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One Flew Over the Wednes
One of the finest films ever made, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was on TV yesterday. Apparently, it's the anniversary. I saw this movie as a very young kid, so of course I didn't understand it at all. Who the hell lets a 10-year-old watch that anyway? In high school, I read the excellent book by Ken Kesey in a class simply called "Novel." We also read The Lords of Discipline, Catcher in the Rye, and A Separate Peace. When I watched the movie again, my mind was totally blown. Not only is the cast completely surreal, but if anyone was going to replace Piper Laurie in my nightmares, it would surely be Louise Fletcher. Damn, that bitch is terrifying.
While watching last night I noticed a few things I hadn't before. A team of doctors is debating whether or not MacMurphy is "crazy." They repeatedly use that word as if it's a diagnostic term--even with each other. It was as if there was one diagnosis--or perhaps two: chronic (meaning catatonic) and non-chronic. And the diagnosis was either, YES you are crazy, or NO you are sane. No in between. Obviously, in real-life there are dozens of different diagnoses and various nuances within each diagnosis, and a wide spectrum of circumstances under which people are hospitalized, institutionalized, or not.
In the movie, the patients are not told what meds they are being given, nor do they have the option of not taking them. ECT is doled out as punishment for becoming too upset or excited. If you don't already know this about me, ECT is one of my greatest fears as a mentally ill person. H has promised and understands fully that under NO circumstances is he to consent to such a thing. If they ever tried to make me have it, I would physically fight them with everything I had (not that fighting did Martini any good). I won't have it. Not ever.
We all probably know the tragic particulars of the Cuckoo's Nest. MacMurphy could have made it out if he hadn't cared so much about his fellow inmates. He had a clear escape twice and chose to be a good guy, to care about others, both times. The thing about MacMurphy's situation, is that he has no idea what or who he's dealing with. He figures out Ratched pretty quickly ("she likes a rigged game"). But he assumes for a long time that if a guy likes to hang out and play cards, that he must not really be "crazy"--whatever the hell THAT means. That he really does have control over himself and his life, and doesn't need to be in a hospital. This may be true for some patients, that if they had real therapy and support they might get well enough to leave. But some of them will probably never leave, nor do they want to. Fear can really fuck you up. That's why "crippling fear" is a thing, it paralyzes people and if you aren't helped, you're unlikely to ever get over it.
Even though the doctors in the story are clueless, the amazing cadre of patients clearly demonstrates the full spectrum of mental illness. It also demonstrates that aside from their illnesses, many of the men are under tremendous pressure from various sources. Speaking for myself, having a calm and/or happy life (if you can mange it) goes a long way toward helping one deal with an illness. Pressure exacerbates most mental and emotional problems. Theses poor guys--the guards are mean, they have wives or mothers who are punishing and non-supportive, and several of them are pathologically hard on themselves. Each of them had their own tragic flaw, and seeing it unfold again on TV was heartbreaking. It's an emotionally exhausting watch, but so worth it.
When the movie premiered, there were bomb threats and stuff. People were freaking out, apparently because of the films "treatment of the mentally ill." I agree that it is not exactly a flattering portrayal of mentally ill folks. But many would argue that it is a harsh but accurate indictment of the then current state of mental health care. People were thought of as "crazy," which to this day keeps far too many people from getting the help they need. Back then, patients had no input on their own care, the prevalent philosophy being that they were crazy and could not rationally contribute. But many of us know that even a regular doctor can be douchey as far as giving a patient straight and accurate information about a diagnosis or medication. I really don't think the movie is judging "crazy" people. But it is telling a lot of mental health practitioners of old to go fuck themselves. And that's perfectly okay with me.
Back to work tomorrow, having accomplished everything I needed to this weekend. Need to spend more time with the zombie manuscript of course, but my new short story is pretty solid right now. (It's up for members of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
wednes_writes if anyone wants to check it out.) Next podcast is ready to go and new Ladies of Villainy post went up yesterday. So that's all good. The busy season at my day-job basically starts tomorrow. We have a bunch of new people coming in, and call volume is about to explode. Sucky thing is, this summer was terrible and stressful, and I've been really busy so I feel like I didn't get much down time. We had a horrible sale and they released a badly handled coupon that didn't work on the website. Then we got the horrible new system that, in addition to being VERY slow and unintuitive, was rolled out terribly and is still buggy as hell. Couple that with nobody getting raises and bonuses being laughably small, I'm not really feeling the day-job these days.
