ROSEMARY'S BABY and Roe v. Wade

(Yes, Roman Polanski is a bad person. The cool thing about art is that it has a life separate from the artist. An artist can be a real creep in real life while doing wonderful things in his work. In fact, it seems to be almost the norm!)

If you have never watched ROSEMARY'S BABY with reproductive choice in mind, it's stunning. Most great modern horror films are parables of social pathology. At heart THE SHINING is about alcoholism and domestic violence, not ghosts. (on edit: David Cronenberg's remake of) THE FLY is about AIDS and cocaine. The finale of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD has more to do with Montgomery, Alabama than with rays from space. DAWN OF THE DEAD paints the mindless zombies as typical American consumers heading for the mall. Etc.

ROSEMARY'S BABY is a brief for abortion and against traditional marriage norms, and not a subtle one. She is socially isolated by her husband then impregnated against her will. (To advance his career) As she comes to realize that the baby is binding her to a manipulative husband and is wrecking her health (and is the devil's spawn) the movie becomes a harrowing search for someone to help her terminate her pregnancy.

But her doctor (chosen by her husband and her de facto in-laws, the creepy old witches upstairs) is part of a vast male conspiracy, actually colluding with her husband against her best interests (and health!) So she seeks an abortion with a doctor she trusts, but he is also part of the conspiracy and enacts a unilateral "spousal notification" plan, drugging her and calling her husband to pick up his misbehaving wife.

Everyone she meets is intent on forcing her to take the baby to term. (Just as everyone in red-scare era INVASION OF THE BODY-SNATCHERS is a secret communist.)

It was a very, very, very unusual plot-line for 1968, five years before Roe v. Wade.

Cool movie.

I have not seen the movie (Rosemary's Baby) but the book is a pretty good flat out horror novel...not a lot of 'subtext'

as for The Fly...the original came out in 1958...long before AIDS...

seems to me these interpretations stretch pretty far...but that's why it's called 'interpretation'

The original ('heelllp me!') was definitely not AIDS or cocaine related.

On the other hand, the John Carpenter remake of THE THING was much less political than the original, which identified intelligence with communism with being a walking vegetable.

with Jack Finney where he said The Body Snatchers was not about communism or mcCarthyism...it was about pods from space...

another example of how people (esp. people making movies) can see what they want to see.

have a good evening

context that I had never thought about - it will be like a new movie.

K&R