Not Missing Baby Night Analysis

As the dreamlike sequence concludes, Guy is foregrounded in the shot, juxtaposed with Rosemary’s nakedness, as he is completely clothed. Her exposed body reveals her victimization and defenselessness to patriarchal control while his pajama suit divulges his concealment and protection under the same structure. After Rosemary notices the monstrous scratches on her body and claims she does not remember the occurrences of the previous night, Guy persists in making a joke out of “not missing baby night”, claiming that it “was fun in a sort of necrophile sort of way”. Rosemary’s clear horror at her husband’s disregard for her conscious consent mirrors the issues surrounding rape culture during second wave feminism, as rape tended to be trivialized and rationalized in favor of the male perpetrator.
This shot parallels Guy’s hand with Satan’s once again, and Rosemary winces at his touch as he continues to joke about “being a little bit loaded” himself, thus evading any responsibility. Heller-Nicholas contends that “melodrama comes into being in a world where the traditional imperatives of truth and ethics have been violently thrown into question, yet where the promulgation of truth and ethics, their instauration as a way of life, is of immediate, daily, political concern” (4). Rosemary’s Baby employs melodramatic horror to critique the socio-political issues of sexual assault and female autonomy, while depicting the horrific reality of rape through a monstrous, supernatural entity. While the anti-rape movement was still a few years away from development, the film nevertheless paves the way for a discussion of rape as a social problem deserving of attention, pinpointing rape as a tool for social control, and not merely the performativity of