In case I haven't mentioned, Inception was incredible. Not quite my fave Christopher Nolan film, but damn close. (I freakin' LOVE Following). I'm not going to discuss it at length, just go see it. I got a copy of The Prestige on DVD this week because I haven't been able to find my burned copy in months. It's well worth paying for anyway. Also picked up the remake of 'Salem's Lot for cheap (both movies delivered for $15) *Happy Dance*
And finally, my iPod wiped itself clean last week. It was horrible. No reason at all. It was plugged in and I restarted my computer. All gone. Called support--no help. I lost a zillion movies, audiobooks, LOST and other TV eps, and a bunch of stuff from iTunes that I actually paid for. They don't let you re download stuff for free anymore. Never been angry at Apple before, don't like how that feels.
While watching last night I noticed a few things I hadn't before. A team of doctors is debating whether or not MacMurphy is "crazy." They repeatedly use that word as if it's a diagnostic term--even with each other. It was as if there was one diagnosis--or perhaps two: chronic (meaning catatonic) and non-chronic. And the diagnosis was either, YES you are crazy, or NO you are sane. No in between. Obviously, in real-life there are dozens of different diagnoses and various nuances within each diagnosis, and a wide spectrum of circumstances under which people are hospitalized, institutionalized, or not.
In the movie, the patients are not told what meds they are being given, nor do they have the option of not taking them. ECT is doled out as punishment for becoming too upset or excited. If you don't already know this about me, ECT is one of my greatest fears as a mentally ill person. H has promised and understands fully that under NO circumstances is he to consent to such a thing. If they ever tried to make me have it, I would physically fight them with everything I had (not that fighting did Martini any good). I won't have it. Not ever.
We all probably know the tragic particulars of the Cuckoo's Nest. MacMurphy could have made it out if he hadn't cared so much about his fellow inmates. He had a clear escape twice and chose to be a good guy, to care about others, both times. The thing about MacMurphy's situation, is that he has no idea what or who he's dealing with. He figures out Ratched pretty quickly ("she likes a rigged game"). But he assumes for a long time that if a guy likes to hang out and play cards, that he must not really be "crazy"--whatever the hell THAT means. That he really does have control over himself and his life, and doesn't need to be in a hospital. This may be true for some patients, that if they had real therapy and support they might get well enough to leave. But some of them will probably never leave, nor do they want to. Fear can really fuck you up. That's why "crippling fear" is a thing, it paralyzes people and if you aren't helped, you're unlikely to ever get over it.
Even though the doctors in the story are clueless, the amazing cadre of patients clearly demonstrates the full spectrum of mental illness. It also demonstrates that aside from their illnesses, many of the men are under tremendous pressure from various sources. Speaking for myself, having a calm and/or happy life (if you can mange it) goes a long way toward helping one deal with an illness. Pressure exacerbates most mental and emotional problems. Theses poor guys--the guards are mean, they have wives or mothers who are punishing and non-supportive, and several of them are pathologically hard on themselves. Each of them had their own tragic flaw, and seeing it unfold again on TV was heartbreaking. It's an emotionally exhausting watch, but so worth it.
When the movie premiered, there were bomb threats and stuff. People were freaking out, apparently because of the films "treatment of the mentally ill." I agree that it is not exactly a flattering portrayal of mentally ill folks. But many would argue that it is a harsh but accurate indictment of the then current state of mental health care. People were thought of as "crazy," which to this day keeps far too many people from getting the help they need. Back then, patients had no input on their own care, the prevalent philosophy being that they were crazy and could not rationally contribute. But many of us know that even a regular doctor can be douchey as far as giving a patient straight and accurate information about a diagnosis or medication. I really don't think the movie is judging "crazy" people. But it is telling a lot of mental health practitioners of old to go fuck themselves. And that's perfectly okay with me.
