The Woman as a Vessel
“Where Satan is, in the world of horror, female genitals are likely to be nearby. The word vulva itself is related to valve, gate or entry to the body.”1
Women are universally seen as ‘carriers’, and thematically they are usually the vessels for possession by demons in film and fiction. The woman’s body is designed to act as a carrier for life other than its own, to support it, and nurture it to maturity, often sacrificing itself to protect the life which it carries. The body is designed to allow entrance from ‘foreign bodies’. Meaning it lends itself perfectly to the possession of things other than human life.
“The idea of impregnation by “pneuma” is ancient and widespread in both learned and popular beliefs, and it turns up repeatedly in occult films and in connection with the reproduction/possession complex of ideas. It plays on an equally ancient and widespread association between the vagina and the throat-an association reflected in the fantasy of the vagina dentate, in the German word for the neck of the uterus, Mutterhals (‘mother throat”), and in the folk belief that the body is open to the devil both during sneezing (hence “God bless you”), and during orgasm.”2
In many films this is personified in the presence of an open window, in The Exorcist no matter how many times Regan’s mother goes into her room and closes the window, each time she finds it open again upon her next entry. As the film goes on the room gets colder and colder, relating to how much the demon has been let in, and how open the symbolic window is. The room represents Regan’s body, and so when a drunken Burke enters the room uninvited, she reacts as though she has been raped, throwing him from the room, via the window, and also throwing him from herself through the ‘valve’ which the demon uses to enter.
Films and also folklore in general, often portray disembodied spirits as wind or mist, they associate them with cold, many haunted houses though as having ‘cold-spots’ which are always in the same specific space, often quite a small one, never moving, and never explained. Most ghost photographs show either mists in which our brain automatically looks for recognisable shapes, or as orbs, both of which travel airborne, supposedly with free will and control over where they go. Occasionally moving against the movement of the wind. This common conception of spirits as an entity explains why windows are often used in film and fiction as an entry point for evil spirits, due to their association with air.
It is also in a woman, a reflection of the other entrance into her body, through her throat. In the same way life enters the body through the vagina, it also enters through breathing, in the way of diseases and parasites. Both of these entrances let in things that create changes in the body, even something as mundane as food causes changes through weight and health. It is not unusual for illnesses to present with psychological symptoms, and so the leap from psychological problems being caused by an illness to psychological problems being caused by a spirit entering the body is not a large one, considering they both enter the body by the same means. Illnesses were thought to be caused by evil spirits, where-as now, evil spirits are believed to be caused by illness meaning they are in effect seen as the same thing.
Many psychological diseases only present themselves during adolescence and puberty, this coincides with when the body becomes open to sex and pregnancy.
“Once Regan’s body becomes sexual, it becomes evil; the Devil taking possession of her flesh, contorts, disfigures and scars it. But if the Devil is in an invasive relationship to Regan’s body, so too are the exorcists, who tie her to the bed… and, when they bless her body with holy water, leave bleeding gashes in her flesh.”3
This is interesting because while the illness Regan is inflicted with causes gashes in her skin, so does the treatment, the holy water burns her, leaving more openings in her flesh for infection. For this to happen it implies that there is indeed a demon inhabiting her body, and to believe in demons you must also believe in God. Generally it is only people who are strictly religious that suffer from these possessions, this experience will open her up to believe more in God and the Devil, ironically leaving her open to be attacked again in the future.
“Significantly, the possessed girl is also about to menstruate – in one scene, blood from her wounded genitals mingles with menstrual blood to provide one of the film’s key images of horror”
In one scene Regan is seen to be stabbing herself in the genitals with a crucifix, covering her in blood, both from her wounds and from menstruation. I wonder if this is Regan trying to use the crucifix as a healer, to drive out the demon from the place where it entered her, or trying to hide her growing maturity, hiding the fact that she is menstruating by creating more blood in that place from her wounds. Her mother does not want her to grow up, as is shown in a scene where her mother sees a picture of them both on a magazine cover, she comments “it’s not even a good picture, you look so mature”. They both wish to keep Regan’s childlike innocence, if Regan destroys her sexual organs in this way, perhaps the demon will no longer want to inhabit her body and will leave, as she is no longer a slave to the hormones and emotions of adolescence.
“But if all women are by nature open, some women are more open than others… When Carries mother links menstruation to the supernatural, she articulates one of horrors abiding verities. At the very least a menstruating woman is a woman “open”4
In Carrie, the film opens with a short scene where you see Carrie in her normal state, just before she starts her periods. And then afterwards in the shower she begins to bleed and is terrified thinking she is dieing. After voicing her fears she is met by taunts and attacks from the other girls in her class, shouts of “Plug it up! Plug it up!” as they find it hard to believe that a girl of her age hasn’t menstruated before, and also that she does not even know what it means. This suggests that if you have no knowledge of what happens when a girl becomes a woman, it can delay it, however this has an adverse affect. As she was not expecting it the effect of it on her body and her personality is more acute, she makes a very sudden turn into a woman from a girl. She argues with her mother’s belief that girls only become women if they sin, saying that it is something that happens to everyone.
