Pink Soap Pads
When Joanna first meets Bobbie on the phone, Bobbie is effusively different from many of the wives of Stepford which the newcomer has met so far. There is a knowing irony—a recognition of like minds—in Bobbie’s query to Joanna:
“Are you really not deeply concerned about whether pink soap pads are better than blue ones or vice versa?”
Of course, the irony is dual-edged as eventually it turns tragic when Bobbie becomes sincerely concerned about keeping her kitchen immaculate.
The Perfect Wife
Joanna admits to a bewildered Charmaine that she actually enjoys sex. She lets her husband know that she is open to trying things to please him sexually if he’s unfulfilled. She even lets him know that she’d rather he wake up in the middle of night than be content with merely masturbating. And yet he still Walter STILL wants to turn her into a robot. The irony of the replacement Joanna becoming a sexbot suggests that Walter has some very deep-seated issues with his wife that goes way, way beyond sex. In a sense, Joanna already is the fantasy that the other husbands have to artificially generate.
The Stepford Husbands
The husbands of Stepford are secretly replacing their lively, vibrant, independent wives with mindless robots expressing fake emotions who are indistinguishable from one another. The irony is now that these couples are perfect for each other since they are both mindless robots expressing fake emotions who are indistinguishable from one another.
Disney Presents: The Stepford Sexbots
The brains behind the process which creates perfectly human-like robotic replicas of the wives of Stepford “worked in audioanimatronics at Disneyland” and was instrumental in creating the figures which would eventually be put on display at the Hall of Presidents attraction in Disney World. The irony here should be obvious.
This Is a Clean House
The central symbol indicating that a Stepford home is not inhabited by a robot wife and not an actual female human female is that it is immaculately clean. At the same time, it is made abundantly clear that each of the new wives sport an “improved” body and make themselves available for any and all sexual possibilities. And yet they have time to keep their home immaculately spotless. A wife with a body made to order who never says no to any sexual overture yet still has time to keep the kitchen spotless.