Back to work tomorrow, having accomplished everything I needed to this weekend. Need to spend more time with the zombie manuscript of course, but my new short story is pretty solid right now. (It's up for members of
wednes_writes if anyone wants to check it out.) Next podcast is ready to go and new Ladies of Villainy post went up yesterday. So that's all good. The busy season at my day-job basically starts tomorrow. We have a bunch of new people coming in, and call volume is about to explode. Sucky thing is, this summer was terrible and stressful, and I've been really busy so I feel like I didn't get much down time. We had a horrible sale and they released a badly handled coupon that didn't work on the website. Then we got the horrible new system that, in addition to being VERY slow and unintuitive, was rolled out terribly and is still buggy as hell. Couple that with nobody getting raises and bonuses being laughably small, I'm not really feeling the day-job these days.In case I haven't mentioned, Inception was incredible. Not quite my fave Christopher Nolan film, but damn close. (I freakin' LOVE Following). I'm not going to discuss it at length, just go see it. I got a copy of The Prestige on DVD this week because I haven't been able to find my burned copy in months. It's well worth paying for anyway. Also picked up the remake of 'Salem's Lot for cheap (both movies delivered for $15) *Happy Dance*
And finally, my iPod wiped itself clean last week. It was horrible. No reason at all. It was plugged in and I restarted my computer. All gone. Called support--no help. I lost a zillion movies, audiobooks, LOST and other TV eps, and a bunch of stuff from iTunes that I actually paid for. They don't let you re download stuff for free anymore. Never been angry at Apple before, don't like how that feels.
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Because Apple is evil and hates you?
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Congrats on the new coat, BTW.
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*Raises hand*
Brian and I watched it with his daughter last week, as I mentioned on FB. She's 10. The violence/sex/whatever are way more low-key in Cuckoo's Nest than other things he's let her watch, and I judged her to be mature enough to be able to handle it. I know she didn't understand everything of what was going on, but she asks questions and we answer them honestly.
To be fair, when I was 10, my parents let me watch Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein. Not so much violence, but WAY more sex and blatant social commentary. Thus, my sense of what's appropriate for a 10-year-old might not be the same as most people's. :)
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Gah! Before I got on medication for my anxiety, any sort of stress really messed with me. Not only did it not help that I was not medicated, but also I didn't have the awareness of what clinical anxiety was or how it affected me. On one hand, I realize that being on medication is a must since you can't totally reason yourself out of feeling anxious. However, being consciously aware of what I'm dealing with does help me modify my reaction to it. Years ago I would flip out, whereas nowadays I'm a lot better at pretending to be calm even when I'm not. I had a lot of people get angry with me for my behavior, but I wasn't acting that way out of some evil intent, obviously. Even though I realize they didn't know what was causing me to act so hyper and stressed, some of those people could have given me more of the benefit of the doubt. In fact, I tend to get really angry when I realize that I'm dealing with the type of person who don't give others the benefit of the doubt. Of course, they expect others to give them the benefit of the doubt!
I haven't seen Cuckoo's Nest since the last 70s or early 80s. I do have a funny Ken Kesey story for you. He came to Indiana State in the 94-95 school year. This professor in the history department was his host and arranged the whole visit and talk. The professor came back from Kesey's hotel room just totally STONED out of his mind. A fellow grad student told us how he saw the professor attempting to pull off a sticker from the dept door. He kept fumbling with it, looking at it with a totally blank expression.
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Not sure if you've ever read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test but it pretty well details Kesey's whole deal. I would not be surprised to learn that that cat was on drugs for the whole second half of his life.
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And Bowie as Tesla was a freaking BRILLIANT casting move. Brilliant.
I actually really liked the movie but just can't decide if seeing it again would put some of my stickier questions to rest or just make them worse.
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Had to look up John Cazale. The guy definitely left his mark in the short time he was around.
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Thanks, my point was to bring things to people's attention that they might not otherwise know about, while still mentioning the classics. Glad you approve! See you later.