One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Such an approach would have its drawbacks, no doubt. No matter how you twisted the narrative, it would be tough to justify the lobotomy that Ratched orders for McMurphy near the close of the story. But this new tack would help resolve the key problem with Dale Wasserman’s 1963 adaptation of Kesey’s 1962 novel, which anticipated the coming countercultural revolution but was still mired in the sexual politics of the 1950s. Exasperating in their rather juvenile misogyny, Wasserman and Kesey channel all their antiauthoritarian politics, all their dissatisfaction with the government, all their fury at the great “combine” that’s robbed citizens of their individuality just as it robbed indigenous Americans of their land, all their seething anger at the Man into the person of a nurse who soon reveals herself to be a cross between a Stepford wife and Cruella de Vil.
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The story is not only dated but simplistic. (When we were assigned Kesey’s novel for our English class senior year, and I mentioned the assignment to a teacher I’d had as a junior, he scoffed, “That’s a sophomore text.”) Moreover Jack Nicholson’s ferocious take on McMurphy in the 1975 film version is one of the most recognized performances in cinema. (Director Milos Forman would later suggest another link between misogyny and the American “free spirit” in his sanitized tale of pornography and the First Amendment, The People vs. Larry Flynt.)
Sinise’s presence represents most of the show’s appeal and most of its problems. His overpowering portrayal coupled with the way Wasserman and Kesey stack the deck against Nurse Ratched pretty much guarantees we’ll see McMurphy as a hero. The result is reminiscent of a movie like Barry Levinson’s Good Morning, Vietnam, where it’s not enough to train the camera on Robin Williams cracking jokes–you have to cut to shot after shot of GIs busting up at his antics. Here McMurphy is not only written as the sanest, wittiest, bravest, most heroic and vibrant character of the bunch, but the hospital doctor and staff are always trying to stifle their laughter at McMurphy’s jibes at Nurse Ratched.
I’m all for bucking the system and questioning authority. But in this case that might mean hearing Nurse Ratched’s side of the story.
