One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: Nurse Ratched vs. McMurphy

The movie is a war of two ideologies.

Ratched is an authoritarian. She has a job to do, and that is to keep society (and her patients stable). She enjoys being in a superior position to vulnerable men and often abuses her power.

McMurphy is an anarchist. He's a criminal, he broke the law, he's averse to work and he too, takes advantage of the mentally ill patients for his own entertainment.

Ratched is the smothering mom that won't let you have a cell phone or stay out past 9pm. She makes sure you're fed and you don't get into trouble. McMurphy is the older brother that wants you to get tattoos and try some drugs. He makes sure you have a voice and your inner id is satisfied.

I generally know that most people view Ratched as the greater evil, and typically for 3 reasons.

• She's a woman who enjoys emasculating men. Men hate her.
• She represents the unethical treatment of the mentally ill that exists in our real world, even to this day.
• She's a hypocrite. Both characters are jerks, but while McMurphy is honest about who he is, Ratched puts on the pretense of being a caring nurse.

While I think they're both terrible people, it's worth noting that most of the patients were in voluntary treatment until McMurphy incited violence and then they were put in involuntary treatment.

I think McMurphy is the lesser of two evils. At least he treats them like grown men rather than children. Nurse Ratched won't even let them go on dates with female counterparts.

RP treated those guys like he'd treat anyone else, which I think removes that "crazy "stigma.. Even when they're playing cards (for cigarettes), at times he tells a guy he's competing against "You got 20 showing!" so I don't think he tries to take advantage. He does like to rock the boat, but he has a lot of empathy for the guys, especially Billy. He has his chance to leave, but throws his freedom away to help him, and the rest of the guys with a party. After he finds out that most of them were voluntary, he says "What do you think you are? Crazy? (laughter) Well, you're no crazier than the average a$$hole that walks the streets" - he empowers them, and Ratched castrates them.

Even when he tries to remove the sink.. He says "At least I tried. At least I did that."

Ratched doesn't even let them watch the baseball game, doesn't even count Chief. So RP plays make-believe, and brings happiness to the other men, and sadistic Ratched doesn't like it, and tries to stop it.

I think RP is definitely the hero in the film. A non-conformist is very dangerous to an authoritative society.

But here's the problem.

Had McMurphy not entered the institution at all, the voluntary people would have stayed for a few weeks and have gone home.

But instead, they're trapped there.

I don't think they would have left.. They got comfortable and complacent, and were made to feel like nothing because of Ratched's contempt. She wants to be wanted, so she degrades them, making her the dependent. For ego reasons, but maybe because she wasn't married, maybe she couldn't have kids? Maybe she took out all her anger towards men that way; against the vulnerable. When RP comes, that changes, they start to stand up for themselves, so she tries to get revenge.

As I said in one of my three points about Ratched, it's a gender thing. In our current society right now, women are outpacing men in education and employment. Womens rights is getting an increasing amount of awareness while men feel like society has neglected the exclusive issues they face. I think many see Ratched as sort of an icon of the male decline. Likewise, if the patients were black and the nurse was white, it would've been a racial thing.

On a more institutional level, the asylum was owned and managed by a board of men. The government, at least in 1975, was dominated by men. The woman was put in charge of one particular ward. It's just like with corruption in some police departments. Yes, you have some bent police officers, but they don't run the system. For the most part, they just enforce the rules.

Had she been a man, Ratched would have still be odious, but a much less controversial character.

The book and movie is supposed to take place in 1962, but I agree with your points, I just see the main characters as metaphors for authority vs. individual with a side of a neurotic and sadistic woman taking out her frustrations on the wrong guy, R.P. isn't the institution. It would be like the wife that hates her job who comes hell to give her husband hell, when he's not the source.

Sadistic woman. Wrong guy. Yes, that's the point. It's not just one person abusing another person. It's seen a gender war. Much like the police brutality thing today has sparked a race war.

Ratched is not an odious character for her actions alone. I would say that her character carries more contempt from viewers than serial killers from horror movies. There's nasty people we root for and nasty people we hate.