Despite what we hear today from politicians playing the nostalgia card, the "peaceful" fifties weren't so stress-free. While documenting mid-century anxiety in excruciating detail, ephemeral films also show diverse responses to it: erasure, behavior modification, medication. To those conditioned to think of the fifties as the era of narcotized housewives, The Relaxed Wife's title might be a bit misleading. It's not about calming an anxious housewife so she can face the daily grind without going mad. She's already relaxed (although we're without a clue as to how she got that way). It's her husband (played by an unnamed actor capable of truly amazing facial distortions) that's the one with the problem. As a person, he doesn't seem particularly out of the ordinary, and he certainly isn't a candidate for deep psychiatry. What he's up against, the film seems to say, is the stress and strain incurred by good behavior, conformity and being a parent and spouse. As the film progresses, in fact, it seems more and more like a subsurface view of the bright, "happy-go-spending" world of In the Suburbs (see The Uncharted Landscape disc). This postwar, post-scarcity environment is wracked by traumas arising out of life at its most ordinary. And lurking in the bushes are pharmaceutical companies ready to medicate anxious citizens. Fifties popular magazines are filled with tips on anxiety management and stress reduction, and media cliches about "Miltown housewives," dependent on a famous ...
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