How exactly is nurse Ratched bad?
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Cheeky — 3 years ago(July 10, 2022 02:52 PM)
I really can't understand how Ratched's wicked nature has to be described to others. It is not that difficult to recognize.
She's the quintessential villain and Fletcher did a stellar job playing her
If we take the time to see with the heart and not with the mind, we shall see that we are surrounded completely by angels ~ Carlos Santana -
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Cheeky — 3 years ago(July 10, 2022 03:04 PM)
Louise enjoyed the scene where Mac throttles her
She was always so pent up while the others got to run wild, I guess it was exhilarating for her to actually cut loose
If we take the time to see with the heart and not with the mind, we shall see that we are surrounded completely by angels ~ Carlos Santana -
GreenGoblinsOckVenom86 — 9 years ago(November 10, 2016 09:16 PM)
I don't think you get it. She didn't want to help anyone. In the first group session she just put Harding on the spot and then allowed everyone to yell at the top of their lungs at him! How the hell does that help anyone!?
1, 2 Freddy's coming for you. 3, 4 better lock your door. -
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ida96 — 9 years ago(December 03, 2016 05:17 PM)
Allowing Billy to have sex with a prostitute on hospital grounds would be shirking her duties and would cost her her job.
By threatening Billy with telling his mother about the incident, Nurse Ratched took the nuclear option. Her threat was completely out of proportion to the situation.
She knew Billy had attempted suicide in the past, yet she used her ace (friendship with Billy's mother) to punish him and bring him under her control. She was directly responsible for his suicide.
Nurse Ratched is part of a broken system that wielded power inappropriately (punitive electroshock therapy; lobotomizing difficult patients). So, yes, Nurse Ratched, as representative of this system, is bad. -
znapper — 9 years ago(February 06, 2017 04:43 AM)
She was bad, in the sense that she ran the ward and by the book.
The wasn't interested in getting patients well, it was her personally run prison-wing.
What about the party?
Yes.sureyou may be pissed, but the guys there are mental-patients, you cannot let your anger out on them, why should you?
A proper reaction would be to clean up, evaluate and secure the wing better, but she lost it completely.
She was not a good nurse, or a caring human, she was, like many in psychiatry, a narcissistic, dominating control-freak, incompetent and forcing her personal view on the world upon her patients instead of helping them. (order on the wing before treatment).
She was pissed-off because McMyrphy threatened her domain, a docile, medicated gang of nutters, who feared her. She went to war, waiting for the right moment to "treat" McMyrphy in the worst way possible; Taking away his mind.
You can still see them today and ironically, often they carry a bible and preach the word of god as well.
Sickening.
The movie is more than this off-course, among other things, it's a critical voice against how psychiatry worked way up until the 80's in most countries, many many patients were lobotomized and drugged out of their minds and ill-treated (and even die in these institutions).
There is also a point to the fact that all of McMyrphy's friends, were there voluntary, they could leave if they wanted to, but the head nurse and drugs had put them into a position where they wanted to stay and needed to stay, even though they really didn't. -
Chronic_Johnson — 6 years ago(January 20, 2020 04:24 PM)
I think the film just provides us with some catharsis for any fantasies we may have for standing up against authority figures we disagree with and, perhaps, despise. She was doing her job, but it's also true that she's a bitch. As someone who was providing the patients with therapy sessions, she should have recognized that Billy's stutter stopped after he gained confidence from sleeping with the woman. It was unnecessary and simply spiteful of her to threaten to tell Billy's mother about what happened. She's more responsible for his suicide than McMurphy is, though they both played a part.
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TaRaNRoD — 5 years ago(September 29, 2020 02:12 AM)
I agree on the bitch nurse, but McMurphy? How is he responsible for Billy's suicide? If anything, he's as responsible for his suicide as an ex could be if his/her former partner commits suicide because of the break up.
"You're a disease, and I'm the cure!" - Marion "Cobra" Cobretti -
Chronic_Johnson — 5 years ago(September 29, 2020 03:51 AM)
It's been a while since I saw this and I can't recall why I said that.
Probably because McMurphy came into the mental hospital and stirred things up to the point where he was getting everyone involved in some sort of trouble.
I agree that suicide is ultimately the decision of the person doing it to themselves, but at the same time if McMurphy never tried to "liberate" the patients, I'd be willing to wager that Billy wouldn't have killed himself. Maybe he would eventually since it only takes one threat of humiliation/scolding from his mother to get him to that point. But I doubt it would be as accelerated. -
ToastedCheese — 3 years ago(July 09, 2022 05:44 AM)
…..if McMurphy never tried to "liberate" the patients, I'd be willing to wager that Billy wouldn't have killed himself.
Billy was already a troubled young man. McMurphy was giving him a new lease and outlet on life. Mac wasn't a saint by any measure, he did have the devil in him, but Ratched was just evil to the core and her devil was spiteful and hateful, not fun loving like Macs.
Ratched was understandably upset by the mess she came into the next morning, but remember, McMurphy was also supposed to have been running that night too. The treatments he received was also slowing down his own spirit. This is represented in the close up shot of his face and eyes when he is sitting by the window.
Ratched is fully responsible for Billy's death due to her words and how she handled the situation. She didn't want Billy to be a man.
Norman! What did you put in my tea? -
The Kraken — 3 years ago(December 22, 2022 03:51 AM)
Yeah I just watched the movie for the very first time ever.
I've heard all about how Nurse Ratchet was a sadistic evil psychiatric nurse my entire life. The character is famous.
So when I was watching the film for the very first time not knowing anything about the plot at all, I was surprised to see that she wasn't a villain.
Jack Nicholson's character was the villain. He was evil.
He was a pedophile, a their, violent, anti social and lawless. He also had no empathy as well. I'd say that he was very much mentally ill but in a different way from the other patients.
The staff should have isolated him from the rest of the patients after he kidnapped them, stole a boat and took them on trip deep sea fishing.
Ratchet was just doing her job. And she wasn't sadistic. She cared about her job, the rules and the patients under her care. There are many instances supporting that fact.
However that entire hospital administration was very much negligent and poorly trained staff.
They allowed Nicholson's character to influence the other patients and cause chaos. -
BlablaBlackSheep — 3 years ago(December 22, 2022 04:14 AM)
My take on it…. Ratched didn’t care about the patients, she enjoyed psychologically tormenting them and preying upon their weaknesses so they wouldn’t have the strength to walk out of the hospital. Suddenly Murphy shows up and shows them how to have fun and really live life, also taking them on a fishing trip that was more therapeutic than decades of medication and verbal gaslighting could ever achieve, which threatens Ratched’s mental hold over her victims. In her final bid of desperation, she drives a young boy to suicide and then makes everyone carry on as though nothing was wrong. So Murphy steals her voice from her and is lobotomized in the process. Murphy may have died but he freed many people from Ratched’s evil grip and gave them all a chance at leading a normal life.
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