Time-Traveling Stepford Wives? Or Liberating Domestic Blast From the Past?
In what looks like the 1800s, farming families make the best of a simple life in an idyllic rural village isolated by deep forests. But their placid existence is shattered by the appearance of unidentified monsters hiding in the woods .
(SPOILER ALERT: I'm going to discuss the 'big reveal' ending.)
It turns out that the village exists in the modern world, but its inhabitants have closed themselves off from society in the middle of a giant wilderness preserve. The whole elaborate rural 'Disneyland' was created by a wealthy family who was sick of the violence of contemporary life, and wanted to raise their children in a safe environment untainted by crime, rape and murder. The village elders know, but the young adults and children are ignorant of what's going on. And the monsters are there to keep the young 'uns down on the farm and out of the woods, which end at a high wall that surrounds the entire preserve. (The family's so wealthy and so intent on keeping the secret, they've even paid to have the area exist in a no-fly zone.)
I liked the film, but critics and audiences generally panned it.
If the following story were made into a film, I wonder what the reviews would be. (It's actually taken from a TV show that aired Friday night, so we'll have to see the reactions.)
Three women in the UK are dissatisfied with contemporary society and how females are treated today. They long for the glamor and simplicity of bygone days, so they've chosen to recreate, decorate, and live in a past decade that speaks to them. One lives in the 50s, one in the 40s, and the last in the 30s.
They each declare their passion for baking cakes. They all feel they're better loved by their husbands than other women around them because each gender understands their respective roles. And they say they're happier for doing what they do.
When I read about them, I immediately thought about The Village. Unlike that community's inhabitants, these women are surrounded by the real world and have to interact with modern society. And as you might guess, they encounter a lot of disbelief, scorn, and even bitchy comments. They shut themselves off from media and the news as much as possible, and regard their retreat from the world and their homes as a way of creating sanctuary.
I couldn't do what these three women are doing. But in a slightly unnerving, unexpected way, a tiny part of me - the part that truly enjoyed The Village even though very few others did - understands why they're doing it...and wants to go back as well.
Comments
I *love* the fashions and the period home decor!
Wanting to be a housewife is fine, but I’m disturbed when they say they are not concerned about gender equality. Is it because they already consider themselves to be their husbands’ equals, or because they have happily taken subservient roles?
I’m surprised the woman who lives in the 30s uses the word “bitchy.”
Glad it just a movie, however, it is a preference and however, again, that this indicates that women just want to be taken care of, the way we WERE taught. Mona Lisa Smile was a good epic of that era. The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), Women’s Liberation movement (were degraded by women, go figure) were clear indications that ALL women do not and will not tolerate the never ending quest for male dominence.
When people try to “go back” to a past time and its lifestyle, they may not be looking at what really was, but at a fantasy notion of, say, the 50’s. I was a kid then, and we lived as we did because we had no choice.
We were latchkey kids because our Mom had to work. Our dad didn’t make enough money to pay the bills, and he wasn’t lazy; he worked 13 hours a day. Not many people had the homes you see in the old Amana ads. Even with both parents working, we never had a clothes dryer or a shower in the bathroom (just a tub).
It was impossible to get work done on the house without taking a loan, and those were hard to get. “Do-it-yourself” was a necessity that became trendy as investors learned to profit from it.
If rigid gender roles made people happy, there wouldn’t have been so many crying women and drunken men, believe me, and they were all around.
My sisters, baking cakes and wearing old-fashioned clothes is fine if your husband gives you plenty of money, but be glad that now you have the choice to go out and earn what you need because it’s really the 21st century.
I grew up in the 1950s, and believe me, it was no picnic. We lived on a farm, and everyone, including the kids, worked like dogs. I was terrified that I wouldn’t get a college scholarship and would end up working in the local textile mill for life. Worse yet, I could have gotten pregnant and ended up a high-school dropout and/or forced into an inappropriate marriage. Role-playing is one thing; real life is something else altogether. I don’t see the couples in these article reliving the worldwide depression, World War II, rationing or the Suez crisis.