Stepford and Magical Realism

[dale coba]

Grappling with the delightful wrongness of automating a human woman, I was reading at TvTropes about the distinction between magic realism and related narrative styles. They gave an example using vampires:

Rule of thumb: Say there are vampires in New York.

- If the existence of vampires doesn't shock anyone, but the fact that they're vampires is constantly being pointed out, it's Urban Fantasy.

- If a cop's partner is very pale, very strong, generally acts odd, and come to think of it, he's never been seen in daylight, but the story focuses primarily on just a Police Procedural or the interpersonal relationships, it's Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane.

- If the cop just goes through his life as a cop, but his partner is a vampire whose ID has "vampire" printed next to his eye color, who's greeted by cheerful children in the street who are more fascinated by his shiny badge than by his teeth, and who casually drinks blood in plain sight out of transfusion packs during coffee breaks, it's a case of Magical Realism.

Rule of thumb: Say that fembots can be made from women.

If the existence of fembots made from women doesn't shock anyone, but the fact that they are automated women is constantly being strongly implied or pointed out, it's [Urban Fantasy].

If a female [cop, or whatever] is suspiciously beautiful; never seen to be tired or unpleasant; never seen to sleep or eat or drink; but the story focuses primarily on just a [Police Procedural, or whatever] or the interpersonal relationships, it's [Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane].

If the cop just goes through her life as a cop, but her partner is a fembot whose ID has “involuntarily automated” printed next to her eye color, and that unit never sparks terror in human women at the specter of forced automation, it's a case of [Magical Realism].


- Dale Coba

[Svengli]

I like how you digging for the tone of Stepford, it's something I've been going for myself since the book and original movie have such a unique tone.

Still, I don't think magic realism really describes it. Magic realism seems to involve the magical appearing and not sparking the wonder or terror it normally would.

But in Stepford, I think what happens is first robot appear and their automated nature is at best guessed-at or not known - but their subservient quality still sparks considerable emotion in the real-women soon-to-be-victims. Then in the final moment the robots are revealed, they spark mute horror and paralyzing fear. So it seems Stepford wives do spark horror at the specter of forced automation once that prospect is there.

But maybe there's something like magic realism. I suppose what's supernatural but never questioned in Stepford is how the robots could exist at all - in contrast to West World where you get a vague backstory and pictures of behind-the-scenes process.

Interesting topic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_realism

[dale coba]

You are right to say that the Stepford character in a story has a lot to do with the creeping realization, the pursuit and the failure for a woman to escape her fate.

If you have Stepford without any unprocessed wives in town, then the undisturbed, uncontested perverse irreality is an eerily sublime place of malfunctions and sleepers, intentionally staged to re-enact the fall from human into automated perfection.

The horror is exaggerated, because the narrative needs a driving force, as well as a moral axis (though my good is their evil). When you write Stepford for the porniness, then the horror isn't needed as a driver, nor to orient the viewer morally - it's PORN, the driving aspect is the porniness, that's the pay-off and the morality).

How about "The Lateness of the Hour", but before she finishes figuring it out and thereby blowing her mind, instead the maid and she end up sharing and consoling and fucking and overheat without the horror having been horrific for the poor, pretty toy that thought she was real.

For the men living in Stepford, chasing down runners is not the norm.
Their individual Stepford stories have one conversion, done properly with no fuss; and simple perverted bliss from then on,

That way, the story doesn't descend from magical realism into sci-fi horror.

- Dale Coba

[Svengli]

You correct that a Stepford without the mess might be closer to magic realism.

Yet I actually think that the horror aspects are what gives the movie it's appeal. To each their own.

[dale coba]

Yes, the appeal in the movies is in the dread and the horror; but that horror is not what the Stepford world is about to the men involved.

Horror is the rational response to the specter of being converted into a mindless sex unit. There is something delightful to me about presenting a non-rational, even insane response.
- Acting as if she had received jury duty, as if her problems were only an annoying waste of a day, not the end of her human life and mind.

That's not a human thinking response, so she must already be a delightfully diminished and conquered toy. YES !

- Dale Coba

[Stephaniebot]

Of course, there are some women, and seemingly not just me, who would happily volunteer for automation, just saying...

[dale coba]

Stephaniebot, that's always a good point to make.

Old school feminism wouldn't validate a woman's choice to relinquish power, autonomy, her organic body and soul. Stepford wasn't written for lovers, but I say it belongs more to you and me and those who WANT to see women upgraded into units. Ira Levin wrote Stepford as a satirical dystopia. He wasn't even thinking about women who would volunteer.

For drama, for the intensity, the movies go all the way - complete replacement (or complete conversion, but Ira knew nothing about tech, and he wanted only wanted to slightly stretch from contemporary tech.)

I don't need to create any horror to enjoy a conversion, or the product.

I DO want total domination, objectification, programming which substantially if not totally overwhelms the will of the former person. This is a lustful, conscience-free digital analogue to what are typically called animalistic urges.

The reptile part of my brain knows how women should be altered to make them into the most erotic versions of them that they could ever be. In fantasy, the reptile part of my brain takes what it wants, takes women and strips of their humanity and will.

We may have to wait until male-bots are available, to see if a sizable percent of women step forward to defend the symbolic, erotic values of conversion. Some would want real conversion to defeat infirmity and death. Hidden among those groups will be women who have always known deep in their cores that they should and must be machines. Their compass points in the direction of true Sexy, to the Fountain of purest Eros.

- Dale Coba

[Stephaniebot]

I might request that my Stepford robot body is an identical match of Jean Harlow, but otherwise...

No, I'd happily convert anyway, but that would be a bonus

There are women who would happily convert, there are men who would do the same, I'm sure

[King Snarf]

As an aside, this film provided one of my finest moments of "heel commentary" at the expense of one of my oldest friends and at-the-time roommate.

"I don't see why this film is regarded as a horror flick."
"What are you talking about? This film is scary as shit!"
"Yeah... If you're a woman. If you're a guy, this is a utopian vision of the future!"

The fact that I was so easily able to dodge the ensuing barrage of whatever she could find close at hand speaks to the depth of our friendship.

[robolover69000]

Of course, there are some women, and seemingly not just me, who would happily volunteer for automation, just saying...

Stephaniebot, question for you and anyone else who would choose/volunteer to be converted. Would you still do it , if it meant that you give total control of yourself to someone else? You would have no say it what is done with you or how you are used and abused? Just curious.

[Stephaniebot]

Absolutely. Lets face it, I'm not likely to be much of a delight as a sex toy, at 57 lol!

[Silkscreen]

As an aside [...]
"I don't see why this film is regarded as a horror flick."
"What are you talking about? This film is scary as shit!"
"Yeah... If you're a woman. If you're a guy, this is a utopian vision of the future!"

That's not an aside, it's the very core of that movie. Both men and women watch that film, and while men are watching this complete unempathetic, like they are already robots, women are horrified as shit due to the involuntary nature of the transformation. Imagine you are in the cinema together with your boyfriend, with him munching popcorn while you are completely scaried, and you cannot turn to him because he's as unempathetic as these robot-like men in the film ... it's like you are in a horror movie called your life. That whole film is about lack of empathy, not about robots. They are only a plot device.

Crap!I remember watching that film when I was ten or so ... and immediately hated it. Because I've liked the idea of voluntary transformation back then. Being a magical girl with the only involuntary part of it was she cannot choose to be the pretty magical princess but instead always ended up in the powered-up tomboy role. THE LATTER I LIKED THAT MUCH!