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one flew over the cuckoo's nest ratched

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  • 20-11-2009 11:53pm
    #1
    wolfric
    Registered Users Posts: 1,190 ✭✭✭


    Nurse Ratched has been said to be one of the most evil characters in film (or at least way up there). Watching this movie though she just seems like a lot of the primary school and a few secondary school teachers I've had (and one of my parents when i was youngish). Does anyone else get these similarities?


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    #2
    DamoRed
    Registered Users Posts: 394 ✭✭DamoRed


    Correction, her name is Nurse Rat Sh|t. Ask McMurphy ;)


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    #3
    wolfric
    Registered Users Posts: 1,190 ✭✭✭wolfric


    DamoRed wrote: »
    Correction, her name is Nurse Rat Sh|t. Ask McMurphy ;)

    wow that answered my question wonderfully. It's like after hours is overflowing and oozing into other forums.


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    #4
    Biodegradable
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 350 ✭✭Biodegradable


    wolfric wrote: »
    Nurse Ratched has been said to be one of the most evil characters in film (or at least way up there). Watching this movie though she just seems like a lot of the primary school and a few secondary school teachers I've had (and one of my parents when i was youngish). Does anyone else get these similarities?
    And you're saying that a lot of your teachers weren't evil? That was pure nasty when Ratchet said that she needed a majority of votes from the crazies in order to allow them to watch the game. She knew damn well the whole time that the deaf and dumb people wouldn't be able to vote. We all knew damn well that there was no way in hell that she would've let the match be watched. She liked the power of not letting McMurphy watch it and that his resentment towards her would only make him look crazy.

    I remember once when I was in junior cert I was got with a golf ball in class. The teacher took it off me and said that I was going to use it throw at someone. Several of the guys in the class (some of whom I didn't get on with) told she was ridiculous for suggesting that. You see, it's the same kind of evil many women in authority have.


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    #5
    candycock
    Registered Users Posts: 208 ✭✭candycock


    I just want my cigarettes.


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    #6
    wezzopalooza
    Registered Users Posts: 61 ✭✭wezzopalooza


    She's 100% evil, and gets off on the power she holds over the patients. She does have the air of a teacher, but she is dealing with grown men, not little children. McMurphy's exuberance and free-spirit puts them on a collision course almost instantly.

    Just look at the way she crushes Billy at the end when she senses he is getting back some of his self-esteem and isn't ashamed at getting laid the night before. Damn that scene was tough to watch, she knows exactly what buttons to press and he just shrivels in front of her. What a wonderfully acted, harrowing gem of a film. It's always been firmly in my top 10.

    I see there's a prequel tv series on the way from Ryan Murphy called "Ratched". Just hope it doesn't turn into a campy mess, as a lot of Murphy's shows do.


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    #7
    TheIrishGrover
    Registered Users Posts: 5,968 ✭✭✭TheIrishGrover


    You want to see the abuse she gives them on Deep Space Nine as Kai Wynn!


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    #8
    bnt
    Registered Users Posts: 12,957 ✭✭✭✭bnt


    I watched the film for the first time a couple of months ago. I’d heard about Nurse Ratched, of course, and for most of the film I didn’t see anything too scary or evil about her. I saw someone who had years of experience in that institution, dealing with patients like that. Maybe a bit callous, but evil?

    But then we get to the final scenes, and how she treats Billy (spoiler alert). She clearly knew that his mother was a trigger for him, and threatening to tell her was the worst thing she could do to him: the nuclear option. Billy’s mother was probably the reason he was in the institution in the first place. So she pulled that trigger, and may as well have used a gun on him. :mad:

    From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch’.

    — Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 Astronaut



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    #9
    wezzopalooza
    Registered Users Posts: 61 ✭✭wezzopalooza


    bnt wrote: »
    I watched the film for the first time a couple of months ago. I’d heard about Nurse Ratched, of course, and for most of the film I didn’t see anything too scary or evil about her. I saw someone who had years of experience in that institution, dealing with patients like that. Maybe a bit callous, but evil?

    Ratched is a perfect personification of the "banality of evil" concept. The genius of the performance is that she isn't meant to be outwardly scary or evil, which would be boring and a caricature. She is quite the opposite in fact, but will stick the knife in with a smile on her face when she feels her authority being undermined or threatened. All under the guise of "helping" the patients of course.

    But just check out some of her expressions of scorn in the film when she is challenged in any way, to me she is a complete bully. It is multi-layered though, and I can see how the film could be read in a completely different way as McMurphy hassling a woman just trying to do her job lol :D:D:D:D:D:D:D


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    #10
    Biodegradable
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 350 ✭✭Biodegradable


    wezzopalooza wrote: »
    Just look at the way she crushes Billy at the end when she senses he is getting back some of his self-esteem and isn't ashamed at getting laid the night before. Damn that scene was tough to watch, she knows exactly what buttons to press and he just shrivels in front of her.
    I do wonder if some of that was due to the frustration she felt having just found out that the ward was completely trashed the night before. It would've been kind of strange if she just did nothing. But she wanted to make a stand to McMurphy. If so, then she took her frustration out on the wrong person.


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    #11
    Mad_maxx
    Registered Users Posts: 13,505 ✭✭✭✭Mad_maxx


    wezzopalooza wrote: »
    She's 100% evil, and gets off on the power she holds over the patients. She does have the air of a teacher, but she is dealing with grown men, not little children. McMurphy's exuberance and free-spirit puts them on a collision course almost instantly.

    Just look at the way she crushes Billy at the end when she senses he is getting back some of his self-esteem and isn't ashamed at getting laid the night before. Damn that scene was tough to watch, she knows exactly what buttons to press and he just shrivels in front of her. What a wonderfully acted, harrowing gem of a film. It's always been firmly in my top 10.

    I see there's a prequel tv series on the way from Ryan Murphy called "Ratched". Just hope it doesn't turn into a campy mess, as a lot of Murphy's shows do.

    Quite possibly the most evil charecter ever portrayed on screen


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    #12
    wezzopalooza
    Registered Users Posts: 61 ✭✭wezzopalooza


    Biodegradable wrote: »
    I do wonder if some of that was due to the frustration she felt having just found out that the ward was completely trashed the night before. It would've been kind of strange if she just did nothing. But she wanted to make a stand to McMurphy. If so, then she took her frustration out on the wrong person.

    Yes, she could have easily just punished McMurphy in some way and gave the others a stern warning. The ward being trashed was a complete slap in the face to her authority- but she is more upset that the men defied her more than any physical damage to the ward.

    Remember also that earlier in the film Ratched herself alluded to Billy's multiple suicide attempts in the past, and knows exactly where to strike him. Even in that earlier scene she was being overbearing and pushing him to talk. His own defiance at not being ashamed of what happened the night before infuriated Ratched and she pulled her trump card- promising to tell Billy's mother. It's the emotional equivalent of a grown man kicking a puppy. A pure spiteful, bullying move. It was at that moment where she became totally monstrous and irredeemable for me.


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