“Women are referred to in the film as ‘pigs’, women ‘bleed like pigs’, and the pigs blood runs down Carries body at a moment of intense pleasure, just as her own menstrual blood ran down her legs during a similar pleasurable moment when she enjoyed her body in the shower.”5
As it says in the above quote, Carrie was enjoying her body in the shower when her periods start. It’s possible that this qualifies as the sin her mother speaks of, she is already a woman and has her own sexual desires, however she does not know what they are as her mother has never explained it to her. When this happens she feels newly empowered, however when the pig’s blood is dropped on her at the prom she realises she is still the same girl, and although she has changed her situation hasn’t. It is this shock that sends her over the edge and makes her kill everyone around her.
“Here, Women’s blood and pig’s blood flow together, signifying horror, shame and humiliation. In this film however, the mother speaks for the symbolic, identifying with an order which has defined women’s sexuality as the source of all evil and menstruation as the sign of sin.”6
After the bloodbath at the school, she heads home and has a bath, cleaning herself of the blood. This is her trying to take herself back to her innocent youth, removing the blood from her, and washing away the sin. Much like Adam and Eve suddenly realised they were naked after eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, she now realises what she has done, and tries to baptise herself, washing the blood and sin away from herself.
“Rosemary’s Possession comes about because, as a female, she is naturally enterable; but it also takes the very specific form of pregnancy and Satan the very specific form of a growing fetus.”7
One of the main aspects of motherhood is protection; the mother’s body is designed to protect the fetus growing inside it, even if it means sacrificing the health of the mother herself. Her mentality is structured to protect children, hers and others, and most mothers will fight to the death for them. This comes into play drastically in Rosemary’s Baby; her main motivation through the film is protecting her child. And although she remembers being raped by “something inhuman” she still stands by her opinion that her child is normal and innocent. Although logic should tell her that her child is not normal, she is in denial of this and compels herself to protect it from the people she thinks wish to harm it. She humiliates herself, ostracizes all the people around her and takes drastic measures, driven purely by this need to protect the life growing inside her. The film’s focus is on the importance of Rosemary, as an enterable being. Her husband Guy playing a secondary role, is not seen much throughout the progress of the film. Even the male neighbor who apparently orchestrated Rosemary’s Pregnancy is not seen as often as his Wife Minnie, implying that she plays a more important role in the progress of the film.
After the baby is born, she is told it is dead, and again is in denial of this, convinced that her baby is still alive and has been taken from her by the people she wished to protect it from. The bond between a mother and child would intensify this, the connection they have is more acute than between any other human relationship and for this reason she knows her child is alive. And as soon as she is well enough takes steps to take her child back – as in the memorable image of the blonde elf-like woman, wearing a long blue nightdress and wielding a large kitchen knife. I doubt that this knife is designed to protect herself, as if they wished to harm her, they already would have, it is more an indication that she is willing to do anything to get back her child. The blue night dress is possibly a reference to the blue dress worn by characters such as Dorothy Gale in The Wizard Of Oz, and Alice in Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, (as it is a very similar shade of blue) both of which characters are forced into another world they know nothing about, and are forced to adjust and become stronger and change through this experience, and at the end take steps to overcome their demons, and return their lives back to how they were before, back to the place they knew as a safe home. Afterwards accepting this life as a good one, and no longer being frustrated by its safety and restrictions. Rosemary’s life before they moved into the apartment was a good one, she was happy and comfortable, and wanted a child, like Dorothy and Alice, she craved something else in her life, and it is through gaining this new experience that she realizes how comfortable her life before was, and eventually she wants it back.
However for Rosemary, her experience was not a dream, she cannot fully escape from the life she has gained. So accepts it, caring for the child she gave birth to, and although at first its appearance terrifies her, she almost immediately overcomes it, and takes on the role of his mother. Her love for the child, brought about by the incomparable bond built up over the 9 months she carried him, in a particularly difficult pregnancy, is impossible to resist, and she becomes the mother the child needs, although she is fully aware of what the child will grow up to be.
Conclusion
All in all these films encompass the mentality of the era in which they were made, focusing on the strength of women, the discomfort in the changes in their bodies and the fear encompassed in those changes. They reference things like PMS, pre and post natal depression, and the conflicts involved in the trend of children now living with their parents until they are fully adult themselves. In the 60’s and 70’s girls in particular were becoming far more empowered to be what they wanted to be, and never before has a generation has such a different life and set of values to the previous one. These changes would have terrified the strictly brought up generation before them, they were shocked by the trends at the time of drug taking, partying, loud music and casual sex.
The extent of the fear invoked by films made at this time is lost on the current generation, many people finding the vulgarity of the exorcist crude and laughable. The Satanists in Rosemary’s Baby funny, and the Religious obsession of Carrie’s mother unbelievable. However to someone who was a parent at the time the film was made, or even to some parents now, if they have troublesome teens, they will find the films to be a reflection and exaggeration of the lives they lead with their families, the arguments, the fights, but also the love underlying it all, the love which ties Carrie to her mother, Rosemary to her child, and Regan’s mother to keep searching for a cure. Like most films, they are of their time, an echo of the era, and a representation of the past’s fears, ideals and conflicts.
1 Carol J. Clover, Men, Women and Chainsaws, p. 76
2 Carol J. Clover, Men, Women and Chainsaws, p. 79
3 Darryl Jones, Horror: A thematic history in fiction and film, p. 188
4 Carol J. Clover, Men, Women and Chainsaws, p. 77
5 Barbara Creed, Kristeva, Femininity, Abjection, from The Horror Reader, p. 69
6 Barbara Creed, Kristeva, Femininity, Abjection, from The Horror Reader, p. 69
7 Carol J. Clover, Men, Women and Chainsaws, p. 80
Screening Violets 