Is Rosemary's Baby really about narcissism?
Rewatching Polanski’s chilling film and the Prime limited series, I found myself wondering…what kind of man would sell his wife to the devil so that he could achieve success? What kind of man would then reject and despise her as a representative of his own duplicity? How could someone who claims to love his spouse, lie and coerce her into having a baby with Beelzebub?
A narcissist.
Handsome, charming, clever, talented and seemingly devoted to his wife, Guy spends most of the film avoiding taking responsibility for the horror of his own choices. He gaslights his distraught wife, making her think she is going crazy. He arranges for the death of her friend, the only person who is telling Rosemary the truth and he continuously stops her from getting the help that she needs.
In ever increasing desperation, Rosemary seeks help from an obstetrician who makes the misogynist assumption that she is “hysterical” and perhaps suffering from a pre-partum psychosis.
Admittedly, most narcissists aren’t in league with the devil. Most of them don’t arrange for the death (or blindness) of their rivals or join a coven to get instant rewards. But your more everyday narcissist has a lot of the same behaviours as the devilish Guy. Like him and the other cult members, they gaslight, control, undermine and coerce their victims into doing and being whoever they want them to be.
I think it’s telling that in both film versions, Guy is an artist whose gifts have been “underrecognised”. Rosemary is depicted as childlike…innocent, powerless. In Polanski’s film she is dressed in pre-pubescent fashions, cutting her hair short and appearing naive in the extreme…at times. She finds it difficult to disagree with her self-centred husband and is subsumed by the overwhelming “generosity” and coercive control of the coven leaders who take her under their wing. Whenever she tries to assert herself, she is undermined or gaslit. She isn’t even allowed to sustain friendships or to leave the house without being surveilled. The sinister Castavets quickly move in to ensure that their valuable vessel doesn’t drift out of their control.
Interestingly, in the Prime series, Zoe Saldana plays Rosemary as a dancer who gives up her own career to support her husband’s aspirations. She appears seduced by the wealth and glamour of the powerful couple at the centre of the evil group. They control access to an establishment apartment block for the wealthy and powerful elite of Paris - La Chimera. The implication is that her own lack of grounding and desire to be associated with this group makes her an easier mark.
When Rosemary (in Polanski’s film version) desperately seeks help from an Ob/gyn, we get patriarchal condescension - the male narcissists and colluders are closing in and closing ranks. Her narcissistic husband takes his place at the forefront of the duplicitous group, his pursuit of fame taking precedence over Rosemary’s life and body.
No doubt there aren’t many people who would choose to give their wife up to a cult or pimp her out to be the bride of satan, but the narcissist next door is on the same slippery slope, gaslighting, coercing and undermining every damn day.