An interesting oldies' movie review - One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest(1975)

This movie provides depictions of people being diagnosed for their illnesses associated with abnormal psychology. These people are diagnosed in a mental institution. The main character of this movie, Randle Patrick McMurphy is one of the people that are being diagnosed in the movie. He is a frequent visitor of jail and is sentenced to jail for his latest conviction, statutory rape. Rather than spending time in the jail, he succeeded to convince the guard that he is crazy enough to be sent for psychiatric care and being admitted to the mental institution. In the movie, he has brought out some psychology issues throughout his short stay in the mental ward. Besides Murphy, the actions and individual stories of other characters in this movie, Chief Bromden, Billy Bibbit, Nurse Ratched, Dale Harding, Charlie Cheswick and so on have portrayed some controversial psychology issues as well. The total control of Nurse Ratched over the patients and even the staffs in the institution has been highlighted as the main theme of this movie. Another theme is the fight against oppression that is pointed out through the story of Murphy’s arrival at the institution which has challenged the rules set by Nurse Ratched for everyone in the ward to follow. Generally, the whole movie is about insanity and how people on “the other side” of the wall view the word “insanity”.

Murphy has been vigorously opposed the rules set by Nurse Ratched by carrying out some actions to show his dissatisfaction towards her. Some examples of those actions are demanding to watch baseball match on television, bringing the patients out of the ward for a fishing trip, bringing his girlfriend, Candy to the ward at night and so on. According to Freud Personality Development Theory, the doctor in the mental institution perceives that Murphy is having negative Oedipal Impulse for Nurse Ratched, who might symbolize his mother. This impulse could have been raised during Murphy’s childhood or adolescence, which his mother might have sexually rejected him. This condition is considered as normal for the theory of Oedipus Complex. Freud asserted that this would motivate the male child to then identify with the same sex parent and pursue normal sexual relations with females of his own age. Perhaps Murphy would have reacted extremely bad to his mother’s rejection, and as a result of his refused Oedipal Impulses, he developed jealous loathing for his mother. According to the doctor’s theory, this loathing or his mother must have been transferred to Nurse Ratched, who holds a mother-like position as the head of the nurse in the ward.

Besides that, stereotyping concept has also been depicted in this movie. Stereotype is a generalization of a person or group based on a few representative characteristics that we closely associate them with. The main theme, insanity is a well illustration of stereotyping behavior in the society in this movie. Some people argue that insanity is a psychological disease while others claim that being insane is just the possession of another perspective towards the world that is not accepted by the majority of the society. For instance, Murphy is considered to be crazy because of his aggressive conduct and personality; however he is the one that chooses to go to the asylum rather than staying in jail. In the movie, Chief lives in his own world, apart from society in order to flee and hide from reality. Nevertheless, he is also considered as an insane person by the society as his actions are considered as abnormal from the majority. Beside these two characters, other patients in the ward are considered as insane as well. For example, Harding voluntarily chooses to be in the ward in order to escape from his “shameful” sexuality because he is a homosexual whereby homosexuality is considered as abnormal for the society. Just like Billy, who also chooses to be manipulated and controlled by the staff so he doesn’t have to face the judgment and cruelty of society. The aforementioned characters are being stereotyped by the society as insane people just because of their characteristics that are slightly different from the majority. So, we can see that the majorities in the society tend to stereotype those minorities that have different characteristics with them.

Furthermore, there is an ethical issues being raised for the medication given to the patients. In fact, there is one scene that emphasizes "medication time", and each of the patients must take their prescribed medication in view of the Nurse Ratched. Murphy questions the contents of his medicine, but is refused for any information, even though the one who will consume the medicine is him. This is a perfect example of medicalization, these patients do not have a choice of whether they feel medicine is necessary for their treatments.

p/s:lotsa things to be discussed on,but this will make the movie becomes uninteresting if i reveal all the plots.So,i recommend you guys to watch this movie by either downloading it illegally or buying the licensed DVD.=D