Cross Cultural Relations Assignment (Through watching a specific Essay

Cross Cultural Relations Assignment (Through watching a specific movie- Stepford Wifes) - Essay Example On weekends, he would grab the golf clubs and hit the green after handing the wife some cash to go shopping. This was balanced by the image of the housewife, who would get up earlier than her husband so that a hot, cooked breakfast would be ready for him before he left for work. She would spend the day cleaning the house and preparing for the children to come home and then get busy with dinner. After dinner, she fussed with more housecleaning chores and devoted her every thought to the welfare of her family with never a single thought for herself. These ideas are the focal point of the story The Stepford Wives. In this film, the attempt to create a utopian society fails because of the extreme subjugation of the human spirit in favor of a narrowly focused ideal image of perfectly followed gender roles. This society left no room for difference of opinion of any kind, resorting to robotic technology as a means of artificially altering the personalities of strong women to that of the stereotypical 50s housewife – brainless, thoughtless, and completely subservient. The only way the society could work was if everyone in it accepted the rigidly defined roles they were to play. The moment these roles were questioned, the entire society fell apart. Gender identity becomes a real issue for many individuals coming out of the age of the ‘True Woman’ housewife of the 50s and entering the world of the ‘New Woman’ who is now capable of taking on the business world and winning. This is immediately set forward as being the case with the introduction of Walter and Joanna. While Joanna is seen as the high-powered executive in control of a multi-million dollar project, Walter is little more than a sycophant at the lower rungs of the ladder. His masculinity is threatened in that he is unable to call the shots at home or at work and he feels he is of