Rosemary's Baby: A Story
of Inverted Religion
by Michael Robertson
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Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow)
looks at a magazine while waiting for the devil
worshipping Dr. Sapirstein (Ralph Bellamy) (Emerson).
The theme of inverted
religion runs throughout the film, Rosemary's Baby (1968). The film
answers the question, “Is God Dead?” with a chilling yes. At the end of the
film, the audience confronts the prospect of God being dead while the Devil and
his son, Adrian, are alive. On the road to this disturbing conclusion,
the film turns the biblical story of the Annunciation and the Holy Family
on its head. Rosemary Woodhouse replaces the biblical Mary, and the Devil
supplants God, in this retelling of the New Testament. The parallelism between
the two human mothers of divine babies is very obvious, and other writers note
this parallel as well. Tony Williams, Professor of English and the Director of
Film Studies at the University of Southern Illinois, notes in his
book Hearths of Darkness: The Family in the American Horror Film,
"Guy and Rosemary become Joseph and Mary in a new satanic order inversely
paralleling the Christian Messiah (Williams qtd. in Sullivan, Greenberg, and
Landau 193). The film makes Williams’ claim about the inverted story of the Holy family explicit. Roman Catevet says, "He [Satan] came up from Hell, and begat a son of mortal woman" (Rosemary's Baby). The idea of a deity mating (willingly and unwillingly) with a mortal human is not exclusive to Christianity, but it is one of the central images and stories in Christian and Western culture, so this inversion is particularly disturbing for those people who grew up in this cultural and religious tradition. Returning to the comparison between these families, there is the almost too obvious allusion between Rosemary's name
and the biblical Mary’s name. (Besides the obvious parallel between the
names of Mary, the rose is a prominent symbol of the biblical Mary.) There are,
however, more important differences: unlike Mary, Rosemary is not a willing
participant in this human-divine partnership. While the Angel Gabriel impregnates
Mary through the immaculate conception, the Devil brutally rapes Rosemary (with
her husband's, Guy, consent). Mary knows what is happening to her, but Guy and
the Castevets try to hide the evil that is around and inside Rosemary. Rosemary’s
husband shockingly helps arrange the rape of his wife by the Devil. Guy’s
bargain with the Devil helps to destroy religion, so he is the antithesis of
St. Joseph, the patron saint of the Roman Catholic Church. The biblical Joseph
is faithful to both his wife and his God, but Guy betrays both Rosemary and God when he agrees to play
the role of Joseph in this unholy retelling of advent of Jesus. No one can imagine Mary spitting in Joseph's face, but in this story that is an appropriate response, to Guy's actions.
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This photograph is a screen shot of the scene
when the pope (played by Michael Shillo) visits Rosemary at the
witch's coven ("John F. Kennedy and Rosemary's Baby").
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Not only is God dead in this film, religious
authorities cannot be trusted. Another inversion comes with the pope: when the
rape occurs, Rosemary dreams that the pope is present. Rosemary tells Minnie
Castevet that she is a lapsed Catholic, but she asks the pope for forgiveness;
however, it is really the pope who should ask her forgiveness. When Rosemary
goes to kiss the pope’s ring, she realizes that it is exactly like the evil
charm that the Casstevet’s require her to wear. Collusion between the supposedly
good and the Devil is a recurring theme for every character in the film, from her
husband to the pope; however, no one can help Rosemary because evil inverts
everything in her world.
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Screen shot of the Devil's son Adrian (Stridsigne)
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The final inversion and betrayal comes from within
Rosemary's own body. When her baby stares out at her, the
final inversion occurs when a new-born baby is an incarnation of evil. The upside-down crucifix above his cradle is the ultimate symbol of this new world of religious and moral inversion. When
Rosemary sees her misbegotten child she is carrying a knife, and she could have
kill the Devil’s son, but this good person inverts into being evil because of the influence of the Devil and her need to be a mother. Caring for the Devil’s
son makes a mockery of motherhood, and Rosemary’s acquiescence about being
Adrians’s mother shows that no one is immune from inverting to evil. For Rosemary the birth of Adrian marks the death of God.
Works Cited
Emerson, Jim. "Re: Rosemary's
Baby Remake Aborted; God Not Dead?" Web log comment. Jim
Emerson's
Scanner Blog. Chicago Sun-Times, 22 Dec. 2005. Web. 28, Mar.
2013.
“John F. Kennedy and Rosemary’s
Baby.” Web log post. Merovee. Worldpress.com, 16 Oct. 2011.
Web. 28 Mar. 2013.
Rosemary’s Baby. Dir. Roman Polanski. Perf. Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon and Sidney
Blackmer. Paramount, 1968. DVD.
Stridsigne, Guy. "Re: Screenshot Saturday:
Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968)." Web log
comment. Screenshot
Saturday. Video World Made Flesh, 19 June 2011. Web. 28 Mar. 2013
Sullivan, Daniel, Jeff Greenberg, and
Mark J. Landau. "Toward a New Understanding of two Films
from the Dark Side: Utilizing Terror Management Theory to
Analyze Rosemary's Baby and
Straw Dogs." Journal
Of Popular Film & Television 37.4 (2009): 189-198. Academic
Search
Complete. Web. 28 Mar. 2013.
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