Am I the only one who felt that everyone behaved to Rosemary as if she was some incompetent dullard? It is true that she
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Rosemary's Baby
christovovap — 9 years ago(February 02, 2017 07:53 AM)
Am I the only one who felt that everyone behaved to Rosemary as if she was some incompetent dullard? It is true that she had quite submissive personality, but still The neighbor literally forces herself into her home, sends her to some doctor and keeps giving her those drinks with god knows what. Goddamit if I had such neighbor I would throw her out in the minute she tries something similar to this. Her husband Guy is quite possessive and dominant and the doctor Sapirstein seems very condescending to the Rosemary. When she has questions, he never answers anything and is just being patronising, ugh. The doctor Hill after hearing her story immediately calls Sapirstein without hesitation. Well, it is true that her story was really crazy and she even did not try to soften the story, but still nobody takes her seriously whole movie. She stands up in the last part of the movie and only after she feels that the baby is in danger. This quite irritated me and I could not fully enjoy the movie because of this.
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cookiela2001 — 9 years ago(February 06, 2017 04:39 PM)
Rosemary's kind of a vintage era "good girl" from the Midwesthad a religious family, went to parochial school, grew up babysitting her brothers and sisters, quit work after marrying, etc.
Also, she's married to an actor and is his his #1 fan and cheerleader.
All that doesn't really indicate a super forceful personality to begin with.though I agree almost everyone practically rides roughshod over her : )
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cookiela2001 — 9 years ago(February 07, 2017 01:27 PM)
PS: I was thinking of your post when I saw this article.the writer brings up a few of the points you do : )
http://religiondispatches.org/another-hot-text-for-the-war-on-women-irosemarys-babyi/
ANOTHER HOT TEXT FOR THE WAR ON WOMEN: ROSEMARYS BABY
In Margaret Atwoods modern classic
The Handmaids Tale
, the U.S. has been replaced by the theocratic Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian state in which men control every aspect of womens lives. Unsurprisingly its been the go-to text for critics of the ongoing War on Women.
But I believe an earlier text offers even greater insight into a future in which the multi-pronged assault on womens health care continues:
Rosemarys Baby
both Roman Polanskis film and Ira Levins novel, on which the film was based.
While some use Pinterest (which encourages users to organize and share things you love) to post cute baby pictures, weddings, or diet inspiration, I tend to organize and share things like this
Rosemarys Baby
tribute. So I turned to Scott Poole, associate professor at the College of Charleston (where he teaches courses on Satan and modernity and monstersas well as religion) and author of
Satan in America
and
Monsters in America.
Having read Pooles writings on
Rosemarys Baby,
I decided to invite him for a little chat about it.
In your book
Satan in America
, you quote Darryl Jones as saying
"Rosemarys Baby [/]is a film about men controlling womens bodies. It seems to me that the satanic stuff blinds a lot of people to what the story is actually about.
Maybe. I think that Polanski really played a fairly elaborate joke with that film. Levin had borrowed the trope of the satanic conspiracy that has old roots in Western culture and used it to create a fairly obvious social parable. Polanski melded that with aspects of the grindhouse tradition and old Val Lewton horror films. Im not sure if the satire is too broad or too focused. But I also think it might have been clearer to viewers in 68 than today, especially to Catholics in the wake
Humanea Vitae
[the 1968 encyclical reaffirming the Roman Catholic view on birth control, abortion, and other life issues]. The Catholic elements are hard to miss, as is the intertwining of the Pope with satanic rape/conception/motherhood as destiny.
I enjoy how the satanists are the ones who lock Rosemary down. As you write, she becomes surrounded and hemmed in by her neighbors, doctors, and spouse who are all only concerned with the monstrous life growing inside of her. This seems to be what the conservatives are gunning for for all women: confining us and making us accept any pregnancyeven the gift of rapewith women eventually surrendering to it all because its for our own good.
Even though I volunteered for pregnancy, I thought about Rosemary a lot during it, because I felt like people began to regard me as a carrier. I remember during a baby shower, I thought the whole thing was creepy and then also that that was a strange thing to think. Because it was a party for someone who technically wasnt there. But I was.
There is this other side to it all.
Rosemarys Baby
may be largely about the efforts of men to constrain women to home and family, but its part of a landslide of horror films that expressed a lot of anxiety about motherhood and childbearing in the wake of the sexual revolution(s).
These are not just personal anxieties. The sexual revolution was really about thinking about personal choices in a political context rather than a change in moral standards as conservatives believed. That is both liberating and terrifying.
Explain the difference.
I think that horror films like
It Lives Again
and
The Brood
and all the other fetal horror classics are [typically] interpreted as being about women and mens psychological angst about childbearing. I think its really important to read them instead as about the structural changes in American societynot just psychological ones. This makes them personal issues that some people are dealing with and others not.
What you had in the 60s, 70s, and 80s was a sea change in gender roles and sex lives that stretched back to the 20s. Let me add that I think that in the post-World War II era, a male-controlled culture seeking to represent the white middle class mom as both constrained and utterly capable, virginal, and fertile, and demure yet available, created an enormous amount of social anxiety about gender that these films made fun of.
I think a lot of the panic happening right now in the GOP has to do with what they perceive as losing population dominance to the other and the desire to spur the creation of the right kinds of babiesthat is, white and Christian. I get a chuckle out of the Castevets, because, eccentric garb to the contrary, theyre sort of middle American and banal with their book of John Jokes and yelling and bad food. I could easily picture Roman in a parade riding one of those little Shriners carsif there were a satanic branch.
I get that. Even his Ive been everywhere speech is a bit Willy