I was enamored by many parts of Shiva Baby in my first watch through. A story about a college senior, Danielle, running into her “sugar daddy,” Max, (along with his wife and baby) and her ex-girlfriend at a shiva observance leaves much to be fascinated by. And yet, out of all the fascinating parts of the film, I could not help but reflect upon the title.

Shiva Baby. 

I am always thinking about grammar. I can’t help it! I’m a writing teacher, after all. When Joseph, the organizer for this Theme Week, first told me about the film, I assumed the title would be written as “Shiva, Baby!” to punctuate, poke fun at, and refer to the chaos that ensues at the shiva. To my surprise, the title is written as a compound noun (two nouns put together to create one word). Written this way, Shiva Baby refers to a person. 

The film takes place at a shiva observance and there is a baby, Rose, present. Taken literally, the film title refers to Rose’s presence and the narrative that unfolds as Danielle learns of Max’s secret marriage and family.  “Who brings a baby to a shiva?” is also a running gag throughout the film, in reference to Rose’s continuous crying and shrieking that angers the guests, further emphasizing Rose as the titular character. However, rather than taking a literal grammatical approach, I take a rhetorical grammar approach to dissect the film title and the larger infantilization of Danielle across the film. 

First, I want to define what I mean by rhetorical grammar. We are prone to thinking of grammar as a rule-based practice, which rhetorical grammar is decidedly not. Instead, rhetorical grammar encourages a social view of language to reflect upon how grammatical choices, like a compound noun, are a part of an intricate process that “represent relations between writers and the world they live in” (Micciche 719). As Monique Dufour and Jennifer Ahern-Dodson write in their chapter to Bad Ideas About Writing, “there is an important distinction between rules and techniques” (121, emphasis added). The technique of punctuating the title as a compound noun encourages us to consider how grammatical choices change or enhance a communicated message. When paired with Danielle’s crumbling image from put-together adult to unsure and anxious post-grad from the moment the shiva begins, as well as her family’s consistent nagging, the title indicates that Danielle is not exactly the person she tries to perform as: she is the shiva baby. 

We see examples of Danielle’s infantilization across the film, although she does not immediately appear this way. The audience’s first meeting with her occurs at the film’s opening, where she is shown having sex with Max. She is introduced as an empowered, confident, and conniving woman, clearly hustling Max out of his money in her lie about her plans to attend law school. However, this image slowly crumbles away as Danielle meets her parents, Debbie and Joel, prior to the shiva. Danielle begins to regress from her adult image as she is reprimanded by her parents on how to behave and answer questions about her post-grad plans. Debbie pointedly tells Danielle her “sound bite” for the evening: “You’re finishing up finals and you’ve got a few job interviews lined up,” which, we later learn, is far from the truth as Danielle’s sole source of income is a handful of babysitting gigs (with no interviews in sight). We also learn that Danielle is on her parent’s “payroll,” and that she does not pay her bills or apartment rent—these are paid in full by her parents.

Further, Danielle is constantly ogled, poked at, and prodded by her family members. On more than one occasion she is asked if she has an eating disorder. Family members very concerningly tell Debbie that Danielle “has lost a lot of weight” and must be closely watched. Following these remarks, Debbie pushes a plate of food at Danielle, demanding she eat it because “You look like Gwenyth Paltrow on food stamps. And not in a good way.” Here, and across the film, there is an explicit focus on food and force-feeding due to some perceived lack in Danielle. She clearly cannot be expected to do anything on her own, like feed herself properly (sounds pretty similar to how we treat a baby, right?). 

This lack mimics Danielle’s own perceived lack of direction. She has yet to figure out what she is doing with her life and if she is enough as is. And so, Danielle is characterized as requiring some growing up, although most people can understand Danielle’s current life situation. The anxiety of not knowing what your next step is and the dread of having to face questions from family and friends about your life is something most of audiences can relate to. It’s not uncommon for a young twenty-something adult to, like Danielle, pretend to have it all together. I hesitate to think any of these details make Danielle a baby, although it certainly does highlight the confusion of young adult life and the learning curve required as we transition into new chapters of our lives.  

When I think of Shiva Baby now, I think about a young person trying to find their way in the world. It often does feel like we are starting a new life when we tackle situations that we have not experienced before. To that end, Shiva Baby is a coming-of-age film that highlights that all of us will fumble, fail, take new steps and find our way again multiple times across our life and, in doing so, we grow.

References

Dufour, Monique and Jennifer Ahern-Dodson. “Good Writers Always Follow My Rules.” Bad Ideas About Writing, edited by Cheryl E. Ball and Drew M. Loewe, pp. 121-125. West Virginia University Libraries/Digital Publishing Institute, 2017. https://textbooks.lib.wvu.edu/badideas/badideasaboutwriting-book.pdf

Micciche, Laura R. “Making a Case for Rhetorical Grammar.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 55, no. 4, 2004, pp. 716-737. https://doi.org/10.2307/4140668