[Sofia]

I don't know why you keep saying that Regan likes/has an affection for Burke. 😉 She doesn't. She said it was all right to bring him along but she clearly didn't mean it. The novel makes this even more clear.

Friedkin's remarks on the “birthday ideas” scene (you can listen to it on the VYNS commentary) were that Regan had animosity toward Burke and concern that he would replace her father. That's the idea of the scene. It's  uncomplicated on the surface, but full with unexpressed feelings underneath.

Regan did not like Burke. Not because he was molesting her (it never happened) but because:

– she was afraid that he might take her mother's love away from her,

– blamed him for her parents' divorce

– was concerned that he would marry her mother and replace her dad.

[granville1]

I stand happily corrected.

[Chippsrn]

Why I think Burke did something sexual up in that bedroom was the fact, 1) he did not belong in the room in the first place, 2) the voice heard coming up the stairs was very much like Burke’s, even before her mother had gotten the room. The voice said, “do it, do it, you bitch”, in a very Burke sounding voice. Remember, it is difficult to remember Burke sober, either in the book or the film, or this may be where the two paths diverge.
In any case, I believe there is a good reason to believe that Burke had nefarious plans for Reagan when he decided to go into her room.

[Chippsrn]

Several of these posts are not informative or polite. Look again the director’s cut and read the 40th anniversary edition with the added material and see if you can come up with an adequate rebuttal that is not insulting or stonewalling.

[chrisdavid]

he

[Daf]

Chiming in more for posterity and not because I think anyone from ten years ago is still listening: the supposed molestation of Regan by Dennings would not be subtext, a theme, or background info, but a crucial and directly relevant plot point that takes place within the timeframe of the story. A movie presents to us its plot points, and The Exorcist would have no reason to hide this event from the audience: it’s not too dark, heavy, or explicit for a film as famously dark, heavy, and explicit as The Exorcist; and it’s certainly not unimportant to the story – in fact, if there indeed was such a molestation in the story and The Exorcist didn’t present it on the grounds of it unimportant, that would be pretty darn unflattering to the film, to say the least.

If there are indeed themes of sexual abuse in the film (I’ve never detected anything like that myself, but sure, let’s go with it), that actually speaks against the notion that there is an unshown molestation plot point in the film. There’s no reason for the movie to code sexual abuse when there’s a big fat literal molestation in the story that it could just show us. It’s the story that informs the subtext, not the other way around. If a story has subtext that exists primarily to lead us to a hidden plot point, that’s at best distracting and at worst utterly pointless.

I’ve seen this kind of thing elsewhere (see: The Shining, and I’ve even heard an extremely similar “hidden molestation” angle with it, too!) and I think it speaks to a distressingly common misunderstanding of media literacy.

[Author]

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