Comments on: Rosemary’s Baby: A Fountain of Feminism

By: Luke

Luke — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 02:16:52 +0000

While I agree the movie has plenty of patriarchal figures, I’m afraid to say it may be incidental to Polanski’s view of the world. Also, many of Guy’s behaviors can be traced to his anxiety over having sold his soul to the Devil, rather than institutionalized patriarchy. Certainly, he wants the transition to go as smoothly as possible.

By suggesting patriarchy is responsible for Rosemary’s plight, you miss a few key exchanges or rather you see them, but don’t acknowledge them the natural light of her character.

First, is her concession to join Mimi and Roman for dinner in the first place. This is followed by her willingness to have her legs tied per the suggestion of the women in the dress. Then, her willingness to take the pills and accept Mimi’s suggestion of a doctor. Next, is her concession to contact Dr. Hill based on her friend’s suggestions. Rosemary doesn’t look at men as exclusive authority figures. She looks at anyone but herself as such, right until the end, when she finally accepts her own authority, telling Laura-Louise she is rocking the baby too fast and taking over the job.

However, in the end, strangely, everyone gets what they want. The coven does Satan’s bidding/gets their assumed power under the antichrist, Guy gets his big career bump, Rosemary gets her baby and Satan gets his son.

I believe the real point is that the selfish are rewarded. It is more an existentialist piece than a feminist one, though I applaud your analysis.

By: autumn

autumn — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 16:44:40 +0000

Great post–articulated a lot of hunches I’ve had about this movie but have never given enough thought to. Repulsion is another wonderful Polanski film with feminist tones that lends itself well to a feminist analyses. Why Roman Polanski of all people has this gift and vision remains a mystery…

By: Cassandra

Cassandra — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 03:55:23 +0000

I haven’t seen Rosemary’s Baby, but I agree you can separate the art from the artist, if only because Polanski himself made what might be my favorite film of all time: The Pianist. God what a film.

By: M.

M. — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 12:06:26 +0000

OT - but gotta answer the Hardy question
Amanda, I’m pretty sure it was Jude that put Hardy off writing. Well, not completely. It was the last novel he wrote, but he kept writing poetry until he died. I haven’t really read any of his poetry, but I’ve been told that he was a much better novelist than poet
Oh, and another book question (yes, I read too much ) - flea, I have read the book but not seen the movie. The ending you describe is definitely in the book (obviously, can’t speak for the movie). I also liked it … well, found it rather fascinating in all its implications, anyway!

Marc, your analysis makes a LOT of sense. I’d never thought about it like that before.

By: Dykonoclast

Dykonoclast — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 04:54:13 +0000

Rawk. Excellent analysis. I need to watch Rosemary’s Baby again– I’ve only seen it once, but I actually have the DVD in my possession. Plus, that movie gives me evil points for sharing a name with the anti-christ [except my name has a diminutive spelling to signify my lower status in society].

P.S. I like when Marc said I firmly believe you can separate the art from the artist. That’s the only way I can justify liking Degas’ paintings of pretty young ballerinas when you know that he was totally stalking them all and being a totally creepy ass pedophile.

By: flea

flea — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 20:27:28 +0000

I can’t remember if the movie ending and the book ending are the same, and if they aren’t, which ending I’m remembering, but I thought that Rosemary had some sort of epiphany at the end where she realizes that Satan and the Baby will never truly reward or respect Guy for selling her out, and it’s she who has the potential to become a powerful, iconic figure, when she stands and screams, “His name is not Adrian! His name is Andrew! I will give him his name, because I. Am. His. MOTHER.” And all the satanists start chanting “Hail Andrew! Hail Rosemary!” and Guy looks like he threw up in his mouth a little, and slinks off to Hollywood without her.

I always found that ending to be delicious.

By: LisaH

LisaH — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 19:50:21 +0000

It seems to me that there are two modes of doing feminist popular narrative. One is the Rosemary’s Baby mode: patriarchy is inescapable and women are doomed by it. If it were possible to escape by luck or by smarts, then victims of patriarchy (say, women) would deserve their fate in it — right? It would be their fault. If patriarchy is a system that we’re in (all of us, though some more disadvantaged than others in it), it has to be inescapable. That is, of course, not the only thing feminists believe, but it is one thing we believe. The other is that women (and men and queers and trannies and people of color) DO survive, no matter what, sometimes, anyway, and are to be celebrated and affirmed for that survival. That narrative is a different mode, a positive and celebratory mode. Watchers of Thelma & Louise on DVD know that the original intent of the film was to have them survive the drive off the cliff — the original ending kept the film more consistently in its celebratory mode. Killing them at the end shifted the film to the Rosemary’s Baby mode, the critique of patriarchy mode, we might call it (vs. the survival of difference mode, say). What’s difficult, maybe even impossible, is to do both at once — at least in popular narratives like cinema. Ira Levin is a master of the critique of patriarchy in the horror mode — the writer who would take a 70s radical feminist analysis and make it the central premise of a horror story (the original Stepford Wives — though save us all from the hideous remake!). Rosemary’s Baby has always been too scary for me, but now I want to see it through if I can stand it.

By: MikeEss

MikeEss — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 18:15:04 +0000

Polanksi does seem to harbor self loathing, but not enough to comeback to the US and take responsibility for his crimes.

I would have a lot more respect for his talent if he were man enough to face the consequences of his actions. Otherwise he’s just another guy trying to get away with it…

By: Amanda Marcotte

Amanda Marcotte — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 12:27:35 +0000

Ira Levin almost surely was tweaking the patriarchy when he wrote the book—after all, the plot of The Stepford Wives was almost identical, which is to say a smart but overly trusting young woman is the victim of a patriarchal conspiracy to subjugate her so they can use her body for their own ends, damn the damage (in Stepford Wives, she dies) to her. That said, directors can do whatever they want with a story, and Polanski not only chose a story that was feminist, he made sure to preserve it as written.

Tess is not a great movie, but I’d argue that it’s feminist as well. And it’s interesting to me that a rapist like Polanski picked a novel that is above all other things, a poignant story of how serious a crime rape is. Public outcry against Hardy for writing it was significant though I can’t remember if it’s that book or Jude the Obscure that made him quit writing because he was frustrated at people’s pigheaded misogyny (to make a long story short). Anyway, Polanski very deliberately made the murder of the rapist seem necessary and I think gleeful—as a rapist himself, what does that say about him? That he harbors self-loathing, maybe.

By: roula

roula — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 02:19:52 +0000

arrow– when a then-boyfriend and i watched “high fidelity” he completely identified with the dude and thought the ex/girlfriend was a bitch; whereas i and the others we saw it with were sure that the guy was supposed to be, you know, mostly a complete jackass, albeit a sympathetically-presented one (because he is the narrator, duh).

that really weirded me out and in retrospect confirmed a ton about our relationship that i should’ve heeded earlier. maybe this is a stupid story, especially because “high fidelity” is nowhere near as fucking creepy as “rosemary’s baby”, but… still.