"Rosemary's Baby" (1968) and Modern Day Rape Culture

In this essay, I will discuss the cultural significance of Rosemary’s Baby (Polanski, U.S.A, 1968), specifically in regard to its themes of women’s liberation and the clear fact that it is not just a product of its time, and has aged extremely well and was arguably ahead of its time. With its various themes of women’s rights and stolen bodily autonomy and agency, this film paints a scarily accurate portrayal of women’s issues that have evidently been present since at least the 1960s, when it was made and takes place, up until now.

Rosemary’s Baby follows the story of a young couple, Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and Guy Woodhouse (John Cassavetes) as they move into a new apartment in New York City. They become fast friends with their nosy and invasive neighbours, Minnie (Ruth Gordon) and Roman Castavet (Sidney Blackmer). While their quirks and eagerness to help the couple is endearing at first, Rosemary soon becomes annoyed and uncomfortable around them, and this becomes even more so once she becomes pregnant. Despite her discomfort, she allows them to help her with her pregnancy and accepts Minnie’s homemade healthy smoothies and even switches doctors per their recommendation. As the film continues, it is revealed that Minnie, Roman, their recommended doctor, Abraham Sapirstein (Ralph Bellamy), and Guy are witches and have been casting deadly spells to make Guy a successful actor in exchange for his and Rosemary’s baby to be used in their witchcraft.

One major issue in Rosemary’s Baby is marital rape - that is rape between partners - an issue that even today is not taken with as much seriousness as it should be. It was not until 1983 that marital rape became a crime in Canada (Koshan et al.), however this often appears to be irrelevant in the courtroom. In a more recent case, R. v. H.E, a judge acquitted a husband charged with the marital rape of his wife, stating that "the accused probably had sex with his wife on many occasions without her specific consent, as both he and she believed that he had the right to do so" (Koshan et al.). Even with laws in place to protect victims of this act, it is evident here that this is not always the case. This was even more so before illegalization, like in Rosemary’s Baby, as wives were considered the property of their husbands and thus consent was assumed to always be present (Ross 1). Even today, despite wives not being property, “myths about spousal sexual violence [...] continue to infuse the approach to sexual assault [...] myths include the beliefs that consent can be assumed or implied within intimate relationships” (Koshan and Gotel).

In the film, Rosemary is drugged and raped by her husband, which is shown in the form of a bad dream of Rosemary being raped by a Satanic version of Guy. At first, she thinks it was just a bad dream but it is confirmed to be true when she awakens with scratches on her body. Guy also confirms her suspicions and when she is noticeably uncomfortable by the fact, telling him that he could have just waited until the next day, he ignores her concerns, saying that he assumed it would be fine since they had been discussing trying for a baby earlier in the day and that he had been ‘riled up’ and needed to ‘relieve himself’. Here, the issue of implied/assumed consent is clear, as is the issue of coercion. Not only does Guy drug Rosemary (with the help of their neighbour, Minnie), he justifies his actions by saying that he was aroused and thus had to deal with it by raping Rosemary. This sort of sexual coercion, often referred to as ‘blue balls’ is often used by males as a way of guilting their partner into sex, implying that when they are aroused it is the partner’s responsibility to take care of it and if they do not, the aroused person will have serious health consequences - which is untrue (King).

Despite the seriousness of Guy’s actions in this scene, it is never mentioned later on in the film, even when Rosemary opens up to her friends about the issues she is having with her pregnancy, which will be discussed further later. This sweeping the situation under the rug type of treatment to Rosemary’s rape may appear odd upon viewing, but it is the unfortunate truth for many victims, as marital rape between spouses is extremely underreported. Besides the stigma and stress that comes with reporting, one recent study looking at female’s risk recognition and response in situations of sexual coercion between partners found that current victims took a longer time recognizing and responding to the risk, and would be less likely to leave the situation, in comparison to past and non victim participants (Garrido-Macías et al. 1). These findings help explain Rosemary’s rape not being mentioned, even by Rosemary, for the rest of the film, as it is likely that she would not have even recognized it as a rape, especially considering the fact that at the time of the film, marital rape was still legal in the United States.

