JP Nunez
If there was a hall of fame for horror films, Rosemary’s Baby would be a shoo-in. It’s on just about every list of the best genre movies ever made, and it’s not hard to see why. With a couple of Oscar-worthy performances, a chilling story, and just enough ambiguity to keep you on your toes, this film never gets old, no matter how many times you watch it.
On top of all that, I would also suggest that part of the lasting appeal of Rosemary’s Baby is its surprisingly prescient message about the objectification and exploitation of women. It’s a #MeToo movie that predated the movement by about 50 years, so it’s more relevant now than it’s ever been.
To be fair, that might not be immediately obvious to everybody who watches Rosemary’s Baby. After all, this film is about witchcraft and the devil, not sexual harassment in the workplace. But if we examine the story more closely, we’ll see that it’s actually a perfect metaphor for that kind of abuse and mistreatment. We just need to look beneath the surface, and when we do, we’ll find that there’s a lot more to this movie than meets the eye.
The Plot of Rosemary’s Baby
To start, let’s take a moment to get our bearings by briefly going over the plot of Rosemary’s Baby. When the film begins, Rosemary Woodhouse and her husband, Guy, appear to be living a storybook romance. They’re young, good-looking, and very much in love. Even though Guy’s acting career hasn’t exactly taken off, they’re still successful enough that they can afford to move into a new apartment in New York City.
However, unbeknownst to Rosemary, that ends up being the worst decision of her entire life. Soon after the Woodhouses get settled in their new place, they meet an older couple, Minnie and Roman Castevet, and these neighbors harbor a (literally!) diabolical secret. They belong to a satanic cult that’s trying to bring about the birth of the Antichrist, and they entice Guy into their fold with promises of fame and fortune.
He agrees to let the devil have sex with his wife and conceive a son in return for the acting success he’s craved for so long, so he and the Castevets drug Rosemary and summon the prince of darkness while she’s in a semi-conscious state. The ritual goes off without a hitch, and when Rosemary finds out that she’s pregnant, she’s over the moon. She thinks she’s carrying a normal human baby, but as her pregnancy progresses, she starts to have some doubts.
She soon comes to suspect that the Castevets are witches, and she thinks Guy has promised to let them use her baby in their occult rituals. She tries to save the child from that horrible fate, but despite her best efforts, she can’t escape her neighbor’s clutches. When she finally gives birth, the Castevets take the baby into their apartment, and her doctor tells her that the child was stillborn. However, she eventually learns that the truth is even more horrific than she realized, and in the final scene of Rosemary’s Baby, she gives in and agrees to raise the child despite knowing its true nature.
Use and Abuse
Like I said before, it can be tough to see the connection between Rosemary’s Baby and the #MeToo movement at first. The movie doesn’t deal with a typical case of sexual abuse or harassment, but if we take a closer look, we’ll discover that there are in fact some significant parallels here. For starters, we have to understand something about sexual abuse and exploitation–at its core, it’s a matter of objectification.
It involves men treating women as objects they can use and abuse for their own selfish pleasure (yes, men can be abused too, but Rosemary’s Baby is about a woman, so that’s what we’re going to focus on here) rather than people who deserve to be loved and respected. And if you think about it, that’s exactly what Guy does. He doesn’t bother to tell Rosemary about his deal with the Castevets, so he acts like she’s a piece of property he can just loan out to anybody he chooses. He shows absolutely no concern for her dignity or autonomy, so he’s merely using her as a means to his own selfish ends.
What’s more, this objectification also includes an obvious–and very obviously abusive–sexual element. Guy agrees to let the devil r*pe his wife, and that forms a very apt metaphor for the exploitation the #MeToo movement aims to combat. In fact, it captures the evil of that abuse in a particularly striking way. It almost literally demonizes abusers and r*pists, so it lets us know in no uncertain terms that this isn’t just a minor offense. It’s an evil of the highest order.
Believing Women
On top of all that, Rosemary’s Baby also highlights another, much more specific element of the #MeToo movement: believing women. Soon after Rosemary finds out that she’s pregnant, the Castevets convince her to leave her physician and see one they recommend instead. He’s a renowned obstetrician named Dr. Abraham Sapirstein, and at first, Rosemary seems pretty happy with his care. However, when she begins to suspect that she’s at the center of a diabolical conspiracy, she turns to her old doctor for help.
During the appointment, she tells the guy all about her suspicions, and he says he believes her. However, instead of supporting her, this man betrays her just like everyone else in the film. He calls Dr. Sapirstein and Guy and informs them that Rosemary is in his office, and the two men go there and bring the poor woman back home.
It’s a heartbreaking scene, and it adds another layer to Rosemary’s horrific mistreatment. She trusts this doctor and confides in him, but he lets her down in just about the worst way possible. He assumes that her claims of abuse couldn’t possibly be true, so he simply dismisses them out of hand and drives her right back into the hands of her abusers.
More specifically, the turning point seems to come when Rosemary mentions Abraham Sapirstein. The doctor perks his head up when he hears that name, so the implication is that he doesn’t believe such a respected physician could be anything but an upright citizen. And once again, that dovetails perfectly with the modern #MeToo movement.
The movement isn’t just about shedding light on sexual abuse and harassment. It also aims to build a culture where women who claim to have experienced that kind of mistreatment are taken seriously, even when their abusers are respected public figures. All too often, people simply dismiss these claims just like Rosemary’s doctor dismissed hers, but as Rosemary’s Baby makes clear, we need to believe women and support them when they confide in us. Otherwise, we’ll simply be adding to their abuse.
An Ongoing Battle
That surprisingly modern message gives Rosemary’s Baby an enduring relevance most films could only dream of, and it’s not just because the movie anticipated the #MeToo movement by about 50 years. It’s also because the problems this film highlights are still very much with us.
Too many men today foster an attitude of objectification in themselves and among one another, and that mindset sometimes spills over into actual abuse. It’s an ongoing problem we all need to be aware of, and as long as that’s the case, Rosemary’s Baby will continue to be not just one of the best horror movies of all time, but also one of the most relevant.
Based on my experience of seeing ROSEMARY’S BABY with friends, I suspect that a lot of first-time male viewers think Dr. Hill is secretly part of the cabal while women tend to see him as an outsider who fails to help Rosemary. To be fair, if someone told me that witches wanted to hurt or steal her baby I’d be skeptical, but I like to think I’d recognize that SOMETHING was frightening/threatening her and I wouldn’t turn her over to those she was fleeing.