. Special guests: Dick Butkus and James Coco.
A special note. The Stepford TV movies are incredibly hard to find, and I have to thank CineFile Video for bringing them to my attention. Thanks, guys, for being so thorough in your library of cheesy, half-forgotten TV movies.
Next week, we’ll look at 1996’s The Stepford Husbands, and the well-known and very bad 2004 remake. Be sure to join me then. I got more brainwashing to do. Or robots.
Witney Seibold is a featured contributor on the CraveOnline Film Channel, co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can read his weekly articles Trolling, Free Film School and The Series Project, and follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
