quote:
Even if you believe that Nurse Ratchett's methods don't work that doesn't really make her a villain unless she is deliberately out to harm her patients. It is precisely this intent which the film fails to establish IMO.
Skating up to the edge of Godwin here, I suppose, but would you argue that the Good Germans who did what they were told and followed orders are above criticism unless they were motivated by a desire to inflict harm?
Sorry, I have to disagree. Ratched and her real-life parallels are evil and dangerous precisely because they believe in the rightness of what they do, to the point that they are deadened to the possibility of observing what they are actually doing.
There are doctors out there still doing lobotomies. Intentionally destroying healthy brain tissue in order to obtain more compliant and more easily managed mental patients, despite the likelihood of a a plummet in intelligence and an overall flattening of emotional intensity. Or maybe because of that likelihood. Either way, the scary thing is that they believe they are practicing medicine. They believe that they are acting in accordance with the Hippocratic Oath. Frankly I find that a whole lot creepier than Hannibal Lecter, especially since we don't have large officially-supported institutions with folks like Lecter authorized to Eat You For Your Own Good, but people like Ratched operate with the mantle of state power vested upon them
See my previous post on this same thread