Other issues that are present today and go hand in hand with the previously discussed issue of marital rape, are that of lack of agency, forced pregnancy, and forced motherhood. To begin, Rosemary was groomed by the witches from the start, specifically Minnie, Roman, Dr. Sapirstein, and then Guy. While grooming has become a sort of buzz word on the internet recently, and is discussed most often in the context of children, it is a very serious issue that can and does affect adults as well. Grooming is the process of gaining the trust of the victim, often done with grand gestures and gifts, and eventually using that trust to their own benefit and to the victim’s expense. While grooming can be used to gain sexual or financial favours, it can also be used “to win someone over to [the groomer’s] cause” (Davies). The witches do exactly this for their cause (using her baby for their coven): they force themselves into Rosemary’s life and gain her trust by showering her with gifts as soon as she moves into the building, and once they have gained her trust, they use it against her when she becomes pregnant. They use this trust to give her drinks and herbs that they claim to be good for her pregnancy, and send her to Dr. Sapirstein who is involved in the plan to take her baby, and who works to keep Rosemary clueless to her pregnancy by telling her not to read about or talk to her friends about pregnancy. This is another important part of the grooming process, isolating the victim from others in order to keep control over their victim (Davies) and its importance is illustrated in the scene where Rosemary throws a party and finally gets to talk to her friends about the issues she has been having with her pregnancy. Her worries are confirmed by her friends and they tell her that a good doctor would not do what Dr. Sapirstein was doing. This is a pivotal point in the film as this is the event that triggers many of the events to follow, as this is when Rosemary begins taking back agency over herself and actively going against the decisions of the witches around her: she stops drinking the smoothies that Minnie gives her, she throws away the good luck necklace Minnie gifted her (both of which were actually spells), she makes an appointment to see her original doctor, and she begins researching witchcraft on her own as a result of her suspicions of Minnie and Roman. Had she not had that conversation with her friends, these events likely would not have happened, as she would remain victim to the witches' lies – which is exactly what they wanted and why they isolated her in the first place.

The tactics and effects of grooming still occur today in practically identical ways to Rosemary’s experience. Another way these concepts can be seen in modern day is with the MeToo movement; as people come out about their experiences, it makes others feel more comfortable in doing so and sets off a chain reaction of people speaking out, reporting their abusers, and getting help. In Rosemary’s case, her chain of events was talking with her friends and realising her concerns about her pregnancy were valid, and then beginning to make her own decisions and not doing what the witches told her to do, which then led to her finding out they were witches and attempting to escape their controls by telling her husband and doctor. Despite all this, however, she still ends up trapped with them, a scary but accurate reflection of rape culture, and a broken justice system that often does not believe or help survivors.

This reflection to modern day becomes even more disturbing in the way that it relates to the screenwriter and director of Rosemary’s Baby, Roman Polanski. Polanski was charged with drugging and raping a minor in the 1970s. Fearing that the plea bargain he took during the trial would not be upheld, he fled to France, and being a French citizen, could not be extradited and thus has never served time in the United States for the crime and his case has technically never been closed. Over the years, many other women have come forward and accused him of drugging and sexually assaulting them when they were younger, but to no avail. Many other celebrities have publicly supported him and signed a petition created by Harvey Weinstein (another well known director with many sexual assault accusations) demanding Polanski’s immediate release after he was briefly detained in 2009 for his underage sex case from the 1970s. Like Rosemary, his victims have come forward in hopes of receiving help but to no avail. Like Rosemary, his victims were not taken seriously and he has been allowed to continue to live a normal life and continue making films. How ironic and disturbing that this is the man that directed a film that illustrates these issues so well, and is so well known for its themes of women’s liberation.

Circling back to Rosemary’s grooming; despite the changes in Rosemary and her refound agency, she is still very much a victim and this can be seen through the notions of forced pregnancy and motherhood within the film. Although Rosemary is not explicitly forced to continue her pregnancy as one may think of in a traditional sense, especially in a time of laws protecting reproductive rights being overturned, there is the issue of consent and agency regarding her pregnancy. Rosemary very much wanted a baby, even definitively saying that she did not want an abortion, but she wanted and consented to having a baby with Guy, not with Satan. Even though Rosemary did not carry on her pregnancy completely forcibly, it was in a way, as she is essentially ‘forced’ to carry her baby under the false pretence that it is a normal human baby that she had with Guy, not a demon baby fathered by Satan. The film then ends with Rosemary having no choice but to mother and take care of her demon baby, further illustrating the success of the witches’ grooming tactics. She is reluctant to take care of the baby, even pointing out to Roman that he is trying to trick her into mothering it when he is encouraging her to rock the cradle, but she gives in. Some may regard this as her motherly instincts kicking in, a notion that is largely considered to be a myth by scientists (Barger). Regardless, given all this information, this does not seem to be the case. Rosemary’s options are either be drugged by the witches and lay in bed for the rest of her life while they use her baby, or take care of her baby but still be under the control of the witches. Either way, she is a victim to them so she chooses the lesser of two evils, not necessarily giving in to ‘motherly instincts’.

Rosemary’s Baby is not simply a horror movie; it is a film with many layers that explores serious issues, and has and will continue to remain relevant as time goes on. Its scarily accurate reflections of the experiences of women in modern day paint a very clear picture of how things have not changed enough, and become even creepier in the real life context of its director, Roman Polanski and his various accusations of sexual assault, which also mirror that of Rosemary’s experience of being drugged and raped. With its depictions of issues of rape, forced motherhood, and grooming, Rosemary’s Baby proves to be a culturally significant piece of media.