MovieChat Forums > One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) Discussion > How exactly is nurse Ratched bad?

How exactly is nurse Ratched bad?

posted 8 years ago by digitalboy72
24 replies | jump to latest

I don't see it, I see a nurse that trying to uphold the rules. She was absolutely right that altering the schedule would result in confusion in the patients who are mentally ill and are used to it.

And after the big party, what was she to do, sweep it under the rug and let them get away with it without repercussions? We love and root for Billy, sure, but she's in a position of authority who has a responsibility to the patients under her charge.

Allowing Billy to have sex with a prostitute on hospital grounds would be shirking her duties and would cost her her job.

I know we're supposed to be on the side of the free spirited McMurphy and the rest of the guys but in reality nurse Ratched ran things the way she needed to.

[–] The_Ultimate_Hippo 8 years ago

She knew that billy was likely to commit suicide if she told him that, she did it to get back at MacMurphy because she couldn't stand it that he helped Billy. It wasn't about doing her job it was about demeaning people and maintaining her power trip.

"I really wish Gia and Claire had became Tanner" - Honeybeefine

[–] christopherhopkins2 8 years ago

I agree. She's a control freak, they blame her. Well she HAS to be in control, right? She actually handles the therapy sessions very calm and soft. Nicholson was VERY anti-autority as well.

The only thing that bothers me is the lobotomy as a repercussion.

[–] The_Ultimate_Hippo 8 years ago

Exactly she wasn't about helping the patients she was about maintaining control over them and breaking their spirits so that she could feed her own ego. The remark she made to Billy was intended to knock him down and shatter his confidence because she couldn't stand it that Jack had helped him. She knew that he very well may have comitted suicide as a result and she didn't care.

"I really wish Gia and Claire had became Tanner" - Honeybeefine

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] GreenGoblinsOckVenom86 8 years ago

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.

[–] LukeLovesFilm28 8 years ago

WTF are you on? Are you a cuckold? Ratched wanted to rule over the ward like a dictator by breaking the spirits of these men.

Get off your soapbox while I play you a tune on the tiniest violin.

[–] ida96 8 years ago

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 8 years ago

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....sure...you 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.

[–] Chara_Angel (133) 8 years ago

I think the book goes into detail a little more when it comes to showing her true colors. Essentially, Nurse Ratched is power-tripping all over the place.

She forces the patients to talk about personal things they don't talk about. She exposes their darkest secrets, and uses them to play mind games, and to turn the patients on each other in ugly ways, so that she will have complete control.

She rules with an iron fist, threatening anyone who steps out of line with cruel punishments, such as ECT or worse- in order to make an example of them. And if anyone, doctor or nurse, threatens her status or undermines her authority, she tears them down by sneakily destroying their career by calling question to their ability.

Finally, instead of encouraging mildly sick men toward recovery, she lets them believe that they have no ability to improve. And she leaves the chronic patients to suffer abuse and neglect.

[–] TheHungryHippo (821) 5 years ago

I read the book a little over a year ago and from what I remember right before she made the comment about Billy’s mother she felt completely boxed into a corner and that was her only card left to play so she played it. She’s a really sick person.

[–] MissMargoChanning (6630) 8 years ago

Manipulation.