Movie Night!

Happy Halloween!

I had hoped to do something like a party tonight, but the campus was pretty dead, so Ryter and I had a movie night. We wanted to watch something scary, but I had suggested a while back that he might like the Stepford Wives, so we rented both the 1975 version and the completely-different modern version.

I was surprised, I thought he'd prefer the 1975 version because it ends with the main character getting replaced by a robot, rather than the modern one, which has a happy ending and is really more "funny" than "scary." But then again, the old version was kind of weird. Creepy, too.

Of course, the trouble with the modern "Stepford Wives" is that a lot of it doesn't make sense. Like, clearly the women have robotic bodies (ATM girl, and Bobbie's hand) and yet, they have normal brains (just with chips) and are able to go back to their old lives? What, did they keep the old bodies in storage? To suspend my disbelief, I went with the "robotic parts but not all robotic" idea, like they had cybernetic implants and stuff.

And the ending, while cute, was RIDICULOUS. A man turns you into a cooking, cleaning sex-bot and rather than, I don't know, DIVORCE him and have him ARRESTED for domestic abuse and brainwashing and SUE him for damages, you... make him do your grocery shopping? Riiiiiiight.

Of course, all Ryter could point out while we watched the 1975 version was, "But what do they do with the BODIES?" Now remember kids, in 1975 Stepford, don't eat the burgers.

We were talking about the logistics of a place like Stepford actually existing, if the technology was up to speed. The trouble with it is, though, women like that-- smart career women-- don't marry the kind of misogynists who actually would want a Stepford wife. They marry nice guys who can at least sort of keep up with them intellectually, and nice intellectual men can't be married to people who won't offer them more than sex and cookies. They need to be able to have a conversation with their wife. In that sense, 1975 Stepford were more realistic, because those women had already accepted the stay-at-home mom lifestyle, and in that time period it was more acceptable for men to be at least mildly misogynistic. If someone tried to Stepfordize their wife today, the relationship would probably already be abusive and people who saw the change would assume the woman was becoming mentally ill and report it.

If I had the technology to make a robotic Ryter, you know what I'd do? I'd make a robotic ROBOT to do the cooking and cleaning and grocery shopping, and keep Ryter the way he was. Why go to all that trouble to make a house-cleaning sexbot when you could be having sex WHILE your house got cleaned?

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I also wore my costume to Biostats class, and brought my camera intending to take pictures, but I left said camera in Ecology and then it vanished. Two hours, five checks and a panic attack later, I learned that someone turned it in to the professor of the class that is in that room afterwards, so I sent him an email. Hopefully he still has it.

I hate panic attacks, especially when I'm so sick I can't hear and my ears are constantly popping and I feel feverish.